Given my belief that Donald Trump is the most dangerous cult leader on Earth, I might be expected to be rejoicing over yesterday’s verdict—which made him the first former president to also be a convicted felon.
Unfortunately for those who hate Trump at a human level -- and I count myself among them -- he exists at a time when there are equally existentially concerning forces on "the other side", and he represents perhaps the only instrument for *even former democrats* recently alienated by their own party to send a message to their former party that they're off the reservation.
If you want to eliminate trumps power, eliminate his appeal.
Abandon wokeism.
Abandon the culture of victimhood and the "suffrage Olympics".
Abandon identity politics.
Return to sober science.
Return to reason.
Return to rationality.
Return to meritocracy and the primacy of ideas, themselves, rather than an obsession over the racial and other immutable qualities of thinkers and speakers.
Stop telling us these things are inventions of the white patriarchy just so you can avoid rising to the epistemological standard they require.
Then you may reclaim the "middle", who otherwise are likely to vote for trump in this election simply in order to serve the left a middle finger.
I also agree 100%. I happen to be someone who, as a father of school aged children, will be voting for Trump to serve my former ideological compatriots on the left a massive middle finger for bankrupting that side of the aisle’s stake in classical liberalism.
This may be a large part of our problems. People voting for people just to piss off those who hold opposite ideas. Rather than voting for someone we actually believe in - even minimally and in this case to keep a sociopath out of the white house - we're just casting a "fuck you" vote.
Well, I see I upset the morality principal. No, this is not a ballot box rendition of ninth grade behavior. This is choosing what I believe to be the lesser of two evils (which is what we’re all doing) based on the comment above. This is voting against the things that are too far beyond a boundary. Brainwashing children with insane gender ideology is a line that cannot be crossed and must be stopped. That is my boundary. It’s funny because so many people agreed with the comment I replied to and now that you have a virtual “physical” manifestation of that comment, you seem to want to use it as a punching bag rather than have an actual conversation with someone who is clearly open to changing his mind. I literally just subscribed to Sam’s substack today. Paid money for the opportunity to read more and have potential discourse with people who I assumed would be different than the ones on X or Instagram who just hurl insults with no vision toward mutual understanding. Guess I was wrong. I ousted myself here because I felt vindicated by the comment I responded to and then rather than be listened to I was immediately attacked. Alas, just more hostile territory. The right is hostile territory, the left is hostile territory. Everything is fucking hostile. I guess what makes us different is that I did believe in Joe when I voted for him in the last election. I now unequivocally do not.
How is admitting to voting for trump to serve a middle finger to the left not a "physical manifestation" of hostility? In this conversation, hostility began with that statement. When is a middle finger NOT hostile?
Is the gender thing really the single issue you're going to flip sides for? That seems like such a minor issue to me. You have school-aged kids, so you're probably closer to the issue than I am. I know it's happening, but it's place in our attention span seems largely curated by the media. I agree with you on that issue but maybe for different reasons. But it doesn't seem to be something on which to base a vote for president. How much has Biden even weighed in on this issue? And is the extreme left's dedication to that issue really worth voting a sociopath into office? We've seen what trump will do when president. Do we really want that again? Are you really willing to sacrifice so many other things for this one issue? You're willing to submit the entire country to a sociopath for your one issue? There are so many other things that Biden stands for that are worth supporting, the least of which is that he's not a sociopath. But trump did so little that was good during his first term and all indications are that he will do less good and worse in his second term. How much damage can a dictator cause in one day? An awful lot. Emphasis on "awful."
Nonetheless, I have a hard time understanding how someone can vote for a candidate just to piss off the opposition. But that's what it seems being a trump supporter is largely centered on. It even seems to be what the right has entirely defined itself as. Gaetz even said "if we're not the opposition party, then what are we?" Of course, trump is unqualified, unconcerned with anyone other than himself, unhinged, disconnected from normalcy and decency but because he's willing to be used as a hammer to bash the skull of the left, he's the one to vote for. Who cares what he stands for as long as he stands against my enemy? I stand by my comment that this seems rabidly immature to me, even if my ninth-grade comparison was a little harsh. And I appreciate your perspective. But being critical of an opposing perspective is not hostility. Our nation is a lot bigger than one issue and even though I disagree with what's happening on the extreme left (including the obsession with gender) I'll still vote for Biden. He rarely shares common ground with extremism and I'm fine with that. But extremism and contrarianism are the only grounds on which trump seems to stand.
Is the hill to die on made of what we're against or what we support? Is it really a wise course of action to base our morals on what we don't believe in? Good questions for me to ask myself and hopefully for others to ask of themselves, too.
First of all, thank you for your well thought out comment and for taking the time to engage with me civilly. I think we can both agree that if we lose that (especially among thoughtful people like you and me) all hope is truly lost.
Also, let me make it clearer than I did before and should have: it kills me to type out the sentence I did about voting for the orange monster. I don’t disagree with anything you said about him being unhinged. I am absolutely torn. I often feel like I’ve joined the dark side.
And when I listen to Sam and others talk about him I’m like “yep. I agree with that.” But I still do feel like he is a better option than Joe.
Poor people are poorer and rich people are poorer with Joe Biden in the White House. The nation is more divided than it was even when DT was in office. There are more wars and less peace. Average inflation rate under our previous president was 1.9%. Now it’s at an eye watering 17%.
Mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been since 2000.
Minority unemployment was the lowest in recorded history under Trump.
To name a few things.
Can all of this be blamed on post pandemic economy? I don’t think so.
Again, I don’t think Donald Trump is a great dude. Man, I hate listening to him speak.
But when you ask if gender ideology is the hill I’m prepared to die on, well…if we look at the numbers, I would say Trump’s narcissism and poor rhetoric and lack of communication skills and the stereotypes of his supporters certainly are not.
My brother was involved in a really bad cliff diving accident at Lake Whitney in Texas in 2008 right before the crash that left him crippled for years. For almost 10 years he was fed opiate pain killers and was victimized by the medical industry. One of the very first things Trump did when he got in office was mobilize billions of dollars to provide resources for people like him. It was called The President’s Commission on Drug Abuse and the Opioid Crisis. A incredibly progressive and pragmatic answer to the War on Drugs of his predecessors. Free mental health care, access to drugs designed to ween off of opiate addiction, etc. With those resources my brother was able to come clean and start living a life again. Last year he participated in a 100 mile bike race. Seeing that after watching him live his life as a crippled zombie for 10 years was as crazy as if I were watching my dead grandmother compete in the race.
We can call Trump a narcissist. A bigot. A moron. Unfit. Incompetent. A liar (so is Joe Biden, of course). Whatever you want to call him. I don’t think you can call him evil or sociopathic.
Taking all of the above into consideration, the left’s adherence to woke ideology and the deterioration of reality becomes the straw that breaks the camels back for me.
Sincerely,
A very torn, more often baffled and confused citizen and former liberal democrat, trying my best to make sense out of the insanity we call our country.
Hopefully this answered your questions at the end of your comment.
Dunking on the Left by voting for the singular force that enables the far Left in this country. As Sam has famously said “Trump is lighter fluid for the far Left.”
Well, then, Zack - you just stay on the right. If you don’t see the moral, ethical and policy bankruptcy of the GOP then take your middle finger and just go. If the US has to implode, so be it. No concessions to cynical nihilists like you.
I wonder if we are self-aware enough to understand that where we are, now, in our political zeitgeist, was built on an uncountable number of responses just like this one.
David I can sense frustration, uncertainty, or another negative emotion led us to this comment. Lubor, as a fan of Sam Harris, likely has much more in common with me or you, than not.
Are we so particular about the color of our life jacket that we would choose to drown it if it doesn't meet our expectation?
Funny - never thought I would disagree with Sam on anything. To me, there is no moral equivalency between the ideological and moral squalor at the GOP and the sadly pathetic and mis-directed wokeism of the Democrats. The inclusivist over-reach by the left is at least founded on a pebble of compassion and a desire to show everyone they ought to be respected. The damage this has wrought in its social infancy is not set forever (hopefully) and we can all do our best to get the kids to tone it down. But the deplorable armies of king stupid are a different matter. They are on the march and will conquer with force and un-reason. The stance by intelligent, moral people should not be a petulant middle finger symbolism but the defeat of forces that will set western civilization back many decades.
Hi, Group! Ok, this is long and rambling, and might be nonsense but Sam implied we should work on our writing (Hi Sam)
I don’t think I like the use of “wokeism”, though it might describe some aspect of our culture it is another politically created term to foster group hatred of the “other”.
But let’s use it here briefly. Might Wokeism just be a mirror image of group “outing” on the right. Whereas wokesim could be described as public shaming for actions not accepted by the group. Its mirror on the right is just “righteous anger”, we just don’t have a catchy phrase for it.
People have not changed (they don’t). What has changed is that public shaming (judging and collective punishment/ostracizing) has gone global. The internet has connected us and has made our old “monkey tools” infinitely more abrasive and more dangerous to the individual. The offense is singular the judging group size infinite.
We don’t change (no, not ever) but our tools make us constantly more dangerous. Stones to nukes ~ the personal harsh word to global condemnation started with a click.
But don’t base your political decisions on people’s unchanging behavior. Large networks of people (in our case 336m) are hard to run, take a long time to create and are easily broken. But not easily mended.
We need leaders that are boring and know how to do the job even if it’s functionary. If you chose your leaders as someone who can give voice to your grievances or retribution eventually your lights will dim, the cold gets in and your plate is empty. And then not the Other, you will only be left with “God” to blame.
I'm being much more precise than to simply "other" an entire side. Centrists/independents have to be this way because of the jaggedness of the lines they draw through traditional conservative and progressive ideas when discovering and communicating their political views.
I think it's a cop out when intelligent people pretend not to understand what wokeism is (and isn't) with reasonable certainty, at least if you're older than 30 and witnessed its proliferation.
When I refer to wokeism, I'm referencing a wrapper term of a very specific set of beliefs, ideas, politics, behaviors, and other social persuasion tactics that I'm guessing anyone on Sam's substack could name with 90% consistency.
- Critical race theory, and the position that America is systemically racist
- Gender ideology, and the position that gender identity should trump sex in most social applications
- cancel culture as a means of social warfare (note: cancel culture is a specific tool apart from boycott or even simpler market punishment)
- general disregard for the consequences of massive social-institutional overhaul
- the evolution of liberal humanism into a primacy of individual emotion over reason and consensus in the derivation of truth (see: "my truth")
These are some or all of the things I believe are very consistently referred to when we say woke. Obviously not all liberals are progressive, not all progressives are "woke", but the relationships are fully encompassing in the other direction.
Ok, saw it! Really enjoyed. Came away mostly thinking… Burns is great at what he does (much respect for his call to arms at the end) and that Lincoln and Baldwin really were mammoth intellects (I need to break out some books!).
Unfortunately , for we do not change (!) , we often want and choose leaders telling great stories, fairytales and speak to our ideologies hopes and frustration , rather than to the reality we are in. Trump and Hitler are extreme examples. Leaders often re-establish their popularity by going to war , as such reminding their population of the great patriotic story. We are suckers for stories. Ideology trumps facts. (No pun intended)
Mass vs. individual decision making is a bit like Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow:
Mass (fast) : Instinctual, short-term, egocentric, what feels good.
Individual (slow): Deliberative, long-term, big picture, what's good for the country/world.
Governing is hard and messy, no easy solutions, everyone will need to make some sacrifices. When you talk to individuals, you can achieve more compromise and feel the shared humanity.
Sadly, the vote of the masses follows different dynamics and is quite predictable: As soon as some populist tells a good story, makes lots of promises, creates an effective "other" shared enemy, the masses will flock to it despite knowing those are empty promises and just sticking it to the other side doesn't do us any good for the long term.
We are seeing this unfold in the recent elections to the European parliament with greenlash empowering shift-right authoritarianism. Sadly, we have seen 90 years ago how this movie ends...
Since human nature isn't going to change, our best bet is in changing the systems, starting with things like ranked-choice voting, reducing gerrymandering, term and age limits etc.
I'm super happy to know you agreed with this! If you want, I can delete my comment criticizing your post; that was exactly my concern. If you let more people know that you think this, I would really appreciate it. I'm your fan, I've read all your books, and I've been subscribed to Waking Up and Making Sense for years.
I’m surprised you didn’t already assume he agreed with this. From my listening, Sam spends about an equal amount of time criticizing the extreme left as he does the extreme right, including agreeing with all of the points in the original comment.
Again, I honestly didn't know this, and I was glad to know it. I thought he had become a leftist and that's why I stopped listening to Making Sense but continued subscribing.
Thanks for the response, I’m already seeing the value in having a community online for this audience. I definitely think you’d be pleasantly surprised if you listen to some of the recent episodes of Making Sense. Enjoy your weekend!
While I despise “wokeism” (ambiguous but effective term) as much as anyone, voting for Trump as a way to send a message to a partially woke-captured Democratic Party can’t be justified.
You may disagree with their policy positions and I too abhor Democrats’ rhetoric and pandering to the Left but there is literally no comparison between the Democratic Party and Republicans. Biden has actually been pretty successful legislatively (see CHIPS ACT, IRA, etc) and the democrats generally try to do the right thing for the country. Whereas the Republican Party at this point simply exists to support Trump and oppose whatever Democrats are for at the moment. It’s non completely non functional and littered with morons and crack pots like MTG, Tommy Tubberville etc.
Completely agree, but we also need to focus on the foundations of our society. To start making a better world, we can embrace the following things:
1. Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others in order to foster compassion and cooperation, reduce conflicts and promote social harmony.
2. Invest in education: Build access to quality education to empower individuals, reduce inequality, and foster critical thinking, enabling informed and responsible decision-making.
3. Sustainability: Adopt sustainable practices in our daily lives to help protect the environment, ensuring that future generations inherit a livable planet. Also, attempt to not waste our resources.
4. Embrace Mindfulness: Practice mindfulness and self-awareness to help manage stress, improve mental health, and make more thoughtful choices - hopefully all leading to a more peaceful and balanced society.
5. Community Engagement: Active participation in local communities to build social bonds, encourage civic responsibility, and address issues collectively, creating a more inclusive and supportive society.
While I agree with some of your points and have serious issues with the left fringe of the Democratic party, the Biden administration has largely been successful governing from the middle as evidenced by the bipartisan legislation he's been able to enact in one of the most polarized eras in our country's history. This may be because the overton window has moved toward the extreme, but he has resisted the most radical elements or the illiberal left. He throw’s the left the occasional bone (e.g. student loan forgiveness), but the fringe has remained on the fringe. On the right, the extremists are in party leadership roles and represent threats to our institutions. They are not the same. I'll take the guy with whom I disagree on policy over the crime organization every time.
There's a lot of truth in that. Wokism gets on my nerves too, the constant hypersensitive being offended combined with mercilessness towards those who think differently and censorship. In theory, it's probably logical. But what does that mean in concrete terms? Will Americans only vote for a Democratic president if he lies, cheats, is brutal and inhuman, just like Trump? Should the Democrats adapt and throw all human and cultural decency overboard? That can't be the solution!
90% agree. I think one of our failings on the left is to properly label the right as embracing the politics of victimhood. We beat ourselves up for our obsession with intersectionality and oppression. And rightly so. But we fail to loudly, convincingly and repeatedly expose a culture of whining, complaining, and victim signaling by the right's most prominent political and media figures. This is a tragic unforced error.
Complaining either comes from a victim, villain, or hero. Individuals and movements on the left are usually caught in either the victim or hero perspective. A hero *only* sees victims and villains in the world, and will even create them in order to survive. Similarly, a victim only sees villains and heroes.
There is no leftist monopoly on this phenomena, just as there is no conservative monopoly on conspiracy theories. But the primacy or centrality of these things to the identity of the progressive movement is not comparable.
Adam..I totally get the anti wokism. But 4 things 1) your first paragraph describes Trump to a tee…you nailed it! He has a three-way split personality. Seriously I could give examples of how his statements and actions masterfully play out each of those three. 2) As Dems who want to return to sanity, we have to start at the local levels. The vast majority of Dems aren’t progressives or extreme leftists. Seems Biden has to cater to them sometimes because he needs those votes as much as trump needs the MAGA crowd. 3) I share much of your anger at what’s going on in (some) public schools re gender. That’s why local politics and school boards are key. Organize and let parents be heard. The MAGA crowd sure does. 4) have you read the 2025 report? It’s the blueprint for Trumps presidency. And on education they will dismantle public schools and turn that money over to private charter, parochial and home schoolers, etc. It’s happening in my home state; the most frightening take over by half illiterate goons. The GOP hasnt “ given up “ on public education, they just don’t want it, period. That should give you pause. A good free public education made this country, and there is no reason on earth why this country can’t offer an excellent, free, classic liberal education.
I would extend that to arguments for federalism, and a general position that it is increasingly difficult (and less appropriate) to govern and legislate at each granularity of social / community group -- and impossible to do so effectively on issues with near-even split distribution of opinions.
The problem is that -- just like the RIGHT has many examples of how under-education drives incoherent beliefs and preferences -- the left has become significantly misled around the role of the federal government, the president, and the Supreme Court in their lives.
In terms of system optimization, we should be communists in our communities, libertarian as a country, and conservative as a species. (See: Karl Hess)
While abandoning identity politics would certainly dull Trump’s appeal, a return to science, reason and meritocracy would not based on the primary predictor of whether or not someone supports Trump: education level.
If we insist on putting success and a sense of dignity out of reach of people who struggle in academic environments, these people will understandably continue to reject a meritocracy that does not recognize the worth of those on the other side of the diploma divide, whether they be a soldier, a cop, a caregiver, a plumber or a truck driver.
There is a significant cohort of educated and affluent people who support Trump because his policies (reducing taxes for corporations and high earners, gutting regulations) benefit them in the principle thing they care about: growing their wealth. (They also like a segmented society where the lower classes are kept in their place.) I live in an affluent zip code (fully aware that luck in life is not equitably distributed), and it's shocking how many of them support Trump.
No doubt that there are voters of all education levels that support both candidates. But 3 out of 5 voters in 2020 did not have a college degree. And Biden has lost 10% of these voters’ support compared to this same point in the last presidential campaign. He is primarily a weaker candidate due to his inability to retain support from people without college degrees and this extends into his flagging popularity with black and Latino voters.
I believe he’s the less-favored candidate due almost exclusively to his age. America has a conception of itself as a young, brash, tall, strong, leader of the world, broad-shouldered and indefatigable. Reagan projected that. Even Obama in that famous picture of him towering over Putin, scowling down at him, projected that. That’s why JFK hid his Addison’s disease and FDR his polio. (I think I saw a study somewhere that showed that the shorter candidate has never won in a presidential race.)
I really think that’s a large part of Trump’s appeal. Biden is not how America wants to think of itself. It’s not just the cognitive decline, it’s the fragility, the feebleness, that’s so hard for us to look at. Trump, for all his manifest stupidity, corruption, moral failings, etc., etc., comes across as more vigorous and forceful. Biden talks at a whisper; Trump barks. Biden walks slowly and unsteadily; Trump does his stupid dance moves at his rallies — but moves nonetheless. Biden’s eyes are like slits, his face an immovable death mask; Trump mugs for the camera with funny expressions.
If Biden were 20 years younger, it wouldn’t even be a contest. Never underestimate the power of the pretty wrapping paper and ribbon in the appeal of a gift.
True. However, Trump’s tax cuts were unbelievably generous to the top 1 percent. And the bottom 60%? You know the drill, trickle down economics. .I’m so sick of it.
Corporate taxes were slashed as well:
“Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.”
“Jeff Bezos, a key figure in modern business, saw a massive increase in his net worth from $107 billion in early 2023 to $177 billion a year later, marking a $70 billion gain, according to Fortune. This equates to an increase of $191,780,822 per day or about $7,990,868 per hour.” Yahoo News
No, but if the left returned to these principles the calculus for moderates on who to support would change and the Democratic leader would win independents.
Agree on the perspective on wokeism, but that doesn’t seem to justify a protest vote to me. I do share your frustration, and in my most cynical moments have thought, “Maybe the left deserves Trump.” But I have to agree with others here that Biden has for the most part governed competently (foreign policy aside).
What I hold the Democratic Party most guilty for right now is failing to hold Biden to his word on a a second term, and failing to foresee the likely outcome of a rematch. However, I’ve thought a ton about the counter factual. I wonder if both Biden and his advisors took a hard look at stepping aside, realized it would mean a Trump/Kamala face off, and reluctantly took the bitter pill of a 2020 rematch. I don’t see how stepping aside even two years ago would have led to anything else, especially given the woke climate. Who would have handed that memo to Madam Vice President?
I don't think Biden's handling of the border, or of debt/inflation, or of title9, or of Israel and the mentally ill and morally confused generation of children on US college campuses etc. represents the moderate positions he campaigned from.
All of these things and more represent vectors of departure from moderate positions. But Gavin Newsom would be worse.
I understand the sentiment and agree with it up until the point of "message sending". It is still important to have a clear understanding of how to weight the problems on the left and the right, and even if one believes the left is worse in many respects, they don't extend to the democratic candidate for the presidency. A second Trump term is to jeopardize democracy in America, and flawed as the left is, Biden is not anti-democratic. We can hate our choices, and be angry that this is the situation we find ourselves in, but care for your future circumstance as well. I will not be the regretful individual who willingly threw away, or sat on my hands as the ability to choose representative leadership disappeared. I look forward to new and more abundant choices, but until then, the choice is quite clear.
There may be some definition of “wokeism” that’s unambiguously inconsistent with reason and sober science, and rest. But somebody needs to make a better effort than I’ve seen to provide it. Maybe Sam has done so. Usually, it seems to be a name given to a loose set of excesses that include such things as racial identity, gender fluidity and hyperjargony relativistic philosophy. By all means let’s criticize what we don’t like about these things, but let’s not imagine there’s some powerful juggernaut at work, or even an ideology that could win the unanimous endorsement of the Yale English Department. This stuff is often wrong, sometimes illiberal, and does seem to misguide lots of college students. But it’s almost entirely without meaningful power, and how on earth can we talk about it in the same paragraph with Trumpism, or global warming, or nuclear war, or artificial intelligence? I’m really asking.
"When I refer to wokeism, I'm referencing a wrapper term of a very specific set of beliefs, ideas, politics, behaviors, and other social persuasion tactics that I'm guessing anyone on Sam's substack could name with 90% consistency.
- Critical race theory, and the position that America is systemically racist
- Gender ideology, and the position that gender identity should trump sex in most social applications
- cancel culture as a means of social warfare (note: cancel culture is a specific tool apart from boycott or even simpler market punishment)
- general disregard for the consequences of massive social-institutional overhaul
- the evolution of liberal humanism into a primacy of individual emotion over reason and consensus in the derivation of truth (see: "my truth")
These are some or all of the things I believe are very consistently referred to when we say woke. Obviously not all liberals are progressive, not all progressives are "woke", but the relationships are fully encompassing in the other direction."
Fair enough, and plausible enough. But for me there’s still a problem when we invoke the term — a term I admit I use as a shorthand, too — as a disparagement of so much at the same time. I mean it’s a fat target: Does anyone defend “wokeism,” per se? I wish I had a term that meant something like, “humane, liberal wokeism.” Something that captures the features of the phenomenon that are worth preserving, like its default stance toward empathy for the less fortunate, curiosity about the new and different, politeness towards people who are messing with our pronouns, etc.
I defined what I meant by wokeism elsewhere, here. And I forgot to include DEI (unclever and transparent wordsmithing of racism as a means to justify it when applied to some groups rather than others.)
Feel free to defend the constitutient parts of wokeism if you like. I'm not hiding behind the abstraction. It's the individual social devolutions AND what they represent as a trend that I oppose -- and what a seemingly increasing share of Europeans and Americans are rejecting, based on headlines week after week.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts Sam on why America seems unable to produce a leader that embodies the principles and moral conviction that built the country into what it is today. It seems too simplistic to blame this mostly on social media.
Matt… commenting from Canada .. but I thought you recently had a president who embodied those principles. Obama …..
He was intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate. Decisions were made with thoughtful deliberation. I’m sure folks could parse 4 years of decisions. But if I recall he took on the responsibility of president at a profoundly difficult economic time .. and incrementally helped improve life for both Americans and others in the Global community. Compared to Trump the differences are quite profound… anyway.. just a couple of thoughts 🙂
Also Canadian- Trump is heinous of course. However, it’s the degraded consciousness of the American people that confounds me. Without fully half of the entire population of America voting for him, there would be no Trump.
Without guns, there would be no mass or school shootings.
From north of the border, Trump is not the subject of the decline in American society but the object of it.
Americans obviously want him, and are also willing partners in a culture of violence, criminality, high illiteracy rates, high maternal death rates and so many other metrics of a social rotten to the core. There is a reason that crime-pornography shows like Criminal Minds gain traction in America because they mirror society. Trump is a small part of the problem.
Hi Linda … hmm that’s a tad bit harsh on our cousins 🙂… there was a nice clip of Thom Hanks talking about the American constitution and how the object of the American union is to strive towards a more perfect union … there will always be downs and ups … but generally always moving towards ‘better’ almost like the way Sam Harris talks about human the human condition. I feel this is what the US is going through.
Also, keep in mind in the last three American elections a majority of Americans voted for Obama, Hillary, and Joe Biden. The electoral collage maybe needs a little updating LOL 🙂. Also, while there are profoundly too many basically unhinged cult like MAGA folks, I think there are also a a lot of silent sane.. reasonable Republicans who just seem to want Trump because they’re becoming somewhat isolationist globally (similar to the US prior to their entry into WW2). This is a very sad trend which is unfortunately occurring at a time when strong global leadership is so very very badly needed in light of the problems humanity is facing (climate change and global stability among the two most pressing).
We've got Joe Biden and Kamala Harris now among other strong Dem leaders...both "embody the principles of moral conviction that built this country." So did Obama. You must mean: why can't Republicans produce these kinds of leaders.
There are no incentives to make things better. The incentive is always for the minority party to sabotage the majority party so the minorities can win the next election. It just goes back and forth like that forever.
Pretty simple I think: the country can only be as good as its people, and as Socrates warned us—if you have idiots for people then Democracy becomes dangerous.
Unfortunately everything other than Democracy is worse, so the only path forward is making the people less stupid.
The question is pretty broad, Matt. One way to rephrase it is, “Why don’t we produce leaders today with the principles and moral convictions of yesterday?” Then I think the answer is more obvious - we have different principles and morality. It’s been said countless other places, but I think it’s true - there are fewer coherent ideas in a modern, complex, globally connected world that bind us together as a nation than there were some 240 years ago.
Excepting the foresight of men like Hamilton and Madison, the questions that faced the founders were few, and far simpler than the ones we face today. I don’t mean to belittle the achievements of our founders, but just to point out that, “Should we have a king?” is a very different question from, “Does it infringe the first amendment rights of Americans to force the divestment of a massive social media company owned by an entity beholden to a foreign adversary?”
If we are to elect leaders that embody *any* set of principles, we’d do well to clarify and simplify that set. This relates to a remedy suggested by Martin Guri in The Revolt of the Public: to be more realistic about the scope of responsibility we can entrust in the federal government. One commenter above mentions Biden’s culpability in handling the moral confusion on campus. Just as I don’t think it's Harvard’s responsibility to speak up on the Israel/Palestine war, I also don’t believe the executive branch should be held accountable for dumb ideas on campus.
Let’s first agree on and reduce the scope of the principles we’d like to see in our leaders, then we might address why they’re lacking.
Zizek called Trump “the first postmodern president” even though his entire schtick revolves around paying lip service to nationalistic conservatism. I think there’s something to that. As Sam often mentions, it’s hard to imagine Trump genuinely having any deep regard for higher level moral values, outside of his own enrichment and ego.
And in a way, that’s somewhat fitting for America. Sure, we were founded on very high level principles. But in practice, modern capitalism has been anything but humanistic. It seems fitting, then, that this “mirage” of morality manifested in a human counterpart in Trump.
We have to fix our culture first, it won’t be cured by one individual. Although he certainly didn’t make it any easier.
Leadership flows from the zeitgeist. America is defined by Alex Jones and Justice Alito as much as it is by Trump or Biden. I believe that this over exposure to the leaders and Trumps possible use of the “n” word clouds and obfuscates the heart of the problem in America which is a recognition that even that “sin” will not deter Trump supporters because racism may be alive and well in his base. This is my concern. That his misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, conspiracy theorist and more merely reflect the collective unconscious of half of the American people.
Many factors play a role: 1) education (!) is poor & getting worse 2) inequality is rising in part due to unbridled neoliberalism. Easy to point finger at immigrants and Chinese, then vote alt right. 3) Narrative of ideology and patriotism by alt right feeding into point 2. Easy sell. 4) post covid : people now believe corrupt government taking away “our” freedom and big pharma wanting to make money and experiment on us. 5) amplification of this misinformation by social media algorithms 6) out of date political system which h only allows two candidates , democrats vs republicans. The huge amount of money needed from donors means any government / president elected is already compromised from the beginning: corruption is built into the system. 7) fake news and manipulation of feeds by AI and outside influences ( Russia / Chinese generating rafts of fake reports and bots )
I wonder if we shouldn't be more carefully examining the incentive structures of the current system and trying to remedy those where the incentives go "the wrong way". Whatever our political leanings, surely we can agree that elected officials should be promoting policies in the best interests of the voters who put them in office rather than spending all their time fundraising and kowtowing to donors with the deepest pockets. I am sure representatives from both parties do this though it might be somewhat skewed.
Yes, sorry, it wasn't intentional, I remembered it later and put it in the next comment. If I could I would edit my comment, but I still think you are wrong to exaggerate this.
You are saying that someone who has at least 45% support of the American people is a cult leader. Come on, please discuss his policies that he supported or pushed during his presidency. Let’s separate his personality (not good) from his policies and focus there.
Yes you are right there are other dangerous leaders in the world. Hoefer, I think what Sam was indicating with regards to the danger of Donald Trump. Is Trumps inability not only to accept the results of American democratic elections, but to somehow say the entire election is rigged. This is jeopardizing the American political system (or at least trust in it), and this system and America and Americans have been a cornerstone of global stability and prosperity for the last century.
Timothy, the Democrat party has opened a pandora's box by resorted to using the judicial to defeat an opponent, rather than defeating him at the ballot box. They're using banana republic tactics, and sadly (like Harry Reid's changing the rules for judiciary votes in the senate) this will come back to bite the Democrats and America in the butt. In the previous two elections I didn't vote from Trump, but I will this time, in response to the democrats appallingly cavalier disregard for democratic elections by weaponization of the judiciary to defeat their opponent. This country has always been above resorting to such tactics.
Wasn't John Edwards prosecuted for very much the same thing? Had Trump not tried to write off the payment as a business expense, which it was not, he would not find himself in this situation.
Wow did you watch the trial? See the ample evidence? DAs go after large firms that cheat the government all day long. These thieves made mistakes that set off red flags so after an investigation, fraud was found, rampant fraud. So you think they should have looked the other way? Go ahead and vote for him if that’s what you think. I’ll stick with law and order no matter who commits the crimes.
Are you not aware that DA Alvin Bragg campaigned for office saying that he'd go after Trump - he'd FIND something to indict him on? You don't think a right-leaning DA somewhere could do the same to Hillary Clinton, or Biden once he's out of office? For public figures in business or politics, one shouldn't be so naive to think that it's real difficult for a politically motivated DA to find something on which an indictment can be had, especially in a district where the indicted person is highly unpopular (e.g. Trump in Manhattan). Due process, like free speech, is for everyone, including those you may detest.
Sadly, most media sources have a political bias. Some claim it and own it (e.g. Fox and MSNBC) while others pretend to be unbiased, but that pretense is transparently false to all but the most undiscerning consumers. Back to your point, Alan Dershowitz (politically on the left) is one of many good sources of well-informed legal analysis and information about this case and about the politically motivated Manhattan DA office that brought it.
You know, what you are saying is that Presidential candidates can get off free while other business people pay fines and go to jail. The first year Bragg was in office, he prosecuted 34 New Yorkers on similar crimes. Ever think he wanted to get Trump (who had a reputation for breaking the law) just like many AGs want to get those try guys who are hard to get. Even more important, I think if you think you want the privilege to be President, then you better have a clean record. I know that’s a crazy idea, right?? If you don’t, there are two options…fess up honestly or DONT RUN. Trump had Sessions and Barr “go after” H Clinton….they found nothing. If they had, I’d be all for throwing the book at her…and I’m a Democrat. Speaking of Clintons,surely you remember Ken Starr? Congress is busy right now trying to tie Biden to his son’s and family business dealings. If they ever do turn something up, indictable offenses, I say throw the book at Biden. Doing anything less just feeds the machine and we’d have no reason to complain about corruption in our government.
"You know, what you are saying is that Presidential candidates can get off free while other business people pay fines and go to jail" - where did I say that?? That's right, I didn't. I wish we could all agree to not tolerate those who bend the legal system for political purposes. I don't like Trump either, but for those who think Biden is better, the answer is to defeat him at the ballot box and not in the courtroom. It troubling to see people who are so committed to defeating Trump that they'll turn a blind eye to what the Democrats are doing to bury him, without any recognition of the glass house in which the Democrats live. Thinking that Biden and H Clinton couldn't be indicted for similar past actions is naively cute. One shouldn't be so naive as to think that indictments are difficult to obtain. Anyone who has had the experience of sitting on a grand jury knows that. Prior to the statute of limitations expiring, it would have been easy for a DA somewhere to come up with an indictment of H Clinton for a similar bookkeeping entry for the millions of dollars she spent for the Steele Dossier. As for Biden, the prosecutor investigating his handling of documents illegally taken after he was VP declined to indict Biden because of his age and senility. And the millions Hunter obtained from Ukraine and China, with Hunter on record saying that "10% is reserved for the big man", are an exceptionally easy target. What we should all do (political left and right) is inform ourselves and vote accordingly. We should all agree to not distort the legal system, and use it for political gain.
Thanks for the reply. I understand that and I worry about it too, but it doesn't justify calling him the most dangerous cult leader in the world. He effectively transferred power and did not cause any wars. There's no comparison with Hamas, Putin, or the president of North Korea.
I feel Sam is getting at the stakes. America is a stabilizing force and the only country to ever experiment with true democracy. Revisionist history aside, America represents a beacon to the world. It is not ego or hubris to put that much emphasis on what we represent, failing to grasp the weight is the problem. Enter Trump, or rather the sociocultural underpinnings that elicited his rise. His near total abandonment of our country’s values is why the global signals and zeitgeist he created has decimated modern thought and America to the world. Please don’t extrapolate this to an approval of the left, as it has its own problems… this is independent and Trump earned this critique all by himself. His effects and the stakes are what make him “the most dangerous cult leader.” Putin, Hamas, North Korea as tragic as their effects are, are small ( partly trigger from the destabilization from the West) in global zeitgeist changes and global effects.
I understand but in my opinion the woke left and the dishonesty represented by Biden is even worse. If Sam were the Democrat candidate I would vote for him
I agree completely, but for the fact that it’s worse. Right and left’s Trump obsession is what is killing our politics. Trump is exceptionally charismatic and easily followable. He garners people because he has such deep need for approval that speaks to many of us. He seems flawed like us… not a wooden packaged politician. Yet, this has determinants. The boring political factory is what keeps our democracy alive. A sideshow doesn’t. If you want my true assessment of the left, they are why he rose and continues to dominate. Bragg basically campaigned for Trump with this trial… Trump’s donation sites crashed from the support post-verdict.
Obama laid the apparatus of identity politics (IP) and Trump was the match that signaled to all the institutions to double down on IP. Social media allowed the conversations to never evolve recirculating crap until DEI and CRT are the way of life in institutions. Covid broke our trust in experts and now we think no one knows better… Balkanized thought.
I believe thing needs to be said about wokism. I am deeply concerned and loath post-modern baby of viewing all life by power dynamics. I believe this will be the true legacy of eokidm because our legal has codified this thought in legislation. As for woken as a whole, there’s no applicability when you really think about it. This will weed out because most people don’t relate. It’s already beginning.
Bottom line, the right and left are in a toxic marriage. What’s truly happening is more religious people are having children and less secular people are. This will create the environment for tyrant to rise. True believers are dangerous and this seems to be our path. Speaking to historical patterns, it’s hard to not see it this as developing.
Andre: Is saying he’s “flawed like us” really such a good thing? Why are we obsessed with our leaders being just like us, human frailty and all? It’s a very postmodern attitude, IMO, how we laugh at any notion of human flourishing, having more utopian societies, or having aspirational leaders.
It’s like the total inversion of Plato’s “Philosopher King” theory of governing. Instead of a council of wise sages leading us, we elected the court jester.
In seriousness… I suppose I understand it on some basic level though.
If Hegel’s model was correct—if we all realized the idealism of Obama was a fraud—it makes sense that a character like Trump would replace him. He’s a human being who makes no attempt at moral posturing (and how could he?) Followed by an even more empty shell politician like Biden, etc. But what is the synthesis of these two extremes?
Still, I don’t like being “relatable” is that important. We might be evolved apes, still obsessed with emotions, etc. But that’s something we should outgrow.
I don't understand how one can say it is the "only country to ever experiment with true democracy." The electoral college is one way to do democracy, as is gerrymandering, but neither are based on one person, one vote. In Brazil, Bolsonaro lost because every vote counted equally. The United States is unique in other ways, but some of that is positive, and some negative. Free speech culture in the United States is in many respects exemplary. The corrupting effects of campaign contributions not so much.
The modern system we have has drastically been socialized and the competing interests of a two party system has certainly led to some of the results you mention. When I said “true democracy,” I meant it epistemically. The idea of America and what the framers laboriously debated over, is the only system to experiment with true democracy. Could I put a caveat on that and say “as close to democracy as we can get,” yes, but it’s unnecessary. True democracy without checkpoints could be a nightmare actually, but when we speak of America’s democracy it’s a distilled variety. Modern issues don’t sour the idea, as we are a country with a rare constitution.
Hi André. I don't really have time to make a full argument here, but I feel that you really haven't made a case for "true democracy," so much as asserted a case of American exceptionalism. What is missing is a comparison of our Constitution with those of other countries (e.g., Brazil) who have their own 'experiments' in democracy, and whose constitutions more robustly address modern problems. For example, the outsized power of our Presidents arises from the complete failure of our Constitution to foresee the problem, let alone prevent it in any way. (And there are many examples, including the presidential appointment of an attorney general who is under his control.) .
Not incidentally (and relevant to the consideration of the Trump-inspired, and -led, bad-faith conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results) Brazil adjudged Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to run a similar campaign, of attacking the "Democratic State" (the term used in the Brazilian constitution), and rendered sentence by preventing him from running until 2030. Brazil had its own "January 6" (actually on January 8, 2023) but even Bolsonaro's own party could not support those directly responsible. They simply (and properly) advocated for the detainee's constitutional rights.
“He effectively transferred power” — really though? A failed and half-baked coup is still a coup. It’s willful ignorance if you choose to believe Trump did not actually intend to stay in power. And he will do so again.
I didn't say that. I said he transferred power and was minimally civilized, there are worse leaders. But I thank you for your comment and I also have this concern, which is really very serious.
He begrudgingly transferred power when the military (part of the "deep state" apparently) began actively protecting Biden as the President-elect. Sam actually mentioned this in a few podcasts in 2020. If Trump had achieved the genuine constitutional crisis we were minutes away from seeing, at one point on January 6th, he'd likely still be in office.
It's probably not useful to split hairs over who is the most dangerous leader (of any type), but considering that the U.S. is still the military, economic, and media center of gravity, it is at least arguable that Trump can cause much more devastation than Putin, Jinping, Kim, et cetera. Particular when it comes to 2nd and 3rd order consequences for global norms, ecology, and the mostly positive trends we've recently started to appreciate for our species.
I doubt that, he says that to try to have good relations with them. I heard that he was actually not a president who favored China and Russia. Sam Harris used to be an intelligent guy, so it was very strange to see him talking nonsense about Trump. It gives the impression that he has something to do with the Democratic party. At the same time, I liked Sam and tended to trust him. I've been confused about him in the last few years.
I heard insiders involved in these policies say that Trump was not favorable to China and Russia, which makes me think that in fact he doesn't like these regimes at all, it's just a facade.
And that is the problem right there. Being okay with the veneer, the feint… and playing those games so surreptitiously and flippantly is the problem. This is what we’ve come to. Reading between the lines of his act (like what he means when he says he’ll end the war… he’ll either be all in or all out, it’s our gamble). I’m not suggesting reading between the lines in politics is new. It just used to pertain to figuring out elected officials’ policy decisions… not public visage. What we don’t realize is all this guessing of what Trump really means and the “fun” it seems to be to play the game with the wink and twinkle belongs nowhere near the arena of politics, rather the world of acting. It signals to not take things seriously. That’s the damage.
Who and where do you "hear" these things Joao? You "heard he was not a president who favored China and Russia" but then we've heard with Trump's own words many time as to how he feels about Putin and Russia. Who are you hearing this from? Actual insiders of Trump's inner circle? Sorry, just need a little clarification because Trump has been pretty consistent about how he feels about Russia and Putin.
Neither Trump's criminal conviction, nor Trump losing in November, solve the deep sociocultural problems that put him in office in the first place. But his being acquitted and/or winning the election would make all those problems much, much worse.
I don’t think it’s half the American population. There are 340 million Americans. 74 million people voted for him. The problem is that one of the two major parties worships him. We need to overwhelmingly vote for Biden and work to reform our democracy in the short term.
I live in Madrid and cannot believe what I see from here. I have an interest in global affairs but am not an expert on US politics. Everyone here knew about Trump and his various affairs and women issues well before he became president, from the limited reporting.
To find him guilty now on the basis that a trivial payment was impactful for his election makes the US look no better than Russia in its fairness in court. It makes me scared to travel to the US fir holidays, just as I would not go to Russia. It seems so sad to me
This was not about affairs and women issues. This was about illegal bookkeeping that happened in the immediate time before the election and an attempt to sway the election by covering up evidence. In the US we have a system whereby there is a grand jury to whom evidence is presented, and that large group of citizens (16 - 23 people) who weigh the evidence and decide whether or not to indict on the basis of which charges. All of that takes place before any matter goes to court. Many issues never get past the grand jury if they are frivolous. If the grand jury indicts, there is an extensive period called "discovery" during which both sides put together their evidence and share it. All of this happens before there is any appearance in court. It's a long, tedious, and thorough process presided over by the judge who is assigned by lottery, not by choice. Then for conviction, there must be a unanimous agreement on the part of the jurors who were selected by a process that includes both the prosecuting and defense lawyers in conjunction with the judge. So, Richard, unless you plan to really screw up, you can feel safe coming to the US. Trump really screwed up. He disobeyed 34 separate laws in order to get this jury verdict.
I feel like pasting your response in half the sub-threads here. Well said. Not sensationalized. Just calmly explaining the US system of justice. Is it perfect? No. Is it like Russia? Good lord, no.
In allowing the charges against Trump to proceed, Justice Merchan, the trial judge in Trump's case, relied on (1) a Federal Election Commission ruling that held American Media (National Enquirer) in violation of federal election law for making an illegal donation to the Trump campaign by paying hush money to Karen McDougal (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/01/national-enquirer-owner-trump-campaign-491557) and (2) Michael Cohen's guilty plea to making illegal contributions in the very same scheme Trump was charged with.
Merchan concluded that there was sufficient evidence presented to the Grand Jury that there was a conspiracy to have David Pecker and Michael Cohen make payments to Stormy Daniels, amounting to illegal campaign contributions on this same theory. Here is what Judge Merchan said in allowing the case to go forward (and thus go to the jury):
"This Court finds that there was legally sufficient evidence presented to the Grand Jury of the Defendant’s intent to violate FECA ("Federal Election Campaign Act"). It is a crime under FECA for any person to make contributions to any candidate seeking election to federal office, and his authorized political committees, which exceeds $2,000 during a single calendar year. FECA also establishes $25,000 limit on contributions made by corporations. The evidence before the Grand Jury was legally sufficient to show that the Defendant, along with Cohen and Pecker, among others, planned to promote Defendant’s presidential campaign by purchasing and suppressing information that could negatively impact Defendant’s campaign. The amount Pecker and Cohen paid exceeded allowable federal limits established by FECA. Indeed, Cohen pled guilty to violating FECA and served a prison term as a result of his involvement m this scheme. Likewise, the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) found that AMI and Pecker also violated FECA as a result of the payments. Evidence presented to the Grand Jury that the Defendant discussed the above plan with Cohen and then reimbursed Cohen for his payment to Daniels is legally sufficient to establish the ) legally requisite intent to commit another crime, i.e,. FECA."
The jury was UNAWARE of this ruling, because they are not allowed to know of it. This ruling was just about whether the case could go forward on the prosecution's theory.
Here are the instructions that the jury received on the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) "predicate" crime. The instructions permit the jury to consider only "third party" payments, not payments made by President Trump himself:
NEW YORK ELECTION LAW § 17-152 PREDICATE
The People allege that the other crime the defendant intended to commit, aid, or conceal is a violation of New York Election Law section 17-152.
Section 17-152 of the New York Election Law provides that any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.
Under our law, a person is guilty of such a conspiracy when, with intent that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means, he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct.
Knowledge of a conspiracy does not by itself make the defendant a co-conspirator. The defendant must intend that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means. Intent means conscious objective or purpose. Thus, a person acts with the intent that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means when his or her conscious objective or purpose is that such conduct be performed.
Evidence that defendant was present when others agreed to engage in the performance of a crime does not by itself show that he personally agreed to engage in the conspiracy.
Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.
THE FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ACT
The first of the People’s theories of “unlawful means” which I will now define for you is the Federal Election Campaign Act. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, it is unlawful for an individual to willfully make a contribution to any candidate with respect to any election for federal office, including the office of President of the United States, which exceeds a certain limit. In 2015 and 2016, that limit was $2,700. It is also unlawful under the Federal Election Campaign Act for any corporation to willfully make a contribution of any amount to a candidate or candidate’s campaign in connection with any federal election, or for any person to cause such a corporate contribution. For purposes of these prohibitions, an expenditure made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate or his agents shall be considered to be a contribution to such candidate.
The terms CONTRIBUTION and EXPENDITURE include anything of value, including any purchase, payment, loan, or advance, made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. Under federal law, a third party’s payment of a candidate’s expenses is deemed to be a contribution to the candidate unless the payment would have been made irrespective of the candidacy. If the payment would have been made even in the absence of the candidacy, the payment should not be treated as a contribution. FECA’s definitions of “contribution” and “expenditure” do not include any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by a magazine, periodical publication, or similar press entity, so long as such activity is a normal, legitimate press function. This is called the press exemption. For example, the term legitimate press function includes solicitation letters seeking new subscribers to a publication.
FECA’s definitions of “contribution” and “expenditure” do not include any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by a magazine, periodical publication, or similar press entity, so long as such activity is a normal, legitimate press function. This is called the press exemption. For example, the term legitimate press function includes solicitation letters seeking new subscribers to a publication.
So this wasn't about sex. It was about illegal campaign contributions -- the law was passed to prevent the corruption of elections by money. This was a relatively small amount -- the total amount expended was $450,000 which included the "gross-up" to cover taxes on the phony claim of income to Michael Cohen. But as it involved the President of the United States, it was important. Trump keeps saying 'if this happened to me, it could happen to you." In fact, if this didn't happen to Trump, then what does it say about the enforcement of election law?
Your disdain for Mr. Trump is appropriate and well earned. I wonder though, if your disdain doesn’t reduce the opprobrium due both his predecessor and successor. Their abuses of executive power have set precedents our society will struggle to wrestle back. Donald Trump’s ascendence, and persistence, is in large part due to the disruption of norms perpetrated by these more socially acceptable bad actors. I loathe Donald Trump. But, I sometimes think having a scoundrel who is unable to hide his sociopathy is preferable to having one who hides his maleficence behind a winning smile and/or syrupy delivery. Our country is clearly headed in directions most of us don’t want. Calling out all those steering in that direction is, in my mind, a paramount responsibility.
Oh my. You think Obama and Biden abused executive powers. If Trump gets into office….we’ll we ain’t seen a nothin’ yet. One of the best ideas Trump has is, as President, to be chair of the Fed and have veto power on any appropriations by congress.p
Sam, I abhor Trump but think your description of him being a cult leader is a mischaracterization of his many supporters who have reservations about the man’s multiple character defects. But speaking of cults, I wonder if the progressive movement has grown so extreme and so powerful as to warrant greater concern than four more years of Trump. What am I missing?
It seems to me that you have to represent the progressive movement with Antifa or Free Palestine protestors to balance the scales in comparison with Trump and the MAGA cult. That is not actually reasonable outside of this wingnut scale. The difference is that progressives did not elect, and do not in majority support, these extremists, but the opposition did elect Trump, empower MAGA, and continue to support him.
The desperation of the GOP to survive as a minority party in a democratic environment is forcing worse and worse compromises of our norms and their integrity. I would argue this has been going on since Eisenhower.
So, I don't know how to explain this to people that support Trump while recognizing his negative traits. What we are missing, to answer your question, is what our values are and how we are prioritizing them. And I don't know any values/priorities matrix that computes a solution that supports Trump. Even the most anarcho-individualist, superficial-materialist combination fails because for Trump there can only be one. He's like the Highlander of gameshow hosts that also insists on being a contestant and the only contestant allowed to win.
KD, we are looking at the same screen but seeing different movies.
I didn’t equate the progressive movement with Antifa and the pro-Jihadist crowd; they constitute only most extreme segment of the Progressive movement; more generally, Progressives represent a sizable portion of the population from whom the cream of the crop comes to dominate the education system, the media, publishing and the entertainment businesses, and most major corporations from the Silicon Valley to, for a brief moment, a woke Anheuser-Busch.
Maybe you can help me: I’m hard-pressed to name any part of our culture or society, any of the commanding heights, that aren’t all but controlled by progressives.
Non-progressives - by which I mean “MAGA” types as well as many independents and old-school leftists - feel alienated, if not threatened by this Progressive hegemony. If there is any “desperation,” as you say, it’s because easily half of the population is concerned about what is being taught in elementary schools and universities, what is being reported as “objective journalism,” what is being thematically conveyed in Disney animations, what is being manipulated by social media algorithms.
That these progressive redoubts are run by people who weren’t elected is more than beside the point; there is a widespread perception that the “non-political” institutions of this country practice systemic bias with extreme prejudice. People shouldn’t be faulted for seeing that affirmative action has ignored Appalachia, that DEI is hostile to diversity of thought. The non-political power centers have all become progressive versions of the “Whites Only” Country Clubs of yore.
Yes, “norms and integrity” have worsened, but the GOP is hardly a “desperate” minority party that has singularly exacerbated any of this (again, its members would argue the opposite). Pew reports partisan breakdown as nearly equal: 49% of the voters identify or lean Democrat, 48% identify or lean Republican, while 35% consider themselves Independent. Hence the narrowly decided presidential elections over several decades, hence the current narrow margins in Congress.
You are on the money when you describe Trump as a game show host who insists he be the only winner. But when you write “no values/priorities matrix justifies supporting Trump,” you are concurring with Sam’s assertion that all Trump supporters are cult members. You see them as a zombie horde, mindless, soulless, and, to coin a phrase, deplorable.
I am not a Trump supporter, I consider myself part of Jonah Goldberg’s Remnant. But the many Trump supporters I know or meet seem decent enough. And I would bet most of them wouldn’t buy a used car from Donald Trump, let alone allow him to babysit their teenage daughter. Rather, they strike me as people who abhor the social, cultural and political landscapes mostly described above, and see Trump as a chemotherapeutic answer to all of it. And, mark this, they are certainly more motivated to vote Orange when they hear themselves being dismissed as moral idiots without redemption or agency. Trump is thus as much a creation of the progressive left as any MAGA ideology. Some people need to look in the mirror when bemoaning the rise of Trump.
Okay Marc I will put my hand up for calling my neighbors zombies but to be fair I think my far left relatives are zombies too! I think of them as zombies because on either side of the political spectrum reason has no voice. They are fed what they want to hear. My hair dresser asked me what I thought about Mexico opening it's jails and making convicts come to the United States. My relative believes that eating vegan will cure all the ills of the world including climate change and cancer. I don't think the MAGA crowd or the Far Left are moral idiots. I think we live in our own silos of information created by narrow AI programs designed to keep our eyes on the screen, All of our reality is fed through these programs. I literally have no social media accounts, gave up my iPhone for a clam shell and still struggle to find unbiased news reporting. I like my neighbors and friends but trying to change their minds is a lost cause ( also many of them are armed). I think Meta, Alphabet etc. are the ones to be blamed here. They are helping to destroy our democracy for money...
Louise, I like where you’re coming from & am envious of your digital hygiene. I do think there are zombies out there, among them the woke jihadists and Proud Boy types and an unfortunately long list of other fevered tribes on the fringe. I think they all inhabit silos that are a nanometer deep and wide, and in addition to being loathsome they give silos a bad name. Don’t we all, invariably, inhabit silos, forever and always? Aren’t there awesome silos to inhabit? The Library of Congress silo comes to mind. Sam’s post explicitly puts half of the electorate in a nanometer silo of certified malleable nincompoops, which is for him uncharacteristically unfair and unwise; I hope he changes his mind.
Which, I agree with you, is easier said than done. I’ve found that the things I’ve changed my mind about have all required a lot of time and pressure. The time takes time, the pressure takes a willingness to expand one’s silo. What we’re doing here is an example of the latter; while I can’t think of changing anyone’s mind over a single beer, I’d like to think that most people are capable of being nudged. And sometimes a nudge is all it takes to get something to roll. One reason I’d never blithely call someone a cult member is it’s so obviously a guaranteed way to fail at this. (Right, Sam?!)
This may be the least consequential of the four felony cases but it is not inconsequential. Trump violated election laws to rig the 2016 election. If he is elected, he will never face justice for the documents case or trying to overturn the election because he will instruct his DOJ to drop the cases. The Georgia case is hopelessly mired in tangential issues. I do not expect Trump to lose a single vote over the NY felony convictions but at least there is some accountability even if for the least of his crimes.
Agree with your serious concerns. But it is not half the country that supports DT. We need to get louder and make sure more people vote. And we should never not hold him accountable out of fear of his base. It's def a solid cult but it is not expanding.
Citizen United allowed candidates like Trump to run. It was the beginning of the erosion of democracy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Trump or someone else, as long as citizen United exists, democracy is in danger. Follow the money.
With Trump, it appears to me from way Down Under, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The alternative to allowing him to complain about political motivation and witch-hunting (which he's doing about all his trials) would be to give him what we in Australia would call a 'free kick', where he can continue with his provocations. How can?
I just read Richard Hanania's (longer) piece on the same subject. Pretty much the same take from the intelligent right and the intelligent left. I find this encouraging. Would love to hear an H&H discussion.
Left and right aren't what they used to be. I think Hanania considers himself on the non-MAGA right and Harris considers himself on the free market, anti-woke left. Since they are both extremely smart and well read, it isn't surprising they agree on this and much more - as one would hope when the facts are known and rationally analyzed.
As an outside observer, (Irish/British living in Australia), I have been confused and disturbed by what I see in the US. I get the frustration with left political correctness, and victim politics. I get the concern with gender politics and associated changes in education. However, if you dig into these issues, they are generally overblown and on the fringes of what actually impacts peoples day to day lives. Certainly the Murdoch press and other propaganda organs take every opportunity to amplify and distort these issues. The intellectual left, (university educated elites that are very far from working class), give them an open goal. When I look at the Democrats and what use to be the GOP, (pre-Trump), I see two fairly centre, to right of centre political parties, compared to UK, Irish or Australian political parties. Then I talk to some well educated American friends and discover that they honestly believe that the Democratic Party are basically communists, and Trump is fighting back, I just don't know how to respond. The Democrats are noting like communist or even social democrats. To me, it is clear that Trump is unusually a man devoid of any positive qualities. He may give voice to some legitimate concerns that people have. That is not difficult to do. It is clear that he is not the person to fix them. He is divisive, incapable of consensus politics, generally ignorant of how good governance works and not that interested anyway. It's all about him and his fragile ego. Despite having listened to all the excuses for why people support Trump and the failures of liberal politics, I cannot accept any of these arguments as legitimate reasons to hate the Democrats so much that Trump is an acceptable alternative. I hope America recovers soon from this act of self harm.
I can tell you most of these social issues (gender, lgbt, cancel culture, racial politics) are used as cannon fodder in the USA. Yet if you go into the streets and ask people, most humans you’ll encounter won’t name that as among their top 5 issues (and I say that as an LGBT person myself). People care about financial stability, jobs, education and opportunity, security, etc. They want the government to make their lives easier, especially the working-class majority.
Both Trump and Biden weaponize these issues. Perhaps they see them as the “only way” to gain appeal in our current era.
But I think we’ve learned the wrong lesson—perhaps even to our demise. Human rights and opportunities continue to be stripped away, yet we have to listen to politicians quarrel about the same social issues that have plagued us for half a century, while very little actually changes in a material sense.
It’s why the corporate Democrats would rather have a Trump victory than Bernie Sanders.
Unfortunately for those who hate Trump at a human level -- and I count myself among them -- he exists at a time when there are equally existentially concerning forces on "the other side", and he represents perhaps the only instrument for *even former democrats* recently alienated by their own party to send a message to their former party that they're off the reservation.
If you want to eliminate trumps power, eliminate his appeal.
Abandon wokeism.
Abandon the culture of victimhood and the "suffrage Olympics".
Abandon identity politics.
Return to sober science.
Return to reason.
Return to rationality.
Return to meritocracy and the primacy of ideas, themselves, rather than an obsession over the racial and other immutable qualities of thinkers and speakers.
Stop telling us these things are inventions of the white patriarchy just so you can avoid rising to the epistemological standard they require.
Then you may reclaim the "middle", who otherwise are likely to vote for trump in this election simply in order to serve the left a middle finger.
I fully agree.
I also agree 100%. I happen to be someone who, as a father of school aged children, will be voting for Trump to serve my former ideological compatriots on the left a massive middle finger for bankrupting that side of the aisle’s stake in classical liberalism.
This may be a large part of our problems. People voting for people just to piss off those who hold opposite ideas. Rather than voting for someone we actually believe in - even minimally and in this case to keep a sociopath out of the white house - we're just casting a "fuck you" vote.
Well, I see I upset the morality principal. No, this is not a ballot box rendition of ninth grade behavior. This is choosing what I believe to be the lesser of two evils (which is what we’re all doing) based on the comment above. This is voting against the things that are too far beyond a boundary. Brainwashing children with insane gender ideology is a line that cannot be crossed and must be stopped. That is my boundary. It’s funny because so many people agreed with the comment I replied to and now that you have a virtual “physical” manifestation of that comment, you seem to want to use it as a punching bag rather than have an actual conversation with someone who is clearly open to changing his mind. I literally just subscribed to Sam’s substack today. Paid money for the opportunity to read more and have potential discourse with people who I assumed would be different than the ones on X or Instagram who just hurl insults with no vision toward mutual understanding. Guess I was wrong. I ousted myself here because I felt vindicated by the comment I responded to and then rather than be listened to I was immediately attacked. Alas, just more hostile territory. The right is hostile territory, the left is hostile territory. Everything is fucking hostile. I guess what makes us different is that I did believe in Joe when I voted for him in the last election. I now unequivocally do not.
How is admitting to voting for trump to serve a middle finger to the left not a "physical manifestation" of hostility? In this conversation, hostility began with that statement. When is a middle finger NOT hostile?
Is the gender thing really the single issue you're going to flip sides for? That seems like such a minor issue to me. You have school-aged kids, so you're probably closer to the issue than I am. I know it's happening, but it's place in our attention span seems largely curated by the media. I agree with you on that issue but maybe for different reasons. But it doesn't seem to be something on which to base a vote for president. How much has Biden even weighed in on this issue? And is the extreme left's dedication to that issue really worth voting a sociopath into office? We've seen what trump will do when president. Do we really want that again? Are you really willing to sacrifice so many other things for this one issue? You're willing to submit the entire country to a sociopath for your one issue? There are so many other things that Biden stands for that are worth supporting, the least of which is that he's not a sociopath. But trump did so little that was good during his first term and all indications are that he will do less good and worse in his second term. How much damage can a dictator cause in one day? An awful lot. Emphasis on "awful."
Nonetheless, I have a hard time understanding how someone can vote for a candidate just to piss off the opposition. But that's what it seems being a trump supporter is largely centered on. It even seems to be what the right has entirely defined itself as. Gaetz even said "if we're not the opposition party, then what are we?" Of course, trump is unqualified, unconcerned with anyone other than himself, unhinged, disconnected from normalcy and decency but because he's willing to be used as a hammer to bash the skull of the left, he's the one to vote for. Who cares what he stands for as long as he stands against my enemy? I stand by my comment that this seems rabidly immature to me, even if my ninth-grade comparison was a little harsh. And I appreciate your perspective. But being critical of an opposing perspective is not hostility. Our nation is a lot bigger than one issue and even though I disagree with what's happening on the extreme left (including the obsession with gender) I'll still vote for Biden. He rarely shares common ground with extremism and I'm fine with that. But extremism and contrarianism are the only grounds on which trump seems to stand.
Is the hill to die on made of what we're against or what we support? Is it really a wise course of action to base our morals on what we don't believe in? Good questions for me to ask myself and hopefully for others to ask of themselves, too.
Scott,
First of all, thank you for your well thought out comment and for taking the time to engage with me civilly. I think we can both agree that if we lose that (especially among thoughtful people like you and me) all hope is truly lost.
Also, let me make it clearer than I did before and should have: it kills me to type out the sentence I did about voting for the orange monster. I don’t disagree with anything you said about him being unhinged. I am absolutely torn. I often feel like I’ve joined the dark side.
And when I listen to Sam and others talk about him I’m like “yep. I agree with that.” But I still do feel like he is a better option than Joe.
Poor people are poorer and rich people are poorer with Joe Biden in the White House. The nation is more divided than it was even when DT was in office. There are more wars and less peace. Average inflation rate under our previous president was 1.9%. Now it’s at an eye watering 17%.
Mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been since 2000.
Minority unemployment was the lowest in recorded history under Trump.
To name a few things.
Can all of this be blamed on post pandemic economy? I don’t think so.
Again, I don’t think Donald Trump is a great dude. Man, I hate listening to him speak.
But when you ask if gender ideology is the hill I’m prepared to die on, well…if we look at the numbers, I would say Trump’s narcissism and poor rhetoric and lack of communication skills and the stereotypes of his supporters certainly are not.
My brother was involved in a really bad cliff diving accident at Lake Whitney in Texas in 2008 right before the crash that left him crippled for years. For almost 10 years he was fed opiate pain killers and was victimized by the medical industry. One of the very first things Trump did when he got in office was mobilize billions of dollars to provide resources for people like him. It was called The President’s Commission on Drug Abuse and the Opioid Crisis. A incredibly progressive and pragmatic answer to the War on Drugs of his predecessors. Free mental health care, access to drugs designed to ween off of opiate addiction, etc. With those resources my brother was able to come clean and start living a life again. Last year he participated in a 100 mile bike race. Seeing that after watching him live his life as a crippled zombie for 10 years was as crazy as if I were watching my dead grandmother compete in the race.
We can call Trump a narcissist. A bigot. A moron. Unfit. Incompetent. A liar (so is Joe Biden, of course). Whatever you want to call him. I don’t think you can call him evil or sociopathic.
Taking all of the above into consideration, the left’s adherence to woke ideology and the deterioration of reality becomes the straw that breaks the camels back for me.
Sincerely,
A very torn, more often baffled and confused citizen and former liberal democrat, trying my best to make sense out of the insanity we call our country.
Hopefully this answered your questions at the end of your comment.
Dunking on the Left by voting for the singular force that enables the far Left in this country. As Sam has famously said “Trump is lighter fluid for the far Left.”
but pissing off the woke left just feels too dam good to a lot of people
Well, then, Zack - you just stay on the right. If you don’t see the moral, ethical and policy bankruptcy of the GOP then take your middle finger and just go. If the US has to implode, so be it. No concessions to cynical nihilists like you.
I wonder if we are self-aware enough to understand that where we are, now, in our political zeitgeist, was built on an uncountable number of responses just like this one.
David I can sense frustration, uncertainty, or another negative emotion led us to this comment. Lubor, as a fan of Sam Harris, likely has much more in common with me or you, than not.
Are we so particular about the color of our life jacket that we would choose to drown it if it doesn't meet our expectation?
Funny - never thought I would disagree with Sam on anything. To me, there is no moral equivalency between the ideological and moral squalor at the GOP and the sadly pathetic and mis-directed wokeism of the Democrats. The inclusivist over-reach by the left is at least founded on a pebble of compassion and a desire to show everyone they ought to be respected. The damage this has wrought in its social infancy is not set forever (hopefully) and we can all do our best to get the kids to tone it down. But the deplorable armies of king stupid are a different matter. They are on the march and will conquer with force and un-reason. The stance by intelligent, moral people should not be a petulant middle finger symbolism but the defeat of forces that will set western civilization back many decades.
Well said!
Hi, Group! Ok, this is long and rambling, and might be nonsense but Sam implied we should work on our writing (Hi Sam)
I don’t think I like the use of “wokeism”, though it might describe some aspect of our culture it is another politically created term to foster group hatred of the “other”.
But let’s use it here briefly. Might Wokeism just be a mirror image of group “outing” on the right. Whereas wokesim could be described as public shaming for actions not accepted by the group. Its mirror on the right is just “righteous anger”, we just don’t have a catchy phrase for it.
People have not changed (they don’t). What has changed is that public shaming (judging and collective punishment/ostracizing) has gone global. The internet has connected us and has made our old “monkey tools” infinitely more abrasive and more dangerous to the individual. The offense is singular the judging group size infinite.
We don’t change (no, not ever) but our tools make us constantly more dangerous. Stones to nukes ~ the personal harsh word to global condemnation started with a click.
But don’t base your political decisions on people’s unchanging behavior. Large networks of people (in our case 336m) are hard to run, take a long time to create and are easily broken. But not easily mended.
We need leaders that are boring and know how to do the job even if it’s functionary. If you chose your leaders as someone who can give voice to your grievances or retribution eventually your lights will dim, the cold gets in and your plate is empty. And then not the Other, you will only be left with “God” to blame.
I'm being much more precise than to simply "other" an entire side. Centrists/independents have to be this way because of the jaggedness of the lines they draw through traditional conservative and progressive ideas when discovering and communicating their political views.
I think it's a cop out when intelligent people pretend not to understand what wokeism is (and isn't) with reasonable certainty, at least if you're older than 30 and witnessed its proliferation.
When I refer to wokeism, I'm referencing a wrapper term of a very specific set of beliefs, ideas, politics, behaviors, and other social persuasion tactics that I'm guessing anyone on Sam's substack could name with 90% consistency.
- Critical race theory, and the position that America is systemically racist
- Gender ideology, and the position that gender identity should trump sex in most social applications
- cancel culture as a means of social warfare (note: cancel culture is a specific tool apart from boycott or even simpler market punishment)
- general disregard for the consequences of massive social-institutional overhaul
- the evolution of liberal humanism into a primacy of individual emotion over reason and consensus in the derivation of truth (see: "my truth")
These are some or all of the things I believe are very consistently referred to when we say woke. Obviously not all liberals are progressive, not all progressives are "woke", but the relationships are fully encompassing in the other direction.
Yes. This is exactly what Ken Burns was getting at in his Brandeis commencement speech.
Hey thanks for the reminder Pamala, I had heard about the Burns speech but forgotten that wanted to look it up! 🌈
Ok, saw it! Really enjoyed. Came away mostly thinking… Burns is great at what he does (much respect for his call to arms at the end) and that Lincoln and Baldwin really were mammoth intellects (I need to break out some books!).
I loved his references to both of them too.
Unfortunately , for we do not change (!) , we often want and choose leaders telling great stories, fairytales and speak to our ideologies hopes and frustration , rather than to the reality we are in. Trump and Hitler are extreme examples. Leaders often re-establish their popularity by going to war , as such reminding their population of the great patriotic story. We are suckers for stories. Ideology trumps facts. (No pun intended)
Mass vs. individual decision making is a bit like Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow:
Mass (fast) : Instinctual, short-term, egocentric, what feels good.
Individual (slow): Deliberative, long-term, big picture, what's good for the country/world.
Governing is hard and messy, no easy solutions, everyone will need to make some sacrifices. When you talk to individuals, you can achieve more compromise and feel the shared humanity.
Sadly, the vote of the masses follows different dynamics and is quite predictable: As soon as some populist tells a good story, makes lots of promises, creates an effective "other" shared enemy, the masses will flock to it despite knowing those are empty promises and just sticking it to the other side doesn't do us any good for the long term.
We are seeing this unfold in the recent elections to the European parliament with greenlash empowering shift-right authoritarianism. Sadly, we have seen 90 years ago how this movie ends...
Since human nature isn't going to change, our best bet is in changing the systems, starting with things like ranked-choice voting, reducing gerrymandering, term and age limits etc.
I'm super happy to know you agreed with this! If you want, I can delete my comment criticizing your post; that was exactly my concern. If you let more people know that you think this, I would really appreciate it. I'm your fan, I've read all your books, and I've been subscribed to Waking Up and Making Sense for years.
I’m surprised you didn’t already assume he agreed with this. From my listening, Sam spends about an equal amount of time criticizing the extreme left as he does the extreme right, including agreeing with all of the points in the original comment.
Again, I honestly didn't know this, and I was glad to know it. I thought he had become a leftist and that's why I stopped listening to Making Sense but continued subscribing.
Thanks for the response, I’m already seeing the value in having a community online for this audience. I definitely think you’d be pleasantly surprised if you listen to some of the recent episodes of Making Sense. Enjoy your weekend!
You too! I agree with the community part, and I will probably identify more with Making Sense than I imagined. Thank you for your kindness.
Sam is a way better cult leader than The Donald 🥰
I wish it had been possible to start with the Georgia vote interference.
While I despise “wokeism” (ambiguous but effective term) as much as anyone, voting for Trump as a way to send a message to a partially woke-captured Democratic Party can’t be justified.
Used to be called ‘Political Correctness’, this is not new stuff here, folks.
Political correctness means "I can no longer say the offensive shit I used to say without consequences."
Never took being PC or awakened as a pejorative, but always believed people need to be more polite.
You may disagree with their policy positions and I too abhor Democrats’ rhetoric and pandering to the Left but there is literally no comparison between the Democratic Party and Republicans. Biden has actually been pretty successful legislatively (see CHIPS ACT, IRA, etc) and the democrats generally try to do the right thing for the country. Whereas the Republican Party at this point simply exists to support Trump and oppose whatever Democrats are for at the moment. It’s non completely non functional and littered with morons and crack pots like MTG, Tommy Tubberville etc.
Completely agree, but we also need to focus on the foundations of our society. To start making a better world, we can embrace the following things:
1. Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of others in order to foster compassion and cooperation, reduce conflicts and promote social harmony.
2. Invest in education: Build access to quality education to empower individuals, reduce inequality, and foster critical thinking, enabling informed and responsible decision-making.
3. Sustainability: Adopt sustainable practices in our daily lives to help protect the environment, ensuring that future generations inherit a livable planet. Also, attempt to not waste our resources.
4. Embrace Mindfulness: Practice mindfulness and self-awareness to help manage stress, improve mental health, and make more thoughtful choices - hopefully all leading to a more peaceful and balanced society.
5. Community Engagement: Active participation in local communities to build social bonds, encourage civic responsibility, and address issues collectively, creating a more inclusive and supportive society.
While I agree with some of your points and have serious issues with the left fringe of the Democratic party, the Biden administration has largely been successful governing from the middle as evidenced by the bipartisan legislation he's been able to enact in one of the most polarized eras in our country's history. This may be because the overton window has moved toward the extreme, but he has resisted the most radical elements or the illiberal left. He throw’s the left the occasional bone (e.g. student loan forgiveness), but the fringe has remained on the fringe. On the right, the extremists are in party leadership roles and represent threats to our institutions. They are not the same. I'll take the guy with whom I disagree on policy over the crime organization every time.
There's a lot of truth in that. Wokism gets on my nerves too, the constant hypersensitive being offended combined with mercilessness towards those who think differently and censorship. In theory, it's probably logical. But what does that mean in concrete terms? Will Americans only vote for a Democratic president if he lies, cheats, is brutal and inhuman, just like Trump? Should the Democrats adapt and throw all human and cultural decency overboard? That can't be the solution!
90% agree. I think one of our failings on the left is to properly label the right as embracing the politics of victimhood. We beat ourselves up for our obsession with intersectionality and oppression. And rightly so. But we fail to loudly, convincingly and repeatedly expose a culture of whining, complaining, and victim signaling by the right's most prominent political and media figures. This is a tragic unforced error.
Complaining either comes from a victim, villain, or hero. Individuals and movements on the left are usually caught in either the victim or hero perspective. A hero *only* sees victims and villains in the world, and will even create them in order to survive. Similarly, a victim only sees villains and heroes.
There is no leftist monopoly on this phenomena, just as there is no conservative monopoly on conspiracy theories. But the primacy or centrality of these things to the identity of the progressive movement is not comparable.
Adam..I totally get the anti wokism. But 4 things 1) your first paragraph describes Trump to a tee…you nailed it! He has a three-way split personality. Seriously I could give examples of how his statements and actions masterfully play out each of those three. 2) As Dems who want to return to sanity, we have to start at the local levels. The vast majority of Dems aren’t progressives or extreme leftists. Seems Biden has to cater to them sometimes because he needs those votes as much as trump needs the MAGA crowd. 3) I share much of your anger at what’s going on in (some) public schools re gender. That’s why local politics and school boards are key. Organize and let parents be heard. The MAGA crowd sure does. 4) have you read the 2025 report? It’s the blueprint for Trumps presidency. And on education they will dismantle public schools and turn that money over to private charter, parochial and home schoolers, etc. It’s happening in my home state; the most frightening take over by half illiterate goons. The GOP hasnt “ given up “ on public education, they just don’t want it, period. That should give you pause. A good free public education made this country, and there is no reason on earth why this country can’t offer an excellent, free, classic liberal education.
I would extend that to arguments for federalism, and a general position that it is increasingly difficult (and less appropriate) to govern and legislate at each granularity of social / community group -- and impossible to do so effectively on issues with near-even split distribution of opinions.
The problem is that -- just like the RIGHT has many examples of how under-education drives incoherent beliefs and preferences -- the left has become significantly misled around the role of the federal government, the president, and the Supreme Court in their lives.
In terms of system optimization, we should be communists in our communities, libertarian as a country, and conservative as a species. (See: Karl Hess)
While abandoning identity politics would certainly dull Trump’s appeal, a return to science, reason and meritocracy would not based on the primary predictor of whether or not someone supports Trump: education level.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-big-weakness-vs-trump-voters-without-college-degrees-reutersipsos-poll-2024-06-01/
If we insist on putting success and a sense of dignity out of reach of people who struggle in academic environments, these people will understandably continue to reject a meritocracy that does not recognize the worth of those on the other side of the diploma divide, whether they be a soldier, a cop, a caregiver, a plumber or a truck driver.
There is a significant cohort of educated and affluent people who support Trump because his policies (reducing taxes for corporations and high earners, gutting regulations) benefit them in the principle thing they care about: growing their wealth. (They also like a segmented society where the lower classes are kept in their place.) I live in an affluent zip code (fully aware that luck in life is not equitably distributed), and it's shocking how many of them support Trump.
No doubt that there are voters of all education levels that support both candidates. But 3 out of 5 voters in 2020 did not have a college degree. And Biden has lost 10% of these voters’ support compared to this same point in the last presidential campaign. He is primarily a weaker candidate due to his inability to retain support from people without college degrees and this extends into his flagging popularity with black and Latino voters.
I believe he’s the less-favored candidate due almost exclusively to his age. America has a conception of itself as a young, brash, tall, strong, leader of the world, broad-shouldered and indefatigable. Reagan projected that. Even Obama in that famous picture of him towering over Putin, scowling down at him, projected that. That’s why JFK hid his Addison’s disease and FDR his polio. (I think I saw a study somewhere that showed that the shorter candidate has never won in a presidential race.)
I really think that’s a large part of Trump’s appeal. Biden is not how America wants to think of itself. It’s not just the cognitive decline, it’s the fragility, the feebleness, that’s so hard for us to look at. Trump, for all his manifest stupidity, corruption, moral failings, etc., etc., comes across as more vigorous and forceful. Biden talks at a whisper; Trump barks. Biden walks slowly and unsteadily; Trump does his stupid dance moves at his rallies — but moves nonetheless. Biden’s eyes are like slits, his face an immovable death mask; Trump mugs for the camera with funny expressions.
If Biden were 20 years younger, it wouldn’t even be a contest. Never underestimate the power of the pretty wrapping paper and ribbon in the appeal of a gift.
True. However, Trump’s tax cuts were unbelievably generous to the top 1 percent. And the bottom 60%? You know the drill, trickle down economics. .I’m so sick of it.
Corporate taxes were slashed as well:
“Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.”
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver
“Jeff Bezos, a key figure in modern business, saw a massive increase in his net worth from $107 billion in early 2023 to $177 billion a year later, marking a $70 billion gain, according to Fortune. This equates to an increase of $191,780,822 per day or about $7,990,868 per hour.” Yahoo News
No, but if the left returned to these principles the calculus for moderates on who to support would change and the Democratic leader would win independents.
Agree on the perspective on wokeism, but that doesn’t seem to justify a protest vote to me. I do share your frustration, and in my most cynical moments have thought, “Maybe the left deserves Trump.” But I have to agree with others here that Biden has for the most part governed competently (foreign policy aside).
What I hold the Democratic Party most guilty for right now is failing to hold Biden to his word on a a second term, and failing to foresee the likely outcome of a rematch. However, I’ve thought a ton about the counter factual. I wonder if both Biden and his advisors took a hard look at stepping aside, realized it would mean a Trump/Kamala face off, and reluctantly took the bitter pill of a 2020 rematch. I don’t see how stepping aside even two years ago would have led to anything else, especially given the woke climate. Who would have handed that memo to Madam Vice President?
I don't think Biden's handling of the border, or of debt/inflation, or of title9, or of Israel and the mentally ill and morally confused generation of children on US college campuses etc. represents the moderate positions he campaigned from.
All of these things and more represent vectors of departure from moderate positions. But Gavin Newsom would be worse.
I understand the sentiment and agree with it up until the point of "message sending". It is still important to have a clear understanding of how to weight the problems on the left and the right, and even if one believes the left is worse in many respects, they don't extend to the democratic candidate for the presidency. A second Trump term is to jeopardize democracy in America, and flawed as the left is, Biden is not anti-democratic. We can hate our choices, and be angry that this is the situation we find ourselves in, but care for your future circumstance as well. I will not be the regretful individual who willingly threw away, or sat on my hands as the ability to choose representative leadership disappeared. I look forward to new and more abundant choices, but until then, the choice is quite clear.
There may be some definition of “wokeism” that’s unambiguously inconsistent with reason and sober science, and rest. But somebody needs to make a better effort than I’ve seen to provide it. Maybe Sam has done so. Usually, it seems to be a name given to a loose set of excesses that include such things as racial identity, gender fluidity and hyperjargony relativistic philosophy. By all means let’s criticize what we don’t like about these things, but let’s not imagine there’s some powerful juggernaut at work, or even an ideology that could win the unanimous endorsement of the Yale English Department. This stuff is often wrong, sometimes illiberal, and does seem to misguide lots of college students. But it’s almost entirely without meaningful power, and how on earth can we talk about it in the same paragraph with Trumpism, or global warming, or nuclear war, or artificial intelligence? I’m really asking.
"When I refer to wokeism, I'm referencing a wrapper term of a very specific set of beliefs, ideas, politics, behaviors, and other social persuasion tactics that I'm guessing anyone on Sam's substack could name with 90% consistency.
- Critical race theory, and the position that America is systemically racist
- Gender ideology, and the position that gender identity should trump sex in most social applications
- cancel culture as a means of social warfare (note: cancel culture is a specific tool apart from boycott or even simpler market punishment)
- general disregard for the consequences of massive social-institutional overhaul
- the evolution of liberal humanism into a primacy of individual emotion over reason and consensus in the derivation of truth (see: "my truth")
These are some or all of the things I believe are very consistently referred to when we say woke. Obviously not all liberals are progressive, not all progressives are "woke", but the relationships are fully encompassing in the other direction."
Fair enough, and plausible enough. But for me there’s still a problem when we invoke the term — a term I admit I use as a shorthand, too — as a disparagement of so much at the same time. I mean it’s a fat target: Does anyone defend “wokeism,” per se? I wish I had a term that meant something like, “humane, liberal wokeism.” Something that captures the features of the phenomenon that are worth preserving, like its default stance toward empathy for the less fortunate, curiosity about the new and different, politeness towards people who are messing with our pronouns, etc.
Excellent response. It’s tough to elaborate but I think you captured it well!
Thank you! -- Dan
I did, in response to some other comment somewhere around here.
Agreed! Well said.
I defined what I meant by wokeism elsewhere, here. And I forgot to include DEI (unclever and transparent wordsmithing of racism as a means to justify it when applied to some groups rather than others.)
Feel free to defend the constitutient parts of wokeism if you like. I'm not hiding behind the abstraction. It's the individual social devolutions AND what they represent as a trend that I oppose -- and what a seemingly increasing share of Europeans and Americans are rejecting, based on headlines week after week.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts Sam on why America seems unable to produce a leader that embodies the principles and moral conviction that built the country into what it is today. It seems too simplistic to blame this mostly on social media.
Matt… commenting from Canada .. but I thought you recently had a president who embodied those principles. Obama …..
He was intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate. Decisions were made with thoughtful deliberation. I’m sure folks could parse 4 years of decisions. But if I recall he took on the responsibility of president at a profoundly difficult economic time .. and incrementally helped improve life for both Americans and others in the Global community. Compared to Trump the differences are quite profound… anyway.. just a couple of thoughts 🙂
Also Canadian- Trump is heinous of course. However, it’s the degraded consciousness of the American people that confounds me. Without fully half of the entire population of America voting for him, there would be no Trump.
Without guns, there would be no mass or school shootings.
From north of the border, Trump is not the subject of the decline in American society but the object of it.
Americans obviously want him, and are also willing partners in a culture of violence, criminality, high illiteracy rates, high maternal death rates and so many other metrics of a social rotten to the core. There is a reason that crime-pornography shows like Criminal Minds gain traction in America because they mirror society. Trump is a small part of the problem.
Hi Linda … hmm that’s a tad bit harsh on our cousins 🙂… there was a nice clip of Thom Hanks talking about the American constitution and how the object of the American union is to strive towards a more perfect union … there will always be downs and ups … but generally always moving towards ‘better’ almost like the way Sam Harris talks about human the human condition. I feel this is what the US is going through.
Also, keep in mind in the last three American elections a majority of Americans voted for Obama, Hillary, and Joe Biden. The electoral collage maybe needs a little updating LOL 🙂. Also, while there are profoundly too many basically unhinged cult like MAGA folks, I think there are also a a lot of silent sane.. reasonable Republicans who just seem to want Trump because they’re becoming somewhat isolationist globally (similar to the US prior to their entry into WW2). This is a very sad trend which is unfortunately occurring at a time when strong global leadership is so very very badly needed in light of the problems humanity is facing (climate change and global stability among the two most pressing).
Great points!
We've got Joe Biden and Kamala Harris now among other strong Dem leaders...both "embody the principles of moral conviction that built this country." So did Obama. You must mean: why can't Republicans produce these kinds of leaders.
You consider Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be good representatives of your country? I’m afraid I can’t provide the help you need if so.
Obviously and for demonstrable reasons I do...no help wanted.
The standard has lagged considerably in the 21st century.
If you think about great American leaders through history, they all came at times of peril. Things may be shaping up for the next one to appear.
There are no incentives to make things better. The incentive is always for the minority party to sabotage the majority party so the minorities can win the next election. It just goes back and forth like that forever.
Is stasis the goal of life? Or is it mutation and acquisition? Wealth hoarding?
Pretty simple I think: the country can only be as good as its people, and as Socrates warned us—if you have idiots for people then Democracy becomes dangerous.
Unfortunately everything other than Democracy is worse, so the only path forward is making the people less stupid.
The question is pretty broad, Matt. One way to rephrase it is, “Why don’t we produce leaders today with the principles and moral convictions of yesterday?” Then I think the answer is more obvious - we have different principles and morality. It’s been said countless other places, but I think it’s true - there are fewer coherent ideas in a modern, complex, globally connected world that bind us together as a nation than there were some 240 years ago.
Excepting the foresight of men like Hamilton and Madison, the questions that faced the founders were few, and far simpler than the ones we face today. I don’t mean to belittle the achievements of our founders, but just to point out that, “Should we have a king?” is a very different question from, “Does it infringe the first amendment rights of Americans to force the divestment of a massive social media company owned by an entity beholden to a foreign adversary?”
If we are to elect leaders that embody *any* set of principles, we’d do well to clarify and simplify that set. This relates to a remedy suggested by Martin Guri in The Revolt of the Public: to be more realistic about the scope of responsibility we can entrust in the federal government. One commenter above mentions Biden’s culpability in handling the moral confusion on campus. Just as I don’t think it's Harvard’s responsibility to speak up on the Israel/Palestine war, I also don’t believe the executive branch should be held accountable for dumb ideas on campus.
Let’s first agree on and reduce the scope of the principles we’d like to see in our leaders, then we might address why they’re lacking.
Zizek called Trump “the first postmodern president” even though his entire schtick revolves around paying lip service to nationalistic conservatism. I think there’s something to that. As Sam often mentions, it’s hard to imagine Trump genuinely having any deep regard for higher level moral values, outside of his own enrichment and ego.
And in a way, that’s somewhat fitting for America. Sure, we were founded on very high level principles. But in practice, modern capitalism has been anything but humanistic. It seems fitting, then, that this “mirage” of morality manifested in a human counterpart in Trump.
We have to fix our culture first, it won’t be cured by one individual. Although he certainly didn’t make it any easier.
Leadership flows from the zeitgeist. America is defined by Alex Jones and Justice Alito as much as it is by Trump or Biden. I believe that this over exposure to the leaders and Trumps possible use of the “n” word clouds and obfuscates the heart of the problem in America which is a recognition that even that “sin” will not deter Trump supporters because racism may be alive and well in his base. This is my concern. That his misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, conspiracy theorist and more merely reflect the collective unconscious of half of the American people.
Many factors play a role: 1) education (!) is poor & getting worse 2) inequality is rising in part due to unbridled neoliberalism. Easy to point finger at immigrants and Chinese, then vote alt right. 3) Narrative of ideology and patriotism by alt right feeding into point 2. Easy sell. 4) post covid : people now believe corrupt government taking away “our” freedom and big pharma wanting to make money and experiment on us. 5) amplification of this misinformation by social media algorithms 6) out of date political system which h only allows two candidates , democrats vs republicans. The huge amount of money needed from donors means any government / president elected is already compromised from the beginning: corruption is built into the system. 7) fake news and manipulation of feeds by AI and outside influences ( Russia / Chinese generating rafts of fake reports and bots )
I wonder if we shouldn't be more carefully examining the incentive structures of the current system and trying to remedy those where the incentives go "the wrong way". Whatever our political leanings, surely we can agree that elected officials should be promoting policies in the best interests of the voters who put them in office rather than spending all their time fundraising and kowtowing to donors with the deepest pockets. I am sure representatives from both parties do this though it might be somewhat skewed.
Saying that Trump is the most dangerous leader in the world is obviously crazy. I paid $100 for this, expecting high-level content, not this.
Cult leader, Joao. Cult leader...
Yes, sorry, it wasn't intentional, I remembered it later and put it in the next comment. If I could I would edit my comment, but I still think you are wrong to exaggerate this.
You are saying that someone who has at least 45% support of the American people is a cult leader. Come on, please discuss his policies that he supported or pushed during his presidency. Let’s separate his personality (not good) from his policies and focus there.
Hi Joao,
Yes you are right there are other dangerous leaders in the world. Hoefer, I think what Sam was indicating with regards to the danger of Donald Trump. Is Trumps inability not only to accept the results of American democratic elections, but to somehow say the entire election is rigged. This is jeopardizing the American political system (or at least trust in it), and this system and America and Americans have been a cornerstone of global stability and prosperity for the last century.
Timothy, the Democrat party has opened a pandora's box by resorted to using the judicial to defeat an opponent, rather than defeating him at the ballot box. They're using banana republic tactics, and sadly (like Harry Reid's changing the rules for judiciary votes in the senate) this will come back to bite the Democrats and America in the butt. In the previous two elections I didn't vote from Trump, but I will this time, in response to the democrats appallingly cavalier disregard for democratic elections by weaponization of the judiciary to defeat their opponent. This country has always been above resorting to such tactics.
Wasn't John Edwards prosecuted for very much the same thing? Had Trump not tried to write off the payment as a business expense, which it was not, he would not find himself in this situation.
Wow did you watch the trial? See the ample evidence? DAs go after large firms that cheat the government all day long. These thieves made mistakes that set off red flags so after an investigation, fraud was found, rampant fraud. So you think they should have looked the other way? Go ahead and vote for him if that’s what you think. I’ll stick with law and order no matter who commits the crimes.
Are you not aware that DA Alvin Bragg campaigned for office saying that he'd go after Trump - he'd FIND something to indict him on? You don't think a right-leaning DA somewhere could do the same to Hillary Clinton, or Biden once he's out of office? For public figures in business or politics, one shouldn't be so naive to think that it's real difficult for a politically motivated DA to find something on which an indictment can be had, especially in a district where the indicted person is highly unpopular (e.g. Trump in Manhattan). Due process, like free speech, is for everyone, including those you may detest.
What is your evidence? Fox News? When Bragg became AG he refused to take the case.
Sadly, most media sources have a political bias. Some claim it and own it (e.g. Fox and MSNBC) while others pretend to be unbiased, but that pretense is transparently false to all but the most undiscerning consumers. Back to your point, Alan Dershowitz (politically on the left) is one of many good sources of well-informed legal analysis and information about this case and about the politically motivated Manhattan DA office that brought it.
You know, what you are saying is that Presidential candidates can get off free while other business people pay fines and go to jail. The first year Bragg was in office, he prosecuted 34 New Yorkers on similar crimes. Ever think he wanted to get Trump (who had a reputation for breaking the law) just like many AGs want to get those try guys who are hard to get. Even more important, I think if you think you want the privilege to be President, then you better have a clean record. I know that’s a crazy idea, right?? If you don’t, there are two options…fess up honestly or DONT RUN. Trump had Sessions and Barr “go after” H Clinton….they found nothing. If they had, I’d be all for throwing the book at her…and I’m a Democrat. Speaking of Clintons,surely you remember Ken Starr? Congress is busy right now trying to tie Biden to his son’s and family business dealings. If they ever do turn something up, indictable offenses, I say throw the book at Biden. Doing anything less just feeds the machine and we’d have no reason to complain about corruption in our government.
"You know, what you are saying is that Presidential candidates can get off free while other business people pay fines and go to jail" - where did I say that?? That's right, I didn't. I wish we could all agree to not tolerate those who bend the legal system for political purposes. I don't like Trump either, but for those who think Biden is better, the answer is to defeat him at the ballot box and not in the courtroom. It troubling to see people who are so committed to defeating Trump that they'll turn a blind eye to what the Democrats are doing to bury him, without any recognition of the glass house in which the Democrats live. Thinking that Biden and H Clinton couldn't be indicted for similar past actions is naively cute. One shouldn't be so naive as to think that indictments are difficult to obtain. Anyone who has had the experience of sitting on a grand jury knows that. Prior to the statute of limitations expiring, it would have been easy for a DA somewhere to come up with an indictment of H Clinton for a similar bookkeeping entry for the millions of dollars she spent for the Steele Dossier. As for Biden, the prosecutor investigating his handling of documents illegally taken after he was VP declined to indict Biden because of his age and senility. And the millions Hunter obtained from Ukraine and China, with Hunter on record saying that "10% is reserved for the big man", are an exceptionally easy target. What we should all do (political left and right) is inform ourselves and vote accordingly. We should all agree to not distort the legal system, and use it for political gain.
Thanks for the reply. I understand that and I worry about it too, but it doesn't justify calling him the most dangerous cult leader in the world. He effectively transferred power and did not cause any wars. There's no comparison with Hamas, Putin, or the president of North Korea.
I feel Sam is getting at the stakes. America is a stabilizing force and the only country to ever experiment with true democracy. Revisionist history aside, America represents a beacon to the world. It is not ego or hubris to put that much emphasis on what we represent, failing to grasp the weight is the problem. Enter Trump, or rather the sociocultural underpinnings that elicited his rise. His near total abandonment of our country’s values is why the global signals and zeitgeist he created has decimated modern thought and America to the world. Please don’t extrapolate this to an approval of the left, as it has its own problems… this is independent and Trump earned this critique all by himself. His effects and the stakes are what make him “the most dangerous cult leader.” Putin, Hamas, North Korea as tragic as their effects are, are small ( partly trigger from the destabilization from the West) in global zeitgeist changes and global effects.
I understand but in my opinion the woke left and the dishonesty represented by Biden is even worse. If Sam were the Democrat candidate I would vote for him
I agree completely, but for the fact that it’s worse. Right and left’s Trump obsession is what is killing our politics. Trump is exceptionally charismatic and easily followable. He garners people because he has such deep need for approval that speaks to many of us. He seems flawed like us… not a wooden packaged politician. Yet, this has determinants. The boring political factory is what keeps our democracy alive. A sideshow doesn’t. If you want my true assessment of the left, they are why he rose and continues to dominate. Bragg basically campaigned for Trump with this trial… Trump’s donation sites crashed from the support post-verdict.
Obama laid the apparatus of identity politics (IP) and Trump was the match that signaled to all the institutions to double down on IP. Social media allowed the conversations to never evolve recirculating crap until DEI and CRT are the way of life in institutions. Covid broke our trust in experts and now we think no one knows better… Balkanized thought.
I believe thing needs to be said about wokism. I am deeply concerned and loath post-modern baby of viewing all life by power dynamics. I believe this will be the true legacy of eokidm because our legal has codified this thought in legislation. As for woken as a whole, there’s no applicability when you really think about it. This will weed out because most people don’t relate. It’s already beginning.
Bottom line, the right and left are in a toxic marriage. What’s truly happening is more religious people are having children and less secular people are. This will create the environment for tyrant to rise. True believers are dangerous and this seems to be our path. Speaking to historical patterns, it’s hard to not see it this as developing.
Andre: Is saying he’s “flawed like us” really such a good thing? Why are we obsessed with our leaders being just like us, human frailty and all? It’s a very postmodern attitude, IMO, how we laugh at any notion of human flourishing, having more utopian societies, or having aspirational leaders.
It’s like the total inversion of Plato’s “Philosopher King” theory of governing. Instead of a council of wise sages leading us, we elected the court jester.
In seriousness… I suppose I understand it on some basic level though.
If Hegel’s model was correct—if we all realized the idealism of Obama was a fraud—it makes sense that a character like Trump would replace him. He’s a human being who makes no attempt at moral posturing (and how could he?) Followed by an even more empty shell politician like Biden, etc. But what is the synthesis of these two extremes?
Still, I don’t like being “relatable” is that important. We might be evolved apes, still obsessed with emotions, etc. But that’s something we should outgrow.
I don't understand how one can say it is the "only country to ever experiment with true democracy." The electoral college is one way to do democracy, as is gerrymandering, but neither are based on one person, one vote. In Brazil, Bolsonaro lost because every vote counted equally. The United States is unique in other ways, but some of that is positive, and some negative. Free speech culture in the United States is in many respects exemplary. The corrupting effects of campaign contributions not so much.
The modern system we have has drastically been socialized and the competing interests of a two party system has certainly led to some of the results you mention. When I said “true democracy,” I meant it epistemically. The idea of America and what the framers laboriously debated over, is the only system to experiment with true democracy. Could I put a caveat on that and say “as close to democracy as we can get,” yes, but it’s unnecessary. True democracy without checkpoints could be a nightmare actually, but when we speak of America’s democracy it’s a distilled variety. Modern issues don’t sour the idea, as we are a country with a rare constitution.
Hi André. I don't really have time to make a full argument here, but I feel that you really haven't made a case for "true democracy," so much as asserted a case of American exceptionalism. What is missing is a comparison of our Constitution with those of other countries (e.g., Brazil) who have their own 'experiments' in democracy, and whose constitutions more robustly address modern problems. For example, the outsized power of our Presidents arises from the complete failure of our Constitution to foresee the problem, let alone prevent it in any way. (And there are many examples, including the presidential appointment of an attorney general who is under his control.) .
Not incidentally (and relevant to the consideration of the Trump-inspired, and -led, bad-faith conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results) Brazil adjudged Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to run a similar campaign, of attacking the "Democratic State" (the term used in the Brazilian constitution), and rendered sentence by preventing him from running until 2030. Brazil had its own "January 6" (actually on January 8, 2023) but even Bolsonaro's own party could not support those directly responsible. They simply (and properly) advocated for the detainee's constitutional rights.
“He effectively transferred power” — really though? A failed and half-baked coup is still a coup. It’s willful ignorance if you choose to believe Trump did not actually intend to stay in power. And he will do so again.
I didn't say that. I said he transferred power and was minimally civilized, there are worse leaders. But I thank you for your comment and I also have this concern, which is really very serious.
It's probably more accurate to say that power was transferred (because he didn't have the power to stop it) and he was not very civilized about it.
He begrudgingly transferred power when the military (part of the "deep state" apparently) began actively protecting Biden as the President-elect. Sam actually mentioned this in a few podcasts in 2020. If Trump had achieved the genuine constitutional crisis we were minutes away from seeing, at one point on January 6th, he'd likely still be in office.
Hi Joao… i hear ya… I guess we’ll find out about the latter if he wins a second term ..hmm 🤔..🙂😂😂
It's probably not useful to split hairs over who is the most dangerous leader (of any type), but considering that the U.S. is still the military, economic, and media center of gravity, it is at least arguable that Trump can cause much more devastation than Putin, Jinping, Kim, et cetera. Particular when it comes to 2nd and 3rd order consequences for global norms, ecology, and the mostly positive trends we've recently started to appreciate for our species.
And Trump seems to admire a great many of them.
I doubt that, he says that to try to have good relations with them. I heard that he was actually not a president who favored China and Russia. Sam Harris used to be an intelligent guy, so it was very strange to see him talking nonsense about Trump. It gives the impression that he has something to do with the Democratic party. At the same time, I liked Sam and tended to trust him. I've been confused about him in the last few years.
You don’t think he admires Putin or Orban?
I heard insiders involved in these policies say that Trump was not favorable to China and Russia, which makes me think that in fact he doesn't like these regimes at all, it's just a facade.
And that is the problem right there. Being okay with the veneer, the feint… and playing those games so surreptitiously and flippantly is the problem. This is what we’ve come to. Reading between the lines of his act (like what he means when he says he’ll end the war… he’ll either be all in or all out, it’s our gamble). I’m not suggesting reading between the lines in politics is new. It just used to pertain to figuring out elected officials’ policy decisions… not public visage. What we don’t realize is all this guessing of what Trump really means and the “fun” it seems to be to play the game with the wink and twinkle belongs nowhere near the arena of politics, rather the world of acting. It signals to not take things seriously. That’s the damage.
Who and where do you "hear" these things Joao? You "heard he was not a president who favored China and Russia" but then we've heard with Trump's own words many time as to how he feels about Putin and Russia. Who are you hearing this from? Actual insiders of Trump's inner circle? Sorry, just need a little clarification because Trump has been pretty consistent about how he feels about Russia and Putin.
How is it obviously crazy?
There are people much worse than him, as I mentioned above.
Neither Trump's criminal conviction, nor Trump losing in November, solve the deep sociocultural problems that put him in office in the first place. But his being acquitted and/or winning the election would make all those problems much, much worse.
I don’t think it’s half the American population. There are 340 million Americans. 74 million people voted for him. The problem is that one of the two major parties worships him. We need to overwhelmingly vote for Biden and work to reform our democracy in the short term.
I live in Madrid and cannot believe what I see from here. I have an interest in global affairs but am not an expert on US politics. Everyone here knew about Trump and his various affairs and women issues well before he became president, from the limited reporting.
To find him guilty now on the basis that a trivial payment was impactful for his election makes the US look no better than Russia in its fairness in court. It makes me scared to travel to the US fir holidays, just as I would not go to Russia. It seems so sad to me
This was not about affairs and women issues. This was about illegal bookkeeping that happened in the immediate time before the election and an attempt to sway the election by covering up evidence. In the US we have a system whereby there is a grand jury to whom evidence is presented, and that large group of citizens (16 - 23 people) who weigh the evidence and decide whether or not to indict on the basis of which charges. All of that takes place before any matter goes to court. Many issues never get past the grand jury if they are frivolous. If the grand jury indicts, there is an extensive period called "discovery" during which both sides put together their evidence and share it. All of this happens before there is any appearance in court. It's a long, tedious, and thorough process presided over by the judge who is assigned by lottery, not by choice. Then for conviction, there must be a unanimous agreement on the part of the jurors who were selected by a process that includes both the prosecuting and defense lawyers in conjunction with the judge. So, Richard, unless you plan to really screw up, you can feel safe coming to the US. Trump really screwed up. He disobeyed 34 separate laws in order to get this jury verdict.
I feel like pasting your response in half the sub-threads here. Well said. Not sensationalized. Just calmly explaining the US system of justice. Is it perfect? No. Is it like Russia? Good lord, no.
Yes yes yes
Here is a deeper dive.
In allowing the charges against Trump to proceed, Justice Merchan, the trial judge in Trump's case, relied on (1) a Federal Election Commission ruling that held American Media (National Enquirer) in violation of federal election law for making an illegal donation to the Trump campaign by paying hush money to Karen McDougal (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/01/national-enquirer-owner-trump-campaign-491557) and (2) Michael Cohen's guilty plea to making illegal contributions in the very same scheme Trump was charged with.
Merchan concluded that there was sufficient evidence presented to the Grand Jury that there was a conspiracy to have David Pecker and Michael Cohen make payments to Stormy Daniels, amounting to illegal campaign contributions on this same theory. Here is what Judge Merchan said in allowing the case to go forward (and thus go to the jury):
"This Court finds that there was legally sufficient evidence presented to the Grand Jury of the Defendant’s intent to violate FECA ("Federal Election Campaign Act"). It is a crime under FECA for any person to make contributions to any candidate seeking election to federal office, and his authorized political committees, which exceeds $2,000 during a single calendar year. FECA also establishes $25,000 limit on contributions made by corporations. The evidence before the Grand Jury was legally sufficient to show that the Defendant, along with Cohen and Pecker, among others, planned to promote Defendant’s presidential campaign by purchasing and suppressing information that could negatively impact Defendant’s campaign. The amount Pecker and Cohen paid exceeded allowable federal limits established by FECA. Indeed, Cohen pled guilty to violating FECA and served a prison term as a result of his involvement m this scheme. Likewise, the Federal Election Commission (“FEC”) found that AMI and Pecker also violated FECA as a result of the payments. Evidence presented to the Grand Jury that the Defendant discussed the above plan with Cohen and then reimbursed Cohen for his payment to Daniels is legally sufficient to establish the ) legally requisite intent to commit another crime, i.e,. FECA."
The jury was UNAWARE of this ruling, because they are not allowed to know of it. This ruling was just about whether the case could go forward on the prosecution's theory.
Here are the instructions that the jury received on the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) "predicate" crime. The instructions permit the jury to consider only "third party" payments, not payments made by President Trump himself:
NEW YORK ELECTION LAW § 17-152 PREDICATE
The People allege that the other crime the defendant intended to commit, aid, or conceal is a violation of New York Election Law section 17-152.
Section 17-152 of the New York Election Law provides that any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.
Under our law, a person is guilty of such a conspiracy when, with intent that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means, he or she agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct.
Knowledge of a conspiracy does not by itself make the defendant a co-conspirator. The defendant must intend that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means. Intent means conscious objective or purpose. Thus, a person acts with the intent that conduct be performed that would promote or prevent the election of a person to public office by unlawful means when his or her conscious objective or purpose is that such conduct be performed.
Evidence that defendant was present when others agreed to engage in the performance of a crime does not by itself show that he personally agreed to engage in the conspiracy.
Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.
THE FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ACT
The first of the People’s theories of “unlawful means” which I will now define for you is the Federal Election Campaign Act. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, it is unlawful for an individual to willfully make a contribution to any candidate with respect to any election for federal office, including the office of President of the United States, which exceeds a certain limit. In 2015 and 2016, that limit was $2,700. It is also unlawful under the Federal Election Campaign Act for any corporation to willfully make a contribution of any amount to a candidate or candidate’s campaign in connection with any federal election, or for any person to cause such a corporate contribution. For purposes of these prohibitions, an expenditure made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate or his agents shall be considered to be a contribution to such candidate.
The terms CONTRIBUTION and EXPENDITURE include anything of value, including any purchase, payment, loan, or advance, made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office. Under federal law, a third party’s payment of a candidate’s expenses is deemed to be a contribution to the candidate unless the payment would have been made irrespective of the candidacy. If the payment would have been made even in the absence of the candidacy, the payment should not be treated as a contribution. FECA’s definitions of “contribution” and “expenditure” do not include any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by a magazine, periodical publication, or similar press entity, so long as such activity is a normal, legitimate press function. This is called the press exemption. For example, the term legitimate press function includes solicitation letters seeking new subscribers to a publication.
FECA’s definitions of “contribution” and “expenditure” do not include any cost incurred in covering or carrying a news story, commentary, or editorial by a magazine, periodical publication, or similar press entity, so long as such activity is a normal, legitimate press function. This is called the press exemption. For example, the term legitimate press function includes solicitation letters seeking new subscribers to a publication.
So this wasn't about sex. It was about illegal campaign contributions -- the law was passed to prevent the corruption of elections by money. This was a relatively small amount -- the total amount expended was $450,000 which included the "gross-up" to cover taxes on the phony claim of income to Michael Cohen. But as it involved the President of the United States, it was important. Trump keeps saying 'if this happened to me, it could happen to you." In fact, if this didn't happen to Trump, then what does it say about the enforcement of election law?
There are strict campaign contribution laws in Spain. (See, https://europam.eu/?module=country-profile&country=Spain). Would you prefer that they not be enforced?
Your disdain for Mr. Trump is appropriate and well earned. I wonder though, if your disdain doesn’t reduce the opprobrium due both his predecessor and successor. Their abuses of executive power have set precedents our society will struggle to wrestle back. Donald Trump’s ascendence, and persistence, is in large part due to the disruption of norms perpetrated by these more socially acceptable bad actors. I loathe Donald Trump. But, I sometimes think having a scoundrel who is unable to hide his sociopathy is preferable to having one who hides his maleficence behind a winning smile and/or syrupy delivery. Our country is clearly headed in directions most of us don’t want. Calling out all those steering in that direction is, in my mind, a paramount responsibility.
Can you elaborate on the transgressions of Obama or Biden that you would consider similar to the myriad committed by Trump?
Obama wore a tan suit and Biden’s son is a scumbag.
Oh my. You think Obama and Biden abused executive powers. If Trump gets into office….we’ll we ain’t seen a nothin’ yet. One of the best ideas Trump has is, as President, to be chair of the Fed and have veto power on any appropriations by congress.p
Thanks for this...
Sam, I abhor Trump but think your description of him being a cult leader is a mischaracterization of his many supporters who have reservations about the man’s multiple character defects. But speaking of cults, I wonder if the progressive movement has grown so extreme and so powerful as to warrant greater concern than four more years of Trump. What am I missing?
It seems to me that you have to represent the progressive movement with Antifa or Free Palestine protestors to balance the scales in comparison with Trump and the MAGA cult. That is not actually reasonable outside of this wingnut scale. The difference is that progressives did not elect, and do not in majority support, these extremists, but the opposition did elect Trump, empower MAGA, and continue to support him.
The desperation of the GOP to survive as a minority party in a democratic environment is forcing worse and worse compromises of our norms and their integrity. I would argue this has been going on since Eisenhower.
So, I don't know how to explain this to people that support Trump while recognizing his negative traits. What we are missing, to answer your question, is what our values are and how we are prioritizing them. And I don't know any values/priorities matrix that computes a solution that supports Trump. Even the most anarcho-individualist, superficial-materialist combination fails because for Trump there can only be one. He's like the Highlander of gameshow hosts that also insists on being a contestant and the only contestant allowed to win.
KD, we are looking at the same screen but seeing different movies.
I didn’t equate the progressive movement with Antifa and the pro-Jihadist crowd; they constitute only most extreme segment of the Progressive movement; more generally, Progressives represent a sizable portion of the population from whom the cream of the crop comes to dominate the education system, the media, publishing and the entertainment businesses, and most major corporations from the Silicon Valley to, for a brief moment, a woke Anheuser-Busch.
Maybe you can help me: I’m hard-pressed to name any part of our culture or society, any of the commanding heights, that aren’t all but controlled by progressives.
Non-progressives - by which I mean “MAGA” types as well as many independents and old-school leftists - feel alienated, if not threatened by this Progressive hegemony. If there is any “desperation,” as you say, it’s because easily half of the population is concerned about what is being taught in elementary schools and universities, what is being reported as “objective journalism,” what is being thematically conveyed in Disney animations, what is being manipulated by social media algorithms.
That these progressive redoubts are run by people who weren’t elected is more than beside the point; there is a widespread perception that the “non-political” institutions of this country practice systemic bias with extreme prejudice. People shouldn’t be faulted for seeing that affirmative action has ignored Appalachia, that DEI is hostile to diversity of thought. The non-political power centers have all become progressive versions of the “Whites Only” Country Clubs of yore.
Yes, “norms and integrity” have worsened, but the GOP is hardly a “desperate” minority party that has singularly exacerbated any of this (again, its members would argue the opposite). Pew reports partisan breakdown as nearly equal: 49% of the voters identify or lean Democrat, 48% identify or lean Republican, while 35% consider themselves Independent. Hence the narrowly decided presidential elections over several decades, hence the current narrow margins in Congress.
You are on the money when you describe Trump as a game show host who insists he be the only winner. But when you write “no values/priorities matrix justifies supporting Trump,” you are concurring with Sam’s assertion that all Trump supporters are cult members. You see them as a zombie horde, mindless, soulless, and, to coin a phrase, deplorable.
I am not a Trump supporter, I consider myself part of Jonah Goldberg’s Remnant. But the many Trump supporters I know or meet seem decent enough. And I would bet most of them wouldn’t buy a used car from Donald Trump, let alone allow him to babysit their teenage daughter. Rather, they strike me as people who abhor the social, cultural and political landscapes mostly described above, and see Trump as a chemotherapeutic answer to all of it. And, mark this, they are certainly more motivated to vote Orange when they hear themselves being dismissed as moral idiots without redemption or agency. Trump is thus as much a creation of the progressive left as any MAGA ideology. Some people need to look in the mirror when bemoaning the rise of Trump.
Okay Marc I will put my hand up for calling my neighbors zombies but to be fair I think my far left relatives are zombies too! I think of them as zombies because on either side of the political spectrum reason has no voice. They are fed what they want to hear. My hair dresser asked me what I thought about Mexico opening it's jails and making convicts come to the United States. My relative believes that eating vegan will cure all the ills of the world including climate change and cancer. I don't think the MAGA crowd or the Far Left are moral idiots. I think we live in our own silos of information created by narrow AI programs designed to keep our eyes on the screen, All of our reality is fed through these programs. I literally have no social media accounts, gave up my iPhone for a clam shell and still struggle to find unbiased news reporting. I like my neighbors and friends but trying to change their minds is a lost cause ( also many of them are armed). I think Meta, Alphabet etc. are the ones to be blamed here. They are helping to destroy our democracy for money...
Louise, I like where you’re coming from & am envious of your digital hygiene. I do think there are zombies out there, among them the woke jihadists and Proud Boy types and an unfortunately long list of other fevered tribes on the fringe. I think they all inhabit silos that are a nanometer deep and wide, and in addition to being loathsome they give silos a bad name. Don’t we all, invariably, inhabit silos, forever and always? Aren’t there awesome silos to inhabit? The Library of Congress silo comes to mind. Sam’s post explicitly puts half of the electorate in a nanometer silo of certified malleable nincompoops, which is for him uncharacteristically unfair and unwise; I hope he changes his mind.
Which, I agree with you, is easier said than done. I’ve found that the things I’ve changed my mind about have all required a lot of time and pressure. The time takes time, the pressure takes a willingness to expand one’s silo. What we’re doing here is an example of the latter; while I can’t think of changing anyone’s mind over a single beer, I’d like to think that most people are capable of being nudged. And sometimes a nudge is all it takes to get something to roll. One reason I’d never blithely call someone a cult member is it’s so obviously a guaranteed way to fail at this. (Right, Sam?!)
Sorry Sam but these comments are basically Twitter. This place isn’t any better it seems
Why do you say that? I, seriously, have never seen Twitter, except reposts in Substack. So my question is sincere.
This may be the least consequential of the four felony cases but it is not inconsequential. Trump violated election laws to rig the 2016 election. If he is elected, he will never face justice for the documents case or trying to overturn the election because he will instruct his DOJ to drop the cases. The Georgia case is hopelessly mired in tangential issues. I do not expect Trump to lose a single vote over the NY felony convictions but at least there is some accountability even if for the least of his crimes.
Wow. The 2016 election was rigged, you say. You sound like somebody else.
Agree with your serious concerns. But it is not half the country that supports DT. We need to get louder and make sure more people vote. And we should never not hold him accountable out of fear of his base. It's def a solid cult but it is not expanding.
Citizen United allowed candidates like Trump to run. It was the beginning of the erosion of democracy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Trump or someone else, as long as citizen United exists, democracy is in danger. Follow the money.
With Trump, it appears to me from way Down Under, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. The alternative to allowing him to complain about political motivation and witch-hunting (which he's doing about all his trials) would be to give him what we in Australia would call a 'free kick', where he can continue with his provocations. How can?
At least trolls that comment here will now be paying to do so!
I just read Richard Hanania's (longer) piece on the same subject. Pretty much the same take from the intelligent right and the intelligent left. I find this encouraging. Would love to hear an H&H discussion.
Which is left and which is right? Just, curious, really; I don't know Hanania.
Left and right aren't what they used to be. I think Hanania considers himself on the non-MAGA right and Harris considers himself on the free market, anti-woke left. Since they are both extremely smart and well read, it isn't surprising they agree on this and much more - as one would hope when the facts are known and rationally analyzed.
As an outside observer, (Irish/British living in Australia), I have been confused and disturbed by what I see in the US. I get the frustration with left political correctness, and victim politics. I get the concern with gender politics and associated changes in education. However, if you dig into these issues, they are generally overblown and on the fringes of what actually impacts peoples day to day lives. Certainly the Murdoch press and other propaganda organs take every opportunity to amplify and distort these issues. The intellectual left, (university educated elites that are very far from working class), give them an open goal. When I look at the Democrats and what use to be the GOP, (pre-Trump), I see two fairly centre, to right of centre political parties, compared to UK, Irish or Australian political parties. Then I talk to some well educated American friends and discover that they honestly believe that the Democratic Party are basically communists, and Trump is fighting back, I just don't know how to respond. The Democrats are noting like communist or even social democrats. To me, it is clear that Trump is unusually a man devoid of any positive qualities. He may give voice to some legitimate concerns that people have. That is not difficult to do. It is clear that he is not the person to fix them. He is divisive, incapable of consensus politics, generally ignorant of how good governance works and not that interested anyway. It's all about him and his fragile ego. Despite having listened to all the excuses for why people support Trump and the failures of liberal politics, I cannot accept any of these arguments as legitimate reasons to hate the Democrats so much that Trump is an acceptable alternative. I hope America recovers soon from this act of self harm.
I can tell you most of these social issues (gender, lgbt, cancel culture, racial politics) are used as cannon fodder in the USA. Yet if you go into the streets and ask people, most humans you’ll encounter won’t name that as among their top 5 issues (and I say that as an LGBT person myself). People care about financial stability, jobs, education and opportunity, security, etc. They want the government to make their lives easier, especially the working-class majority.
Both Trump and Biden weaponize these issues. Perhaps they see them as the “only way” to gain appeal in our current era.
But I think we’ve learned the wrong lesson—perhaps even to our demise. Human rights and opportunities continue to be stripped away, yet we have to listen to politicians quarrel about the same social issues that have plagued us for half a century, while very little actually changes in a material sense.
It’s why the corporate Democrats would rather have a Trump victory than Bernie Sanders.