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Are Liberals Too Smug? Nah, We’re Too Condescending.

by TajMcCullough Posted on April 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Are liberals too smug? Sure. That’s what Emmett Rensin says at Vox, anyway. Unfortunately, his essay runs to a Voxtastic 7,000 words, so there probably aren’t too many people willing to read it all the way through. These days, I’m tempted to say that the real problem with liberalism is that we’ve forgotten how to make a good, crisp point in a couple thousand words. We’ve fallen victim to the idea that longer essays signal greater importance. Maybe I’ll write a 2000-word piece about that someday.

But anyway—smugness. Are liberals too smug? I’d say so, except I’m not sure smug is really the right word. Here is Rensin explaining it:

By the 1990s the better part of the working class wanted nothing to do with the word liberal. What remained of the American progressive elite was left to puzzle: What happened to our coalition? Why did they abandon us?

….The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable…. The trouble is that stupid hicks don’t know what’s good for them. They’re getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that’ve made them so wrong. They don’t know any better. That’s why they’re voting against their own self-interest.

….It began in humor, and culminated for a time in The Daily Show, a program that more than any other thing advanced the idea that liberal orthodoxy was a kind of educated savvy….The internet only made it worse. Today, a liberal who finds himself troubled by the currents of contemporary political life need look no further than his Facebook newsfeed to find the explanation:

….NPR listeners are best informed of all. He likes that.

….Liberals aren’t just better informed. They’re smarter.

….They’ve got better grammar. They know more words.

….Liberals are better able to process new information; they’re less biased like that. They’ve got different brains. Better ones. Why? Evolution. They’ve got better brains, top-notch amygdalae, science finds.

Etc.

Fair enough. But what would you call that? There’s some smugness in there, sure, but I’d call it plain old condescension. We’re convinced that conservatives, especially working class conservatives, are just dumb. Smug suggests only a supreme confidence that we’re right—but conservative elites also believe they’re right, and they believe it as much as we do. The difference is that, generally speaking, they’re less condescending about it.

(Except for libertarians. Damn, but those guys are condescending.)

In any case, to boil things down a bit, Rensin accuses liberals of several faults:

Making fun of all those working-class rubes who vote for Republicans.
Spending too much time citing research studies and insisting that simple facts back up everything we believe.
Adopting a pose of knowing things that are faintly arcane. “The studies, about Daily Show viewers and better-sized amygdalae, are knowing….Anybody who fails to capitulate to them is part of the Problem, is terminally uncool. No persuasion, only retweets. Eye roll, crying emoji, forward to John Oliver for sick burns.”
Abandoning the working class because we just can’t stand their dull, troglodyte social views.

I agree with some of this. I’ve long since gotten tired of the endless reposting of John Oliver’s “amazing,” “perfect,” “mic drop” destruction of whatever topic he takes on this week. I’m exasperated that the authors of papers showing that liberals are better than conservatives seem unable to write them in value-neutral ways that acknowledge the value of conservative ways of thinking. I don’t like the endless mockery of flyover country rubes. We should punch up, not down.

As it happens, I think Rensin could have constructed a much better case with 7,000 words to work with. His essay didn’t feel very well researched or persuasive to me, even though I agree with much of it. Still, the pushback has mostly been of the “Republicans are smug too!” variety:

But this isn’t smugness. It’s outrage, or hypocrisy, or standard issue partisanship. And as plenty of people have pointed out, outrage sells on the right, but for some reason, not on the left. We prefer mockery. So they get Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, while we get Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart.

You can find a good example in conservative criticism of political correctness on college campuses: trigger warnings, safe spaces, shouting down speakers, etc. They’re infuriated by this. They think college kids are cosseted by their administrations; can’t stand to be disagreed with; and have no respect for the First Amendment. But they’re not usually smug or condescending about it. Most of the time they’re scornful and outraged.

Generally speaking, elite conservatives think liberals are ignorant of basic truths: Econ 101; the work-sapping impact of welfare dependence; the value of traditional culture; the obvious dangers of the world that surrounds us. For working-class conservatives it’s worse: they’re just baffled by it all. They’re made to feel guilty about everything that’s any fun: college football for exploiting kids; pro football for maiming its players; SUVs for destroying the climate; living in the suburbs for being implicitly racist. If they try to argue, they’re accused of mansplaining or straightsplaining or whitesplaining. If they put a wrong word out of place, they’re slut shaming or fat shaming. Who the hell talks like that? They think it’s just crazy. Why do they have to put up with all this condescending gibberish from twenty-something liberals? What’s wrong with the values they grew up with?

So liberals and conservatives have different styles. No surprise there. The question is, do these styles work? Here, I think the answer is the same on both sides: they work on their own side, but not on the other. Outrage doesn’t persuade liberals and mockery doesn’t persuade conservatives. If you’re writing something for your own side, as I am here, most of the time, there’s no harm done. The problem is that mass media—and the internet in particular—makes it very hard to tailor our messages. Conservative outrage and liberal snark are heard by everyone, including the persuadable centrist types that we might actually want to persuade. In the end, I think this is probably Rensin’s real point. The first law of marketing, after all, is to know your audience. Handily, that’s also the first law of journalism.

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Are Liberals Too Smug? Nah, We’re Too Condescending.

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Suicide Rates Are Up, But the Most Obvious Explanations Are Probably All Wrong

by LaureneT40 Posted on April 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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The CDC reports that the suicide rate was up again in 2014, and the Washington Post immediately offers some possible reasons. I’ve added numbers for easy reference:

(1) Last decade’s severe recession, (2) more drug addiction, (3) “gray divorce,” (4) increased social isolation, and even (5) the rise of the Internet and social media may have contributed to the growth in suicide, according to a variety of people who study the issue.

But (6) economic distress — and dashed hopes generally — may underpin some of the increase, particularly for middle-aged white people. The data showed a 1 percent annual increase in suicide between 1999 and 2006 but a 2 percent yearly hike after that, as the economy deteriorated, unemployment skyrocketed and millions lost their homes.

David French comments:

There’s much more to say about this, but millions of our fellow citizens — friends and neighbors — are experiencing existential crises that are far beyond the ability of politics to solve. With civil society faltering, families fracturing, and millions of Americans “bowling alone,” the human toll will only continue to rise. God forgive our nation for believing we could build a culture without you.

Let’s slow down a bit. The causes of suicide are complex, and correlations are hard to prove. Still, there are a couple of things we can say. First, there should at least be a correlation if you’re claiming causation, and second, the purported cause had better come first. You can’t blame increased suicide on things that didn’t happen until years later.

With that in mind, let’s look at recent suicide rates for men. Not only does this help us control for gender, but it’s also a less noisy set of data since men commit suicide at nearly 4x the rate of women. It turns out that suicide rates barely budged between 1999-2005, so I’m going to look only at 2005-14. The chart is on the right, with suicide rates divided into three 3-year buckets. Here are some things we can say based on this and other data in the CDC report:

The Great Recession (and economic distress more generally) doesn’t really fit the facts. The suicide rate went up the most from 2005-2008, before the Great Recession. It went up the least from 2011-14. But if prolonged economic distress was at fault, you’d expect just the opposite: no effect before the recession and the greatest effect after it had been grinding away for a couple of years with no relief in sight.
Drug addiction is more plausible—but only modestly. According to HHS, marijuana use is up since 2005, but that’s an unlikely cause of suicide. Cocaine, hallucinogen, and illicit prescription drug use is down. Heroin use and heroin dependence are up. Overdose deaths among heroin and prescription opioid users are also up—but they’ve been rising since 2002 and it’s unclear how many of these deaths are suicides anyway. More generally, overall drug addiction rates have waxed and waned over the past five decades, and it’s difficult to tease out a correlation between addiction and suicide rates over the long term.
“Gray divorce” has been a thing since the 80s, well before the suicide rate started rising. It hit the mainstream in early 2007 with the publication of Calling It Quits, also before the suicide rate started rising. What’s more, suicide rates have been flat among the elderly since 1999. It’s other age groups that have seen an increase. This is unlikely to be more than a minuscule cause at most.
Increased social isolation could be a cause, but the 2006 paper that kicked off this discussion suggested only that Americans had become more isolated between 1985 and 2004. This corresponds to a period when suicide was declining or flat. What’s more, a 2009 Pew study that replicated the 2006 research found a substantially smaller—possibly zero—effect.
Internet and social media could also be a cause, though I don’t really see what the mechanism is supposed to be. And that 2009 Pew study found that internet and cell phone users were less isolated than others.

We also know that suicide is up only among whites and Native Americans, but not among Hispanics or African-Americans. So any theory about the rise of suicide needs to at least engage with what might cause this. Are whites more economically distressed than blacks? That seems distinctly unlikely. Do they have higher drug addiction rates? Higher social isolation? More family fracturing? Maybe, but I’d like to see the evidence. And what about overall life satisfaction rates? They seem to have been quite stable over the past few decades. This doesn’t suggest that growing existential angst is the cause.

My point here is not really that the increase in suicide rates can’t possibly be due to any of these things. A deeper dive might implicate any of them. What’s more, a lot of these possible causes affect a lot of people. But although suicide has seen a large percentage increase since 2005, in absolute terms it’s only gone up by about 1000 per year. That’s a small number, which makes it really hard to tease out from large-scale effects. A mere 1 percent change in the Gallup life satisfaction index, for example, represents a couple of million people, so it’s unlikely to give us much insight into relatively tiny changes in the suicide rate.

So what is my point? Just this: writers need to be careful not to casually project their own sentiments or guesses onto a topic like this. Sure, the Great Recession might be the cause of more suicides. Maybe existential crises and fracturing families are the cause. Opioid abuse could be a factor. But just because these all seem plausible doesn’t mean they’re true. Likewise, just because you personally don’t like the direction of American culture doesn’t mean they’re true either—no matter how true they seem. None of them should be tossed out casually.

For my money, we flatly don’t know what’s causing the increase in suicides over the past decade. Based on the size of the numbers and the evidence at hand, if you put a gun to my head I’d probably guess opioid abuse was the biggest cause. But I don’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else knows either.

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Suicide Rates Are Up, But the Most Obvious Explanations Are Probably All Wrong

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Friday Cat Blogging – 22 April 2016

by Antoinette3030 Posted on April 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Our cats enjoy dark, cozy spots, so a few days ago I thought I’d buy them an enclosed pod to see how they liked it. Have I gone a little pod crazy? Perhaps. But it’s a cheap and harmless hobby.

Anyway, the only one I could find locally was a sort of cat yurt, so I shelled out $14.99 and took it home. It was…problematic. But the problem, it turned out, wasn’t the yurt concept per se, it was the pillow inside, which was so thick and soft that the cats rolled around on it like drunken sailors. As you can see in photo #1, Hopper solved that problem by burrowing under the pillow and using it as a door.

That worked well, but it caught the eye of her brother, who promptly stepped on the yurt and then decided to camp out on it. He eventually got bored with that, and when it was all over I removed the pillow entirely and moved the yurt. At first, everyone happily had their own pod. The Hilbert decided he wanted to try out the yurt, and as you can see, he eventually got his way.

But he’s a little too big for it, so it’s mostly a Hopper yurt. I’ve now customized it further by putting their old red blanket inside. We’ll see how that works out.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 22 April 2016

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Silicon Valley Not Really Feeling the Bern

by FrancescaMackino Posted on April 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Based on donor data, Brian Fung says that Bernie Sanders has a lot of fans in the dotcom biz:

This wouldn’t be worth mentioning except for the fact that Sanders appears to have a broad-based appeal among Silicon Valley workers compared with his rivals. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sanders’s campaign committee seems to be by far the biggest recipient of donations from employees of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Intel.

….This sets up a few possibilities. It’s conceivable, for instance, that Clinton’s support among tech companies is actually higher than what we can observe from her list….Another possibility is that tech-industry folks are donating to Clinton but in amounts too small to break into the lists we’re looking at….What we can say is that Sanders appears to have much more support than Clinton across a wider range of tech companies, even if the amount of that financial support is relatively small.

Nah. Google employees are split nearly evenly between Bernie and Hillary, and employees of the other four companies probably are too. We just can’t see them because their totals fall below the top 20 in Hillary’s donor list. But why guess about this? All we have to do is look at the overall industry numbers. Here they are:

Compared to overall fundraising, this represents a bigger tilt toward Hillary than average. And despite the size of this sector, it represents a dismal 0.43 percent of Hillary’s total campaign donations and 0.36 percent of Bernie’s. So we can draw the following conclusions:

Hillary has broader support in the internet sector than Bernie.
Hillary gets a bigger percentage of her donations from the internet sector.
Silicon Valley is full of cheapskates who don’t care much about politics.

So there you have it.

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Silicon Valley Not Really Feeling the Bern

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Another Pension Fund Goes South After the Great Recession

by RoxannaGuest Posted on April 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest big pension fund in trouble:

More than a quarter of a million truckers, retirees and their families could soon see their pension benefits severely cut — even though their pension fund is still years away from running out of money.

….Like many other pension plans, the Central States Pension Fund suffered heavy investment losses during the financial crisis that cut into the pool of money available to pay out benefits. While the stock market has recovered since then, the improvements were not enough to make up for the shortfall….That imbalance left the fund paying out $3.46 in pension benefits for every $1 it received from employers. The shortfall has resulted in the fund paying out $2 billion more in benefits than it receives in employer contributions each year.

One of the big criticisms of 401(k) style retirement plans is that they can lose a bundle when the stock market tanks. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened during the Great Recession. The value of 401(k) plans fell dramatically, causing a lot of pain for people who were close to retirement.

But don’t let that make you nostalgic for the good old days of defined-benefit pensions. Sure, they promise a steady retirement income, but promises are only as good as the money to back them up. This means that pension funds which lost a lot of money during the Great Recession are in no better shape than 401(k) plans that did the same. There’s no magic here.

What’s more, 401(k) plans have rebounded since the depths of the recession: taking into account both their losses and their subsequent gains during the recovery, the average 401(k) balance has grown more than 10 percent per year between 2007 and 2013. Apparently that’s not the case for the Central States Pension Fund. Perhaps those much-maligned 401(k) plans are a better retirement vehicle than their critics give them credit for?

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Another Pension Fund Goes South After the Great Recession

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In the 21st Century, We All Want Smart, Gorgeous Mates

by GwenJosehvf Posted on April 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Wonkblog points us today to a chart from Max Roser showing how men and women rated various aspects of potential mates in 1939 vs. 2009. (Since 1939 is the comparison year, it goes without saying that we’re talking about straight, cis, and most likely white folks here.) You can see the entire set of data at either of the links above, but I was interested mainly in the traits that have moved up or down significantly over that period. Here they are, in a handily color-coded pink and blue chart:

What can we tell from this? For starters, keep in mind that this is what people say they value, not what they actually value. “Similar political background,” for example, has allegedly moved up only one spot, from dead last to almost last, so it’s not in my chart. But there’s considerable evidence that a lot of people today would rather have their big toes cut off than associate with someone of the opposite party. So take all of this with a grain of salt.

Anyway, obviously chastity is out the door. No one cares anymore. Refinement is now decidedly old-fashioned, replaced by a desire for the more egalitarian virtue of sociability. And love has zoomed up to the top of the chart. (Allegedly, anyway.)

Beyond that, the two big movers are education and good looks. Apparently we all want mates who are both smart and gorgeous, which might go a long way toward explaining why marriage seems to be in decline. How many smart, gorgeous people are there in the world, after all? And if they have to be gregarious too—well, you’re just being mighty picky. Good luck.

Notably, the boring traits haven’t changed much: dependability and stability were near the top of the chart in 1939, and they’re still there now. I guess meat and potatoes are always in fashion. Or so we tell the pollsters, anyway.

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In the 21st Century, We All Want Smart, Gorgeous Mates

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Supreme Court Urges Nevada to Stop Hating on California

by DannieEyre25436 Posted on April 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Excellent news. The Supreme Court has confirmed that Nevada does indeed hate California and needs to knock it off:

Nevada has not applied the principles of Nevada law ordinarily applicable to suits against Nevada’s own agencies. Rather, it has applied a special rule of law applicable only in lawsuits against its sister States, such as California.

….The Nevada Supreme Court explained its departure from those general principles by describing California’s system of controlling its own agencies as failing to provide “adequate” recourse to Nevada’s citizens….Such an explanation, which amounts to little more than a conclusory statement disparaging California’s own legislative, judicial, and administrative controls, cannot justify the application of a special and discriminatory rule. Rather, viewed through a full faith and credit lens, a State that disregards its own ordinary legal principles on this ground is hostile to another State.

….We can safely conclude that, in devising a special—and hostile—rule for California, Nevada has not “sensitively applied principles of comity with a healthy regard for California’s sovereign status.”

The case itself doesn’t matter much. An inventor moved to Nevada and then sued California when it harassed him for back taxes. Nevada normally limits these judgments to $50,000 even if you win, but as long as you’re suing California, it turns out the sky’s the limit. The Supreme Court was not amused. Nevada can’t do that just because they think poorly of California’s laws.

But all is forgiven now. Come to the beach and relax, Nevadans! Don’t let the dark side consume you.

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Supreme Court Urges Nevada to Stop Hating on California

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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

by Zella53Ssnlil Posted on April 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Farah Stockman reports that the generation gap between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters extends to African-Americans too. And the 1994 crime bill is part of it:

Caryl Brock said she had been a social worker in charge of the removal of children from dangerous homes in the South Bronx and Spanish Harlem in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when crack tore a path of destruction through those neighborhoods….She said she was relieved when the crime bill passed. In addition to providing more money for prisons and the police, the law banned assault weapons and offered funding for drug courts and rehabilitation. “Because of the crime bill,” she said, “anybody that wanted rehabilitation, we could process them and get them a detox bed in a hospital.”

Ms. Brock’s comments underscore a sometimes overlooked reality in today’s re-examination of the crime bill: The legislation was broadly embraced by nonwhite voters, more enthusiastically even than by white voters. About 58 percent of nonwhites supported it in 1994, according to a Gallup poll, compared with 49 percent of white voters.

Mr. Clinton has seemed rattled at times as he tries to defend the measure to younger African-Americans in an era in which concerns about mistreatment by the police and mass incarceration have eclipsed the fear of crime in many black communities.

And among these younger voters, the Clintons lack the deep admiration that they enjoy from previous generations of African-Americans. In the Democratic primary contests so far, 92 percent of black voters 65 and older cast ballots for Mrs. Clinton, compared with 45 percent of black voters under age 25, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

Obviously everyone should vote for whoever they want. But this piece highlights one thing that continues to eat at me: judging the past by the standards of the present. The 1994 crime bill was hardly supported unanimously, and there was plenty of criticism of it at the time. It’s fine to take note of that. But the plain fact is that 1994 was a different time: crime was rampant and people were scared—including black people—and most of them supported the crime bill, warts and all. Were they wrong to do so? Maybe. But you need to seriously engage with what the world was like in 1994 and what they could reasonably have known about it before you condemn them.

A world where violent crime is no longer an obsession, replaced instead by DWB and Ferguson-style police shootings, calls for different responses. No one would propose anything like the 1994 crime bill anymore. But in 1994 things looked a lot different. You need to understand that deep in your gut before you lash out at the folks who supported it.

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Who Supported the 1994 Crime Bill?

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Republican Frontrunners All Favor Treating Muslims Like Drug Gangs

by RevaHendrick Posted on March 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ted Cruz took a lot of flak yesterday for his proposal to “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods, so he decided to explain it further last night:

“It is standard law enforcement — it is good law enforcement to focus on where threats are emanating from, and anywhere where there is a locus of radicalization, where there is an expanding presence of radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz told reporters on Tuesday evening in Manhattan. “We need law enforcement resources directed there, national security resources directed there.”

….Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), compared Cruz’s proposition to “the dark days of the 1930s” in Europe and “the interment of Japanese-Americans” in the 1940s, calling it “a very frightening image.”

Cruz repudiated the comparison at the press conference, saying: “I understand that there are those who seek political advantage and try to raise a scary specter.” He instead compared it to ridding neighborhoods of gang activity and law enforcement’s efforts “to take them off the street.”

And what did Donald Trump think of all this? He supports Cruz’s plan “100 percent.” Naturally.

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Republican Frontrunners All Favor Treating Muslims Like Drug Gangs

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Donald Trump Is Afraid to Denounce the Ku Klux Klan

by NorbertMccloskey Posted on February 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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February 14, 2000: Donald Trump ends his “brief and flamboyant” bid to be the presidential nominee of Ross Perot’s Reform Party:

The new interim head of the Reform Party, Pat Choate, described Mr. Trump as a “hustler” last night, and said he had never believed that Mr. Trump had any interest beyond promoting himself and a new book that happened to be published at exactly the time he started his light schedule of campaign travel.

….Mr. Trump painted a fairly dark picture of the Reform Party in his statement, noting the role of Mr. Buchanan, along with the roles of David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and Lenora Fulani, the former standard-bearer of the New Alliance Party and an advocate of Marxist-Leninist politics. “The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani,” he said in his statement. “This is not company I wish to keep.”

February 28, 2016: CNN’s Jake Tapper asks Trump about David Duke’s recent endorsement, one of many from ultra-right and white nationalist leaders:

TAPPER: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?

DONALD TRUMP: Well just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?….I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists….

TAPPER: Would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don’t want their support?

TRUMP: Well I have to look at the group. I don’t know what group you are talking about, you wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about….

TAPPER: The Ku Klux Klan?….I mean I’m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here.

TRUMP: I don’t know any — honestly I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him, and I just don’t know anything about him.

This is from the man who bragged a couple of months ago that “I have the world’s greatest memory. It’s one thing everyone agrees on.” Obviously, then, the only conclusion we can draw is that Trump doesn’t want to denounce the KKK. After all, I’m sure he knows perfectly well where his core base of support lies. Why take the chance of pissing off the xenophobe vote?

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Donald Trump Is Afraid to Denounce the Ku Klux Klan

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