The Invisible Hand and Your Rights to Healthcare

Understanding Ryan and Tea Party Healthcare

How does any adult in the 21st century believe that the radical conservative Tea Party view of health care is an option?

My focus here is on Republicans today who object even to Ryan's plan. Their view is simple: no government involvement is ever warranted, allow market forces to determine all. I have been listening carefully to King, Goumert, Paul, etc. No tax incentives, no aid to anyone, nothing. You're on your own and the Invisible Hand of the free market will do its magic. This is essentially their view of everything and your health is no exception.

Now move to where the Tea Party agrees with Ryan: _There is NO RIGHT to healthcare._ Tea Partiers object even to Ryan's Ayn Rand view that all money and resources should be aimed at the wealthy and healthy as too much interference. Ryan reserves every bit of program benefits for those who he views as valuable: younger and healthier _may_ get something but really it's simply wealth that is valued. It is the wealthy who are the real contributers to society. Everyone else can simply die when they do. Tea Partiers agree with the basics of these claims but understand that the really wealthy will benefit most from _no_ government at _all_.

How is this even an idea?
Say, you can't afford help when you need it. Answer again: You're on your own. But why? Why is this okay? Here are things to consider because there _are_ reasons why people take this stance, even when they understand what it does to people, including themselves.

*First, they really do think that the Invisible Hand of market forces will provide the best options.
*Second, if you can't afford those options and God decides all, then you must accept your lot. Providence in the old Calvinist sense of God has a plan, you don't intervene and God tells you that you are getting what you deserve, so stop asking for anything human.
*Third, freedom means that they hate government so much that they will accept the consequences of these policies because this will stop freeloaders (re: people not them) from receiving any benefits they would be paying for. This is racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. but their claim is that no one is entitled or has a right to anything that is not a specified right of the Constitution. It's a guns free for all but none of the New Deal, Great Society, and especially Obama Progress qualifies. Ask Clarence Thomas, Alito, et.al.
*Last, that these radical libertarian views are fueled by the racism, etc. that underlies the idea that "they" are getting a "free ride" that "we" are paying for is usually not concealed. That these libertarians will end up in Emergency Rooms and other care facilities and need public assistance if they are to pay their bills _matters less_ than their values. Hypocrisy will not stop them.

Disconnected, Deregulated, and Unhinged: The 44%, the President*, and the Profiteers:

America would be in free fall were the Resistance not the floor.
The sum of the polls puts the President's* popularity at about 44%. These are historic lows but we also know what the polls told us about the elections. (See 538.) What can we count on these days?

First, the bright news is the 49% disapproval. One wonders how some 7% never seem to know anything. The Press is vigilant and segments of institutional government are clearly part of the Resistance since they are leaking information and acting to preserve some decency. Comey, even W have said sane things. Elected Democrats are listening to the Party's more progressive base, a base that spends a lot of time disavowing that they are Democrats at all. That latter point emerges from angry false equivalences, a measure of truth that Democrats have not worked in any interests but corporate self interests, and a perverse ability to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. The Resistance is vast, diverse, and paying attention. It remains to be seen how it can be organized to winning and if it will be paying attention on a Tuesday in November. We need more than 49% to win an election.

In the past six weeks some 90 regulations have been delayed, suspended, or reversed. Wall Street, gun sellers, polluters, big pharm, auto makers--- the list is long and the process of corporate give aways, lobbyists' interests, and kleptocracy in action is just underway. He is doing what he promised. 44% cheers.

An unhinged President* was described by aides as "enraged" because he believes his "sick" predecessor wire tapped his residence. The basis for the story is an AM talk show host best known for conspiracy theory, bigotry, and shameless grifting. Much like the President*. The FBI has called these claims false and so effectively agrees that the President* is lying or unhinged. We await a White House response. 44% watching Fox believes the President*.

The government's chief enforcer of the law has sort of recused from portions of the investigation into how a foreign government undermined our democracy. The Press has everything but the smoking gun and we will undoubtedly find out how deeply the Trump Administration is in collusion with the Russians. 44% doesn't care because he won and he "tell it like it is."

This week Congress may well pass the repeal of the ACA though we might have the Koch Bros to thank for preventing that from happening. It seems _any_ effort to keep just a few of the 20 million who received medical insurance insured is too many for the Kochs. The Tea Partists representing white, largely poor and under insured districts have their constituents cheering their effort to deny them insurance. Perhaps incompetence and ideology will slow down this collapse and the rest we've noted. Wait till they get their hand on Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and the rest of the New Deal and Great Society progress. But 44% applaud because freedom!

The majority of voters in America are seriously appalled and are trying to distinguish themselves from deer in headlights. Perhaps their outrage will last until November 2018 and the shock of just waking up in Trump's America will cause them to...vote?

But the problem with America is, in truth, Americans. The majority of our electorate, 44%+7%, welcomes the kleptocrats, tunes in to "news" sources that are as real as buying gold on the radio, cheers authoritarianism and doesn't mind bigotry, and looks forward to when fewer have medical insurance, including themselves. Business is gleeful because there is just so much profit to be made when there are so few rules to prevent the exploitation of consumers and workers. America! We're #1!

Our electorate is unhinged from reality, indifferent and disengaged, heartless even to themselves, and willingly complicit in self-deception, corruption, and pathological lies. America would be in free fall were the Resistance not the floor. 49% is not enough.

Have a good week. I'm giving midterms to my undergraduates and looking forward to writing a book, decidedly not about politics. But the truth is, if you are a living, breathing human, everything that matters to you involves politics. Unless you're in that 7%, likely "spiritual" in a cave, on a mountain top, or wandering about claiming you are not lost and that it's all the same.

Rock Solid Selfishness, Appealing to Conservative Values

More resistance strategy.
Understanding the Conservative's Rock Solid Selfishness

What's at stake in our political stalemate is a conflict of values.  We like to think that values are things we share.  But, in fact, it's on matters of value that we most likely differ, even to irreconcilability.  It's important then to try to think in terms of others' values, particularly those that are unlike your own.

There's a direct corollary between immediate self-interest and "conservative values." What _affects_ conservative voters is that the given matter touches their lives with tangible immediacy. This is what is giving pause to the repeal of Obamacare. What _effects_ them is more difficult to demonstrate. But we stand a chance if we make them feel the sting.

When Rob Portman discovered his son to be gay this caused the Senator to, you know, think about gay people a little. Yes, selfishness is how they begin to see themselves in other people. Empathy is for liberals. When stuff happens to me, well, now that matters. Notice that this is the American way. That's important too to remember. In the language of business, we fight for the bottom line, profits before people, "it's only business." In the language of the entrepreneur there are winners and losers and in a risky world you need to win.

Conservatives only imagine themselves the winners in their Ayn Rand world. This is a key to Trump's discourse: we are going to win again, bigly. So we must appeal first to their value of self-interest, their commitment to selfishness, and then try, whenever possible, show them that these issues directly effect them and they are losing, again. How's that? They gotta feel the sting. A good con game is hard to bust but there's nothing like being made the fool that tells you that the cards are marked.

Responding to a Post-Literate World

Responding to a Post-Literate World
Trumpspeak is Easy, What About Talking to Trump Supporters

Why do we in the factual world find the alt-factual so impervious to argument or to, you know, facts? We need a language to reach them because they are expert at creating their own memes. I don't mean Trumpspeak. There are apps that can reproduce that word salad of believe me incoherence easily enough. Sad! Rather, I mean the Fox News and Breitbart followers whose steady diet makes us the enemy of the people and declares all we say "fake news." How can we speak to them?

Our first recourse might also be our last conclusion. We discover that we can't actually communicate with each other, our alt-universes don't even collide. So our best choice is get out the vote and get them to the margins. This doesn't solve the problem of that "friend" on Facebook from your past or the relative you thought you knew.

We may first have to admit that, despite what we thought we knew, we may not share the same values. What we mean when we say "patriotism," "morality," or "respect," may not be what our opponents mean when they use the same words. The values within words require awareness. We are also working with an ideology that uses facile dismissal as a coping mechanism and the method of false equivalence. Trump is corrupted by the Russians? "All politicians do it, look at Pelosi and Schumer." Call Trump a sexist abuser and the response is that when he calls out Rosie we can't hear our own "political correctness." As my pop used to say, they got an answer for everything. And then there is our language, memes that use "inclusion," "equality," and even "compassion," promote more deafness, derision, or dismissal. We're not operating from the same foundations of meaning, and our words don't match and certainly don't mend. So what to do?

The task is to appeal to their feelings and try to fathom their values. The "values voter" doesn't like it when Trump's values crash their claims. How about: "Trump's values are not really yours. If that were your daughter how would you react?" True that the Values Voters have proven capable of looking away because they value controlling women more than respecting them, but the language must appeal to values that they claim to value.

Trump's pathology of lying also seems not to penetrate. Why? His supporters have been fed a steady diet of distrust, conspiracy, and alt-facts on 20 years of Fox and AM-Radio. Rather than counter their views, we have to appeal to them. Nurture their distrust. So, point to a fact, like Building the Wall. "Do you trust him now that he says we will pay for the wall and Mexico will not?"

Trump's bigotry provides so many examples we're tempted to go down the list of things he's actually said --- about immigrants, Mexican people, Muslims, African Americans, the list. But that's a non-starter too. How about "Hard working people doing hard jobs deserve our respect," or "We need to protect religious liberty. What if your beliefs are next?"

We know that Trump is prodigiously unqualified for the job of the Presidency but somehow our binders full of data fall on deaf ears because he's there to change things, not do "business as usual," and is "a businessman, not a politician." Of course he is a politician and the problem is that checks-and-balances politics is not business and cannot be. So how about this, "Now that Trump is President, he's got to deal with those politicians. It looks like he's been ineffective. How is that business expertise helping you?" Politician is a dirty word to Republicans. It's time to make "businessman" a disqualification for running the country. No small task in a land where profit is king. "Do you think the stockmarket can withstand the uncertainty Trump is creating in the world? What about the last bubble? How'd that work out for your retirement funds?"

Last, "we need to act together, Trump's calling for unity, right" "Does it help when the President* calls the press the enemy of the people? So there are individual 'troublemakers', but are all his enemies really your enemy? Remember Nixon?"

Okay, so all this seems inadequate or lame. I've reached once again my own first conclusion. It may be utterly futile and pointless to engage the Trump supporter. Instead we must rally the 92 million who did not vote, peal off the few, and most of all create as much fracture and friction among Republicans as possible to splinter their votes, gum up the works, and hope we defeat them next time bigly.

We've Always Had Alt-Facts

My Morning with Breitbart
NPR is for Facts, What You Need Are Some Alt-Facts

Because I study religion for a living, I'm used to alt-universes, alt-facts, and other scams that direct hearts and minds to whatever people prefer to believe. You develop a tolerance for a special kind of impenetrability that can lead you to take beliefs seriously, even sympathetically, even with empathy. Careful. That can be fatal to your critical awareness. Remember too that no one jumps out of foxholes for Chaucer and that religion, like politics, doesn't have to be true to be important. Religion teaches you not to underestimate what people will believe or do. Don't read about the the Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours in County Galway, Ireland this morning unless you are prepared for what people can do.  Did we mention that sink hole in Iraq that is an ISIS playground?  If nothing people do surprises us, we're in big trouble.

Here in the world where facts are still real we tend to overlook the alt-fact world. Critical thinking requires us to take language seriously since everything is in the meme. An important term this morning on Breitbart is "Deep Statist," which in their alt-understanding refers to entrenched bureaucrats undermining at every turn the President's popular agenda. The Deep Statists treasonously pilfer and leak classified material to the likes of Rachel Maddow. They need to be uncovered, investigated, and imprisoned. Speaker Ryan agrees. Some in Breitbart Land, however, think it's liberal fake news and that Rachel is using false documents to mislead us. So you see, what isn't treason is conspiracy. Start there.

Wait. There's more. The President* tweeted that Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped. This will light up their media sources. Memes have a life of their own, that's important to remember. An electoral majority of voters get most of their information, when they are paying any attention at all, from these sources. Allow me to translate: elected Republicans who control nearly every lever of power that could move an investigation forward will do absolutely nothing until their walking dead are stirred. Not to worry, Fox has them alt-covered. Every serious article in The Times today makes plain the incompetence, corruption, and horror that is befalling us. Well, all except what we hear from that genius Scott Walker who is determined to turn Wisconsin and the rest of the New Confederacy into every thing as hopeless and stupid as Kansas. This reveals the real problem: Republican are incapable of learning. Or are simply happy to profit, however they can, including in collusion with Russian mobsters. Follow the money. Praise the factual reality of the real Fourth Estate.

What's the good news? First, they bungle over their own incompetence and the wheels of dismantling government are turning very slowly for them. We should encourage their entropy and gum up their works. Next, we should flood their phone lines to make their lives a living misery ---with inveterate politeness and, you know, facts. Last, we NEED to create language that will pull off just enough of their walking dead from pulling their levers, maybe even realize the scam. That might be asking too much. Don't give up. "Resistance Fatigue" is what they want more than all. Stay in the game, relentlessly.

Candide’s Can-Do Advice and The Gift of the Red Worm, or How to Swallow the News in the Age of Trump

Candide’s Advice and Gift of the Red Worm or
How to Swallow the News in the Age of Trump

I’m well known for my immoderate indulgence in words and irritating syntax.  When I don’t know what will quite else suffice to soothe my inner beast, I dulcify myself with literary desserts.  Then I inflict the whole jumbled confection on others.  This is the shameless prerogative of a college professor assigning on the pretext of intrinsic merit and edification the very work that he needs in order to mollify his own inner monsters.  Currently, my students, in the course I call “Advice and Dissent,” are charged to read Volatire’s most requisite work, “Candide, or The Optimist.”

That 1759 looks a lot like 2017 is a credit to more than Voltaire’s resilient wit. Voltaire’s capacity to laugh and indeed to mock our shared human folly to look for the bright side when we are surrounded by a horror we cannot wholly attend is every bit as relevant today as it was during Le Révolution.  L’accent aigu has also never seemed more requisite to make it through my day.

Like you, I routinely wake to read the next untroubled lies from Donald J. Trump who received enough votes to be President*.  And like the vandalized majority I’m torn between dread of his repugnant ubiety, strewn as it is across every news source, and the deeper consternation that his electoral victory continues to win wistful approbations of unyielding, thoughtless support from half of our witless country.  When he appeared this past Tuesday before Congress to present an hour of exceptional temperance masking the same detestable and chilling racist vision of ethno-nationalism, the American commentariat, from the dark bastille of their own forlorn hopes, pronounced him “Presidential.”  None with even a verisimilitude of sanity knew that would last.  As Durkheim reminds us, nothing of value will endure based on lie and deceit.

Candide himself disabuses us.  He says, “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”  Who knows better than the French how to make themselves miserable?  Camus anyone?  Lest we overstate the case, let us embrace the paradox that this same culture gave us le joie de vivre as well as le croque du monsieur.  And where would we be without recourse to gauzy cheese and thinly sliced peccary?   My inner bon vivant repines in celebration of any gastronome who can digest even the most lean collation of Trump’s daily fodder.  I find myself attempting to desist from dyspeptic attitudes that diminish even my irresistible penchant for alliteration and allusion.  Voltaire surely spins a graveyard’s worth of hauteur for that last sentence.

So how do we retain a semblance of animate geniality in this age of earnest gloom?

Yesterday that same Fourth Estate, the one that detoured to declaim Trump’s momentary foray into banal lucidity Tuesday night, recovered its marbles.  They are, at least at the Times and Post, doing the work that only they can do.  Determined journalists are usually fraternizing introverts who cull, cumulate, and coerce information with all the aplomb of sharks chummed to dinner.  Bless them.  Sessions may indeed be forced from ghd stage and, if Republicans have scrap of decency left among them, well then there’s far more to fall.  I realize I just said “Republicans” and “scrap of decency” in the same sentence and I can hear you snickering at my gelastic simplicity.

It is a far easier route to assert only the worst in us and somewhere under this drizzly rainbow there must be enough waggish encouragement that all is not yet lost.  We await a more honest mirth.  In the meantime, read Voltaire and remember what the great Chuang-tzu also said: “One good laugh is worth ten thousand serious thoughts.”  Unless of course you read the news.  Then go back to Voltaire and be sure to make yourself a croque du monsieur that you can wash down with a tall shot from Oaxaca.  Get some of that fine mezcal before they build The Wall and don’t forget to have gusano rojo for dessert.  The French will applaud that too.  Maybe.  If that doesn't appeal we can try lobscouse and spotted dog, but that's a whole 'nother story.

The Morning After the Morning After

Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress last night was banefully familiar.

I remember so vividly being appalled by the facile nostalgia of the Gipper. Reagan made up facts and used every dog-whistle he could. But above all it was that bit about "morning in America." Last night Trump gave up a bit of ground on the inauguration's "American carnage" theme and went for that same thinly disguised sunny appeal.

Apparently, when you are white, male and of a certain age it seems everything about ye olde America was superior and everything about America today is not. I was appalled then and I am appalled now by this kind of manipulative hallucinatory recall. Jim Crow, Mad Men sexism, homophobia, colonial war, the list goes on of what I am happy to see as _some_ progress since. But not so fast. We're headed over the cliff into a make-believe that is far uglier than we've ever seen.

What Trump took from the Gipper has always been the Donald's appeal: an underlying belief in the ethno-superiority of Euro-ancestry, shameless sexism, and the exploitation of fear and pure desperation. And just like the Gipper, he will somehow, magically, create solutions that larger hands have failed to produce. The lies are more virulent, more explicit, and vividly less shameless than Reagan, but the straight white line we can draw from the one to the other is unmistakeable. This time, however, it is far more dangerous and decisive for the fate of the republic and the world. We must rally to stop this because everything that is true is at stake.