They Say What Everyone Is Thinking
March 11, 2016 10:03 AM Subscribe
"Savage has this down to a kind of science. And it works. His fans treat him like a philosopher-king. The Amazon reviews for his books are brimming with regular people hungry for a straight shooter who calls it like he sees it. It’s an easy performance to fall for." - Kaleb Horton on Michael Savage. The Trump appeal, and reaping what ring-wing media sows
The Truml appeal
Dear mods,
Please do not fix this typo. It is lovely.
Yours &c.
posted by dersins at 10:14 AM on March 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
Dear mods,
Please do not fix this typo. It is lovely.
Yours &c.
posted by dersins at 10:14 AM on March 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
you keep scrolling down, scrolling down, thinking, when's he going to ask "how did we fuck up this badly?"
but all you ever find is blame on someone else.
so, excellent article for mefi.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:15 AM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
but all you ever find is blame on someone else.
so, excellent article for mefi.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:15 AM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Mod note: fixed typo, sorry.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 10:25 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 10:25 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
posted by dersins at 10:26 AM on March 11, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by dersins at 10:26 AM on March 11, 2016 [7 favorites]
Looks like your Truml got trammelled.
posted by cortex at 10:27 AM on March 11, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by cortex at 10:27 AM on March 11, 2016 [10 favorites]
The say his son is a real Rockstar.
There's a reason my nickname for the stuff is "Weiner Juice".
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:27 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
There's a reason my nickname for the stuff is "Weiner Juice".
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:27 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I thought the pull quote was about Dan Savage, and I got real confused when I started reading the article.
posted by clawsoon at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2016 [29 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 10:28 AM on March 11, 2016 [29 favorites]
He's one of the more odious humans around, in my opinion. I had a relative fall under his spell and it was like a cult deprograming to get him to come back to reality.
posted by cell divide at 10:31 AM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by cell divide at 10:31 AM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
I once spent an hour and a half stuck in an Upstate New York cab with a driver who was a giant Michael Savage fan, a fact I was not aware of when I told him I was from San Francisco (or as he would call it, San Fran Sicko). It was a long cab ride, but I like to think that by the end, I had convinced him the SF was merely pretty crazy, rather than an absolute lunatic asylum where every 4th grader is given a set of hypodermic needles.
posted by zachlipton at 10:36 AM on March 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by zachlipton at 10:36 AM on March 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
You didn't tell him about start up culture and housing prices and counterprogram him with a different set of things to be enraged about?
posted by Artw at 10:40 AM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:40 AM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
You can hear Savage daily, ranting about red diaper doper babies, but you can't hear Stephanie Miller or Thom Hartmann because nobody in the Bay Area wants to hear liberal talk radio.
I used to tune in just to see if he was real, and he is very, very real. Know your enemy...
posted by Chuffy at 10:43 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I used to tune in just to see if he was real, and he is very, very real. Know your enemy...
posted by Chuffy at 10:43 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Jesus, I hadn't thought about Michael Savage in years, and I had no idea he was so popular and influential. (Yes, I am a citizen of Liberal Bicoastia.) I had an uncle who I'm sure would be a Trump supporter today if he were still around, and this article describes his outlook with vivid accuracy. To quote William Carlos Williams, "The pure products of America go crazy."
posted by languagehat at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by languagehat at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
you keep scrolling down, scrolling down, thinking, when's he going to ask "how did we fuck up this badly?"
Not entirely sure what you mean. He finds plenty of blame to go around, maybe some of it implied rather than wrapped up in a bow.
posted by blucevalo at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2016
Not entirely sure what you mean. He finds plenty of blame to go around, maybe some of it implied rather than wrapped up in a bow.
posted by blucevalo at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2016
I'm so glad the author quoted Eric Hoffer. The True Believer is probably the single best book on American politics I've ever read, especially for the modern era. Obama's 08 campaign seemed to copy entire chapters wholesale. Now Trump is doing the same (with a significant amount of overlap.) Hoffer was incredibly prescient for a book published in 1951.
posted by matrixclown at 10:47 AM on March 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by matrixclown at 10:47 AM on March 11, 2016 [12 favorites]
This article really doesn't do Michael Savage justice. He's a super interesting, super intelligent and very charismatic guy who appears to have suffered some sort of mental break in the 90s and has been living in a weird delusion ever since. I'm not exaggerating or trying to put him down. He actually talks about this all the time. He was a beatnik and got a PhD in horticulture, worked as a social worker, etc. Then he applied to be a dean at Berkeley, didn't get the job, and has been a warpath ever since.
I used to listen to his show a lot about 10 years ago, it was amazing. He'd rant for ten minutes about liberals and San Fran Sicko (where he lives), screaming at the top of his lungs, then take some deep breaths and opine openly if there was something wrong with him, if he should go see a shrink, then for the next five minutes he'd talk about the dinner he made the night before, the fresh ingredients he found at the farmer's market, the classical music he listened to while preparing it, watching the sunset over the bay, and how lovely life is when you stop and think about how amazing it is that a guy like him could be living this beautiful life.... AND THE RED DIAPER DEMOCRATS WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE IT ALL AWAY. It's both intoxicating and repellent in a really weird way.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:48 AM on March 11, 2016 [59 favorites]
I used to listen to his show a lot about 10 years ago, it was amazing. He'd rant for ten minutes about liberals and San Fran Sicko (where he lives), screaming at the top of his lungs, then take some deep breaths and opine openly if there was something wrong with him, if he should go see a shrink, then for the next five minutes he'd talk about the dinner he made the night before, the fresh ingredients he found at the farmer's market, the classical music he listened to while preparing it, watching the sunset over the bay, and how lovely life is when you stop and think about how amazing it is that a guy like him could be living this beautiful life.... AND THE RED DIAPER DEMOCRATS WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE IT ALL AWAY. It's both intoxicating and repellent in a really weird way.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:48 AM on March 11, 2016 [59 favorites]
I started reading "Savage" and thought of Dan Savage and it took a few seconds to realise this was not the Savage being talked about here. Ah well, too bad!
Maybe, maybe one day that other Savage will be a 73-year-old with a nationally syndicated, incredibly popular talk radio show about politics!
posted by bitteschoen at 10:49 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Maybe, maybe one day that other Savage will be a 73-year-old with a nationally syndicated, incredibly popular talk radio show about politics!
posted by bitteschoen at 10:49 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
you keep scrolling down, scrolling down, thinking, when's he going to ask "how did we fuck up this badly?"
Who's the "we" in this question? The intended audience for MTV news has 0 overlap with "people who were active in politics in the 80's and 90's." I'm old for the MTV news crowd, and the first election I could vote in was 2004. If you have a workable theory about how Trumpism and Michael Savage have grown because of MTV news... I'm all ears.
I think this is a really excellent explainer for lots of young folks. I've moved from a very conservative, much more rural area into a lefty metropolis in the last few years. In political conversations, I have to spend a considerable chunk of time explaining simple "who conservatives are and what they think the world is" to other young people.
There's a really interesting gap between trumpists and millennials w/r/t information sources. Most millennials use the internet for news and fact checking, and so their echo chambers tend to be like Tumblr or MeFi, where it's assumed that everyone has access to Wikipedia, and it's assumed that everyone is in a space where there are non-white, non-cis, non-male people exist and are real people.
The Trumpist echo chamber has almost opposite assumptions- the facts from "the media" and "the books" are suspect, and instead appeals are made to "common sense" which really just means "white man's gut reaction."
So Yeah, I don't think you can fairly blame anyone under 35 for elevating and reifying the Savage Trumpists version of "common sense", and I don't think you can fairly analyze the rise of Trump without talking about it.
How did we fuck up this badly?
We (young people/MTV news) didn't. They (80's/90's GOP&DEMs) did.
posted by DGStieber at 10:51 AM on March 11, 2016 [13 favorites]
Who's the "we" in this question? The intended audience for MTV news has 0 overlap with "people who were active in politics in the 80's and 90's." I'm old for the MTV news crowd, and the first election I could vote in was 2004. If you have a workable theory about how Trumpism and Michael Savage have grown because of MTV news... I'm all ears.
I think this is a really excellent explainer for lots of young folks. I've moved from a very conservative, much more rural area into a lefty metropolis in the last few years. In political conversations, I have to spend a considerable chunk of time explaining simple "who conservatives are and what they think the world is" to other young people.
There's a really interesting gap between trumpists and millennials w/r/t information sources. Most millennials use the internet for news and fact checking, and so their echo chambers tend to be like Tumblr or MeFi, where it's assumed that everyone has access to Wikipedia, and it's assumed that everyone is in a space where there are non-white, non-cis, non-male people exist and are real people.
The Trumpist echo chamber has almost opposite assumptions- the facts from "the media" and "the books" are suspect, and instead appeals are made to "common sense" which really just means "white man's gut reaction."
So Yeah, I don't think you can fairly blame anyone under 35 for elevating and reifying the Savage Trumpists version of "common sense", and I don't think you can fairly analyze the rise of Trump without talking about it.
How did we fuck up this badly?
We (young people/MTV news) didn't. They (80's/90's GOP&DEMs) did.
posted by DGStieber at 10:51 AM on March 11, 2016 [13 favorites]
"There’s another thing you can tell, if you listen to either of them long enough: These guys know it’s their day. They know their time has come. That’s a nightmarish thing, that’s Comet-Hale-Bopp-crashing-into-the-Pacific-Ocean horrifying, but that’s the GOP now. Anger won."
"The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
W. B. Yeats, in 1919.
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:54 AM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
"The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
W. B. Yeats, in 1919.
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:54 AM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
I started reading "Savage" and thought of Dan Savage and it took a few seconds to realise this was not the Savage being talked about here.
A Beginner's Guide to Savages
Good
Adam
Fred
Dan
Doc
Randy "Macho Man"
Steve Holland
Bad
Michael
Noble
Tonto
Queequeg
Friday
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:57 AM on March 11, 2016 [139 favorites]
A Beginner's Guide to Savages
Good
Adam
Fred
Dan
Doc
Randy "Macho Man"
Steve Holland
Bad
Michael
Noble
Tonto
Queequeg
Friday
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:57 AM on March 11, 2016 [139 favorites]
So... Can this pivot to center, as all conventional wisdom says it must to win elections? My gut feel is no way.
Will that matter? There I am less certain. I really don't know if this rolling ball of insanity can be stopped now.
posted by Artw at 10:57 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Will that matter? There I am less certain. I really don't know if this rolling ball of insanity can be stopped now.
posted by Artw at 10:57 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
For a generation repugnant trolls have been the most consistent face of the GOP: this clown, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, D'Souza, Mark Levin. I believe it's because of them that many of the people I grew up with are unable to engage with facts and are now Trump supporters. Last night I had one of the most depressing discussions I've ever had on Facebook, with a friend from childhood whom I'll always love. I provided MOUNTAINS of evidence of Trump's thuggery and racism (from the 1970s DOJ racial discrimination lawsuit to the Central Park 5 to the Birther BS to his hedging on accepting the endorsement of David Duke and the KKK to his encouragement of violence against protestors). Ray wasn't buying it, though. Said the videos I provided were lies and hoaxes and set-ups, and the Birther questions were legit. It made me want to cry. Fuck Michael Savage and fuck the rest of the trolls.
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:00 AM on March 11, 2016 [30 favorites]
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:00 AM on March 11, 2016 [30 favorites]
I worry that there are a substantial number of Trump Democrats and that they will vote.
posted by ethansr at 11:02 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ethansr at 11:02 AM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
This was one of those articles that manages to perfectly express what my own thinking would be if I'd thought things through.
Like the author, I've spent pretty much my whole life living with and working with the people who have this year come to love Trump. And like the author I've always been sort of baffled by the viewpoint that there was something weird or mysterious or sudden about Trump's popularity. He's popular because he's saying *exactly* what the people I've worked and lived with my whole life are saying.
andrewcooke Well, I'm not sure "we" fucked up at all. A certain percentage of people have an inherent xenophobic streak.
Where America gets weird is that we've only got two parties, so if a person like Trump can get even 35% or so of the Republicans voting for him, then the over 65% of the Republicans have to go along. In France or the UK he'd fit in just fine in any of the far right, racist, parties.
One thing that I think this article didn't touch on much, is that a lot of liberal minded people have fallen for the What's the Matter With Kansas trap.
This isn't about money for most Trump voters. Or, rather, at least it isn't mostly about money. They'd like more money and better jobs, but that's not at the top of the list.
Where liberals so often go wrong is thinking that economic populism can win over the type of person who supports Trump. It can't.
The Trump voting type of person is going to be perfectly content to keep the current crappy economic status quo, or even lose money, if it means hurting immigrants, black people, Hispanic people, gay people, etc. That is the top priority, not economic justice.
And, for a lot of Trump voting type people, there's something repellent and inherently immoral or wrong about economic justice. I was talking unions with a guy once and he kept complaining about this and that, and I kept asking what the problem was? Why was he objecting to higher wages and better benefits and having more power? As nearly as I can recall it, he answered:
"Look, the boss is **SUPPOSED** to have the power, he's the boss, he's in charge, we're not supposed to be stealing that from him."
To him, maintaining the hierarchy of power was significantly more important than his own financial well being, even though he was very close to the bottom of the hierarchy. I've quoted him before, and I think its relevant here:
James Fitzjames Stephen, in 1874, wrote: "To obey a real superior, to submit to a real necessity and make the best of it in good part, is one of the most important of all virtues - a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of anything great and lasting"
For a lot of Trump supporters economic populism is anathema. They don't like it, they don't want it, and they'd gladly sacrifice unions and even their own money for a chance to really enforce a rigid social hierarchy with black people, and Hispanic people, and gay people, and women at the bottom.
And that sounds awful, it sounds like I'm arguing that some Americans are basically just straight up racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynist, and their political agenda centers around hurting the groups they don't like.
It sounds like that, because that's what I'm saying. Because that's, horrible as it is, the truth.
posted by sotonohito at 11:02 AM on March 11, 2016 [91 favorites]
Like the author, I've spent pretty much my whole life living with and working with the people who have this year come to love Trump. And like the author I've always been sort of baffled by the viewpoint that there was something weird or mysterious or sudden about Trump's popularity. He's popular because he's saying *exactly* what the people I've worked and lived with my whole life are saying.
andrewcooke Well, I'm not sure "we" fucked up at all. A certain percentage of people have an inherent xenophobic streak.
Where America gets weird is that we've only got two parties, so if a person like Trump can get even 35% or so of the Republicans voting for him, then the over 65% of the Republicans have to go along. In France or the UK he'd fit in just fine in any of the far right, racist, parties.
One thing that I think this article didn't touch on much, is that a lot of liberal minded people have fallen for the What's the Matter With Kansas trap.
This isn't about money for most Trump voters. Or, rather, at least it isn't mostly about money. They'd like more money and better jobs, but that's not at the top of the list.
Where liberals so often go wrong is thinking that economic populism can win over the type of person who supports Trump. It can't.
The Trump voting type of person is going to be perfectly content to keep the current crappy economic status quo, or even lose money, if it means hurting immigrants, black people, Hispanic people, gay people, etc. That is the top priority, not economic justice.
And, for a lot of Trump voting type people, there's something repellent and inherently immoral or wrong about economic justice. I was talking unions with a guy once and he kept complaining about this and that, and I kept asking what the problem was? Why was he objecting to higher wages and better benefits and having more power? As nearly as I can recall it, he answered:
"Look, the boss is **SUPPOSED** to have the power, he's the boss, he's in charge, we're not supposed to be stealing that from him."
To him, maintaining the hierarchy of power was significantly more important than his own financial well being, even though he was very close to the bottom of the hierarchy. I've quoted him before, and I think its relevant here:
James Fitzjames Stephen, in 1874, wrote: "To obey a real superior, to submit to a real necessity and make the best of it in good part, is one of the most important of all virtues - a virtue absolutely essential to the attainment of anything great and lasting"
For a lot of Trump supporters economic populism is anathema. They don't like it, they don't want it, and they'd gladly sacrifice unions and even their own money for a chance to really enforce a rigid social hierarchy with black people, and Hispanic people, and gay people, and women at the bottom.
And that sounds awful, it sounds like I'm arguing that some Americans are basically just straight up racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynist, and their political agenda centers around hurting the groups they don't like.
It sounds like that, because that's what I'm saying. Because that's, horrible as it is, the truth.
posted by sotonohito at 11:02 AM on March 11, 2016 [91 favorites]
Mind, to a lot of Trump voting types, there's *also* the belief that by hurting the groups they hate, by enforcing the rigid social hierarchy they support, that as a side benefit they'll also get more money.
But the money isn't the central part of the equation.
posted by sotonohito at 11:04 AM on March 11, 2016 [7 favorites]
But the money isn't the central part of the equation.
posted by sotonohito at 11:04 AM on March 11, 2016 [7 favorites]
I knew lots of people like her, across all age brackets. Poor and white, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, spinning hopelessly in the mud of $10 an hour, and almost universally anti-immigrant, the sort of people who were always three unruly sentences away from saying “those goddamn Mexicans” without a care for who could hear. It went like this: You’d be talking to them, they’d be lending you some WD-40 for those hinges, they’d be fine in the moment, but you just knew that if you steered this conversation in the wrong direction — say, by mentioning a Hispanic neighborhood offhand — shit would go south real fast.While I don't fully buy Kaleb Horton's explanation of Michael Savage, holy cats did he capture the nature of several places I've lived with pin-point accuracy. A number of my former high-school classmates are in the mud of $10 an hour.
There are towns like mine in every corner of this country, and all over in between. Towns where conservative ideology evolves without natural predators, where the government is definitely coming any minute now to take all of our guns away and homosexuals are definitely going to create tax penalties for straights.
posted by sgranade at 11:10 AM on March 11, 2016 [17 favorites]
Atom Eyes: wow, thanks! that is great, I didn't know there were so many more, I clearly need to explore the non-family tree there. And happy to see the Good Savages outwin the Bad!
I think this is a really excellent explainer for lots of young folks.
I've only started reading it, because I'd never heard of Bad Savage here, and I have to say it sounds like a good explainer also for not-so-young folks who are not Americans and not familiar with the character. The sad thing is I'm already spotting something familiar in the mention of that 90-year-old who wanted a wall and people like her across all age brackets... that sentiment is getting contagious at global level, clearly.
posted by bitteschoen at 11:14 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think this is a really excellent explainer for lots of young folks.
I've only started reading it, because I'd never heard of Bad Savage here, and I have to say it sounds like a good explainer also for not-so-young folks who are not Americans and not familiar with the character. The sad thing is I'm already spotting something familiar in the mention of that 90-year-old who wanted a wall and people like her across all age brackets... that sentiment is getting contagious at global level, clearly.
posted by bitteschoen at 11:14 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Bicameralism was a mistake. I keep wondering what our politics would look like with a parliamentary (or similiar) system instead, but it's such an alien idea that my mind goes blank pretty early.
posted by echocollate at 11:16 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by echocollate at 11:16 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
This article really doesn't do Michael Savage justice. He's a super interesting, super intelligent and very charismatic guy who appears to have suffered some sort of mental break in the 90s and has been living in a weird delusion ever since. I'm not exaggerating or trying to put him down. He actually talks about this all the time. He was a beatnik and got a PhD in horticulture, worked as a social worker, etc. Then he applied to be a dean at Berkeley, didn't get the job, and has been a warpath ever since.
I used to listen to his show a lot about 10 years ago, it was amazing. He'd rant for ten minutes about liberals and San Fran Sicko (where he lives), screaming at the top of his lungs, then take some deep breaths and opine openly if there was something wrong with him, if he should go see a shrink, then for the next five minutes he'd talk about the dinner he made the night before, the fresh ingredients he found at the farmer's market, the classical music he listened to while preparing it, watching the sunset over the bay, and how lovely life is when you stop and think about how amazing it is that a guy like him could be living this beautiful life.... AND THE RED DIAPER DEMOCRATS WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE IT ALL AWAY. It's both intoxicating and repellent in a really weird way.
There's supposed to be a photo of him swimming in the nude with Allen Ginsberg!
I've also been stuck in the car with Savage fans, and he's probably the most cartoonishly vitriolic of the right-wing talk hosts. It has to be a persona to some extent - I used to think the whole thing might be an act but now I'm pretty sure he's for real he just has an over-the-top style that gets him ratings.
posted by atoxyl at 11:17 AM on March 11, 2016
I used to listen to his show a lot about 10 years ago, it was amazing. He'd rant for ten minutes about liberals and San Fran Sicko (where he lives), screaming at the top of his lungs, then take some deep breaths and opine openly if there was something wrong with him, if he should go see a shrink, then for the next five minutes he'd talk about the dinner he made the night before, the fresh ingredients he found at the farmer's market, the classical music he listened to while preparing it, watching the sunset over the bay, and how lovely life is when you stop and think about how amazing it is that a guy like him could be living this beautiful life.... AND THE RED DIAPER DEMOCRATS WHO ARE TRYING TO TAKE IT ALL AWAY. It's both intoxicating and repellent in a really weird way.
There's supposed to be a photo of him swimming in the nude with Allen Ginsberg!
I've also been stuck in the car with Savage fans, and he's probably the most cartoonishly vitriolic of the right-wing talk hosts. It has to be a persona to some extent - I used to think the whole thing might be an act but now I'm pretty sure he's for real he just has an over-the-top style that gets him ratings.
posted by atoxyl at 11:17 AM on March 11, 2016
I used to work with a young tea partier type who absolutely revered Mark Levin as a constitutional scholar. Is he in the same wheelhouse?
posted by dr_dank at 11:24 AM on March 11, 2016
posted by dr_dank at 11:24 AM on March 11, 2016
You also can't talk about these kinds of broadcasters without acknowledging the man who paved their way: Bob Grant
posted by dr_dank at 11:28 AM on March 11, 2016
posted by dr_dank at 11:28 AM on March 11, 2016
I used to work with a young tea partier type who absolutely revered Mark Levin as a constitutional scholar. Is he in the same wheelhouse?
In tone and seriousness, nowadays, largely yes, though ten plus years ago he was a somewhat more serious before he became a hack broadcaster.
However, he's just Wednesday endorsed Cruz, so he's not in the Trump nationalist camp.
posted by Jahaza at 11:30 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
In tone and seriousness, nowadays, largely yes, though ten plus years ago he was a somewhat more serious before he became a hack broadcaster.
However, he's just Wednesday endorsed Cruz, so he's not in the Trump nationalist camp.
posted by Jahaza at 11:30 AM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
you keep scrolling down, scrolling down, thinking, when's he going to ask "how did we fuck up this badly?"
I was not wondering when he'd ask how "we" fucked up this badly because that is a weird implicit interpretation of how the world works. The whole of the country isn't jointly and equally responsible for everything that happens here. Some people and institutions have much more power than others, people have different access to information and resources, different life chances, and more. Donald Trump's ascendancy isn't actually a tautological consequence of something we all did, because reality is not a fable meant to instruct the listener in their conduct.
but all you ever find is blame on someone else.
Someone else, other than who? The author isn't exactly pulling punches about who's responsible for what, here, so this is a puzzling remark.
so, excellent article for mefi.
This is not a valuable contribution.
posted by clockzero at 11:39 AM on March 11, 2016 [10 favorites]
I was not wondering when he'd ask how "we" fucked up this badly because that is a weird implicit interpretation of how the world works. The whole of the country isn't jointly and equally responsible for everything that happens here. Some people and institutions have much more power than others, people have different access to information and resources, different life chances, and more. Donald Trump's ascendancy isn't actually a tautological consequence of something we all did, because reality is not a fable meant to instruct the listener in their conduct.
but all you ever find is blame on someone else.
Someone else, other than who? The author isn't exactly pulling punches about who's responsible for what, here, so this is a puzzling remark.
so, excellent article for mefi.
This is not a valuable contribution.
posted by clockzero at 11:39 AM on March 11, 2016 [10 favorites]
I'm relieved to have made the "good" list.
posted by asavage at 11:52 AM on March 11, 2016 [128 favorites]
posted by asavage at 11:52 AM on March 11, 2016 [128 favorites]
even though he was very close to the bottom of the hierarchy
I saw this linked in another Trumpthread, and the "very close", but notably not actually at the bottom seems to be a key distinction.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:01 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
I saw this linked in another Trumpthread, and the "very close", but notably not actually at the bottom seems to be a key distinction.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:01 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
For a lot of Trump supporters economic populism is anathema. They don't like it, they don't want it, and they'd gladly sacrifice unions and even their own money for a chance to really enforce a rigid social hierarchy with black people, and Hispanic people, and gay people, and women at the bottom.
Last place aversion. I'm reminded of the people who say that Obama increased racial divisiveness, because before, they thought of themselves as normal (unmarked), and now they had to confront themselves as white, and the transition from normalcy to markedness was mentally stressful
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [27 favorites]
Last place aversion. I'm reminded of the people who say that Obama increased racial divisiveness, because before, they thought of themselves as normal (unmarked), and now they had to confront themselves as white, and the transition from normalcy to markedness was mentally stressful
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [27 favorites]
ethansr: "I worry that there are a substantial number of Trump Democrats and that they will vote."
Thank you for applying for a slot in my nightmares. Unfortunately, they are booked solid through 2017. We appreciate your interest.
posted by Splunge at 12:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [17 favorites]
Thank you for applying for a slot in my nightmares. Unfortunately, they are booked solid through 2017. We appreciate your interest.
posted by Splunge at 12:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [17 favorites]
Yeah, I just don't what to think. I mean, my feeling has long been that the Republican Party was ailing, in part because it was an uncomfortable pairing of conflicting movements. There was the moneyed plutocrats and the single-issue culture warriors. And as long as the plutocrats could placate the culture warriors, they could pursue their agenda, which is mostly financial, mostly benefits the very wealthy, and has almost nothing to do with the average American. But as long as they claimed to be born again, said the appropriately dog whistles, and occasionally made efforts at making abortion harder, they could count on just enough votes to win. In rougher years, they would hit wedge issues even harder, but they never really seemed to actually pursue any culture warrior agenda when elected.
I mean, look at the most recent congress, which has mostly been a formal piece of theater of playacting at legislating, repeated endlessly, looped over and over, like the Benghazi stuff, which everyone knew was going to go nowhere but riles up the base, so they acted it out on television like it wasn't just a dumb show. Or repealing Obamacare. Impossible, as Obama was going to veto anything they passed, but they have playacted at repealing it, again and again and again.
But it seemed crazy to me that they were backing the Tea Party a few years ago. Because these weren't the easily placated. These people were angry and were active, and weren't beholden to any party. The plutocrats went ahead and funded the very group that not only didn't share the plutocrats' worldview, but were openly hostile to it.
Usually, the Republican candidate would be deep in the pocket of the plutocrats. Mitt Romney was the son of an automobile executive; John McCain came from two generations of four-star admirals; and George W Bush was the son of a previous president. I don't think McCain had a clue when he picked Sara Palin that she would be a darling of the Tea Partiers, but she was an indication of what sort of voter there was out there, and just how rabid they seemed.
Now we've got the perfect candidate for this constituency. He is, of course, a plutocrat, but he's not beholden to the system. Instead, he's a creature of venal, mindless selfishness, defined by xenophobia, lack of concern for facts, pomposity, and a nauseating comfort with strong-arm tactics. I don't for a second think he's going to outlaw abortion, but the single issue voters are probably going for Cruz anyway. No, this is the candidate for the more broadly angry, who is willing to set aside any single issue in favor of voting for a bully. Because they believe that Trump is their bully, and they think some people need bullying.
I don't know if this is the Republican party fracturing or the Republican party reconstructing itself. I hope to God it is the former, because if it's nothing but Trumps from here on out, we're in trouble.
posted by maxsparber at 12:08 PM on March 11, 2016 [26 favorites]
I mean, look at the most recent congress, which has mostly been a formal piece of theater of playacting at legislating, repeated endlessly, looped over and over, like the Benghazi stuff, which everyone knew was going to go nowhere but riles up the base, so they acted it out on television like it wasn't just a dumb show. Or repealing Obamacare. Impossible, as Obama was going to veto anything they passed, but they have playacted at repealing it, again and again and again.
But it seemed crazy to me that they were backing the Tea Party a few years ago. Because these weren't the easily placated. These people were angry and were active, and weren't beholden to any party. The plutocrats went ahead and funded the very group that not only didn't share the plutocrats' worldview, but were openly hostile to it.
Usually, the Republican candidate would be deep in the pocket of the plutocrats. Mitt Romney was the son of an automobile executive; John McCain came from two generations of four-star admirals; and George W Bush was the son of a previous president. I don't think McCain had a clue when he picked Sara Palin that she would be a darling of the Tea Partiers, but she was an indication of what sort of voter there was out there, and just how rabid they seemed.
Now we've got the perfect candidate for this constituency. He is, of course, a plutocrat, but he's not beholden to the system. Instead, he's a creature of venal, mindless selfishness, defined by xenophobia, lack of concern for facts, pomposity, and a nauseating comfort with strong-arm tactics. I don't for a second think he's going to outlaw abortion, but the single issue voters are probably going for Cruz anyway. No, this is the candidate for the more broadly angry, who is willing to set aside any single issue in favor of voting for a bully. Because they believe that Trump is their bully, and they think some people need bullying.
I don't know if this is the Republican party fracturing or the Republican party reconstructing itself. I hope to God it is the former, because if it's nothing but Trumps from here on out, we're in trouble.
posted by maxsparber at 12:08 PM on March 11, 2016 [26 favorites]
witchen I think that's another big part of it, the belief that reality, that fact checking, that any source that disagrees with their kneejerk reactions, is simply counter-propaganda and that really there's no such thing as objective reality.
The establishment Republicans had the problem that, objectively, their policies were not good for most people. Climate change is a disaster for anyone who can't afford a bunker/mansion combo and a handful of elite mercenaries to guard them (or at least a place in a walled off enclave patrolled by armed guards). Their economic policies are all but explicitly designed to ruin everyone except the upper 0.1%. Even the culture war crap they feed to the masses is simply not true. Evolution is real. Gay people aren't a horrible threat to civilization. Etc.
Which is why the conservatives in America, for the past many decades, have been steadily and carefully tearing down the very concept of objective reality. Post-modernism has nothing on the American conservative movement.
They've worked tirelessly to convince a lot of people that truth is simply whatever you believe, and if someone tells you something counter to your kneejerk reactions than that person is an evil liberal plotting to harm you somehow. Fact checkers are anathema to a movement based on lies, so they've worked to convince their voters that fact checkers are biased against them.
Colbert called it truthiness, Franken called them lying liars, and both were right.
But the damage is done, and there's now a significant percentage of the US population who are simply immunized to facts.
This has now turned against the Republicans. They have no weapons to fight Trump with. They can't tell the truth and expect it to make a difference, because they've taught the Trump voters that truth is imaginary. Polls reflect this, when Rubio, or Cruz, or whoever finds what should, to rational people, be a fact that makes Trump look bad, his supporters simply ignore it. The fact, to them, is simply an opinion, and an opinion held by someone they don't like so why should it matter? All the fact based attacks on Trump do is further convince his supporters that he must be awesome because why else would the establishment Republicans be trying so hard to tear him down.
There's a joke about a conspiracy theorist who dies and in Heaven he meets Jesus. "Jesus," he asks, "can you tell me what *really* happened on 9/11?" And Jesus says "19 Muslim extremists crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon." The conspiracy theorist thinks "wow, even Jesus is in on it!"
That's what's happening to FOX right now, having convinced their viewers that facts don't exist, that anyone who tells you something you don't like must be lying, and a liberal to boot, FOX now finds itself under attack, using exactly the same language they used against all other news sources, by the Trump supporters.
posted by sotonohito at 12:40 PM on March 11, 2016 [65 favorites]
The establishment Republicans had the problem that, objectively, their policies were not good for most people. Climate change is a disaster for anyone who can't afford a bunker/mansion combo and a handful of elite mercenaries to guard them (or at least a place in a walled off enclave patrolled by armed guards). Their economic policies are all but explicitly designed to ruin everyone except the upper 0.1%. Even the culture war crap they feed to the masses is simply not true. Evolution is real. Gay people aren't a horrible threat to civilization. Etc.
Which is why the conservatives in America, for the past many decades, have been steadily and carefully tearing down the very concept of objective reality. Post-modernism has nothing on the American conservative movement.
They've worked tirelessly to convince a lot of people that truth is simply whatever you believe, and if someone tells you something counter to your kneejerk reactions than that person is an evil liberal plotting to harm you somehow. Fact checkers are anathema to a movement based on lies, so they've worked to convince their voters that fact checkers are biased against them.
Colbert called it truthiness, Franken called them lying liars, and both were right.
But the damage is done, and there's now a significant percentage of the US population who are simply immunized to facts.
This has now turned against the Republicans. They have no weapons to fight Trump with. They can't tell the truth and expect it to make a difference, because they've taught the Trump voters that truth is imaginary. Polls reflect this, when Rubio, or Cruz, or whoever finds what should, to rational people, be a fact that makes Trump look bad, his supporters simply ignore it. The fact, to them, is simply an opinion, and an opinion held by someone they don't like so why should it matter? All the fact based attacks on Trump do is further convince his supporters that he must be awesome because why else would the establishment Republicans be trying so hard to tear him down.
There's a joke about a conspiracy theorist who dies and in Heaven he meets Jesus. "Jesus," he asks, "can you tell me what *really* happened on 9/11?" And Jesus says "19 Muslim extremists crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon." The conspiracy theorist thinks "wow, even Jesus is in on it!"
That's what's happening to FOX right now, having convinced their viewers that facts don't exist, that anyone who tells you something you don't like must be lying, and a liberal to boot, FOX now finds itself under attack, using exactly the same language they used against all other news sources, by the Trump supporters.
posted by sotonohito at 12:40 PM on March 11, 2016 [65 favorites]
And that sounds awful, it sounds like I'm arguing that some Americans are basically just straight up racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynist, and their political agenda centers around hurting the groups they don't like.
I'm with qcubed, these people do display various kinds of bigotry, but it's authoritarianism that's at the root. The Vox article makes some good points about this: authoritarianism is a surprisingly subtle phenomenon, one that lies hidden and dormant in a great number of people, and activates at varying levels of insecurity and distress. It's only at the most acute moments of economic/cultural/social discomfort that a population's full authoritarian potential is expressed, and it's scale is always surprising, because so much of it was "below the waterline" for so long.
posted by tempythethird at 12:42 PM on March 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm with qcubed, these people do display various kinds of bigotry, but it's authoritarianism that's at the root. The Vox article makes some good points about this: authoritarianism is a surprisingly subtle phenomenon, one that lies hidden and dormant in a great number of people, and activates at varying levels of insecurity and distress. It's only at the most acute moments of economic/cultural/social discomfort that a population's full authoritarian potential is expressed, and it's scale is always surprising, because so much of it was "below the waterline" for so long.
posted by tempythethird at 12:42 PM on March 11, 2016 [4 favorites]
I grew up in one of these towns, riding around in the car with my mom (who is, aside from her voting record, a lovely person) to the sounds of Michael Savage. My grandma owns his books. He's like a frothy right-wing Marc Maron in his style, with a sort of frustrated vulnerability before he strikes back swiftly, making the listener feel empowered. He reduces things to a simple dichotomy that's reassuring compared to their actual complexity. He plays heavy metal...Metallica, IIRC for his show intro. He fashions lofty ideals like "diversity" (the scare quotes are audible, he adds several syllables) into tools that the liberals will surely use to disenfranchise.
posted by JauntyFedora at 12:43 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by JauntyFedora at 12:43 PM on March 11, 2016
You could mathematically prove he was wrong on any given topic and he would sing his way around you, and make your resistance small and embarrassing through pure crowd control.
Make your insane arguments bullet-proof through the power of mass group-denial!
Welcome to what our country has tunred into.
posted by prepmonkey at 12:45 PM on March 11, 2016
Make your insane arguments bullet-proof through the power of mass group-denial!
Welcome to what our country has tunred into.
posted by prepmonkey at 12:45 PM on March 11, 2016
Mark Levin wants to be Michael Savage, but he's not good enough at it.
He is, however, Master Shake given a microphone and a radio show.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:47 PM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
He is, however, Master Shake given a microphone and a radio show.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:47 PM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
You know, I love the USA, have lived there twice, once by choice, and constantly annoy my geographically-correct left-wing friends by calling it 'América' instead of 'Los Estados Unidos', but damn, you harbor all kinds of fucked-upness.
Get it together, you're making all of your foreign supporters look bad.
posted by signal at 12:55 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Get it together, you're making all of your foreign supporters look bad.
posted by signal at 12:55 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's not that they deny the existence of an objective truth--they're very big on the idea of an objective truth. It's that they think they are the only ones who believe in the objective truth, and any facts that *appear* to disagree with that are hoaxes and lies, or at best, ignorant misunderstandings.
I mean, if someone announced they had invented a perpetual motion machine using ordinary household materials, I certainly wouldn't take it at face value. I'd be expecting a scam, a hoax, or just a joke. A bunch of people, none of whom I have any particular knowledge of or regard for, said it was real? Shills, trolls, or just playing along with the gag. Demonstrations can be faked. I have a very high confidence in our understanding of the laws of thermodynamics being close enough to right that this just isn't going to happen. I think these laws are an objective truth.
Some people have that level of confidence/faith in everything they believe, and they're being reinforced in that belief.
posted by Four Ds at 1:02 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
I mean, if someone announced they had invented a perpetual motion machine using ordinary household materials, I certainly wouldn't take it at face value. I'd be expecting a scam, a hoax, or just a joke. A bunch of people, none of whom I have any particular knowledge of or regard for, said it was real? Shills, trolls, or just playing along with the gag. Demonstrations can be faked. I have a very high confidence in our understanding of the laws of thermodynamics being close enough to right that this just isn't going to happen. I think these laws are an objective truth.
Some people have that level of confidence/faith in everything they believe, and they're being reinforced in that belief.
posted by Four Ds at 1:02 PM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
I read the Vox article a few days ago, and agree that authoritarianism may well be at the root of it.
Or more generally fear. Study after study has shown that you can accurately predict a person's politics by asking question to find out how generally fearful they are. More fearful people are more conservative, less fearful people are more liberal.
I think that, the authoritarianism, etc all tie together. Xenophobia is ultimately based in fear, fear of the other, fear of economic loss, fear of loss of position, etc.
Trump acknowledges that fear, plays to it, and promises to make it better.
Afraid of Mexicans? He'll build a wall, that'll keep you safe!
Afraid of ISIS? He'll be even more awful than they are, you can be safe from the monsters if and only if you have an even bigger monster on your side!
Afraid of China? He'll crush them so you can have all the good jobs!
posted by sotonohito at 1:04 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
Or more generally fear. Study after study has shown that you can accurately predict a person's politics by asking question to find out how generally fearful they are. More fearful people are more conservative, less fearful people are more liberal.
I think that, the authoritarianism, etc all tie together. Xenophobia is ultimately based in fear, fear of the other, fear of economic loss, fear of loss of position, etc.
Trump acknowledges that fear, plays to it, and promises to make it better.
Afraid of Mexicans? He'll build a wall, that'll keep you safe!
Afraid of ISIS? He'll be even more awful than they are, you can be safe from the monsters if and only if you have an even bigger monster on your side!
Afraid of China? He'll crush them so you can have all the good jobs!
posted by sotonohito at 1:04 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
Four Ds, yes they pay lip service to objective truth. But they have dismantled all mechanisms for determining what is actually true, and discredited anyone who tries to tell the truth.
The outcome of that is simply to demolish the very concept of truth, no matter how much they try to protest otherwise.
posted by sotonohito at 1:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
The outcome of that is simply to demolish the very concept of truth, no matter how much they try to protest otherwise.
posted by sotonohito at 1:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
I know a few Trump supporters and what sotonohito says is very accurate.
Arguing with an acquaintance of FB about gun violence I kept referencing statistical data from the FBI.
"You can't trust that they all work for Obama!" he retorts.
"Do you think that when Obama leaves office and perchance a Republican wins the election that the entire work force of the FBI is going to quit?" I asked.
"Yes that's how it works."
posted by Max Power at 1:20 PM on March 11, 2016 [24 favorites]
Arguing with an acquaintance of FB about gun violence I kept referencing statistical data from the FBI.
"You can't trust that they all work for Obama!" he retorts.
"Do you think that when Obama leaves office and perchance a Republican wins the election that the entire work force of the FBI is going to quit?" I asked.
"Yes that's how it works."
posted by Max Power at 1:20 PM on March 11, 2016 [24 favorites]
But they have dismantled all mechanisms for determining what is actually true, and discredited anyone who tries to tell the truth.
The outcome of that is simply to demolish the very concept of truth, no matter how much they try to protest otherwise.
Well, yes. By any objective measure the policies they promote do not produce the results they promise.
But they aren't going to change the policies. Instead they lobotomize and de-fund government organs that provide nonpartisan information to policy makers (CBO, NIH, etc), while their proxies fund think tanks designed to obfuscate and confuse.
The Tea Party was a resurgent flourishing of empowered ignorance paired with sublimated racism and general fear of the other as embodied by a black president. "I want my country back!" and all that.
The present incoherence and irrationality is just the end result of what Charlie Pierce calls the prion disease affecting the Republican party.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:23 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
The outcome of that is simply to demolish the very concept of truth, no matter how much they try to protest otherwise.
Well, yes. By any objective measure the policies they promote do not produce the results they promise.
But they aren't going to change the policies. Instead they lobotomize and de-fund government organs that provide nonpartisan information to policy makers (CBO, NIH, etc), while their proxies fund think tanks designed to obfuscate and confuse.
The Tea Party was a resurgent flourishing of empowered ignorance paired with sublimated racism and general fear of the other as embodied by a black president. "I want my country back!" and all that.
The present incoherence and irrationality is just the end result of what Charlie Pierce calls the prion disease affecting the Republican party.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:23 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Or more generally fear. Study after study has shown that you can accurately predict a person's politics by asking question to find out how generally fearful they are. More fearful people are more conservative, less fearful people are more liberal.
Not all people respond to a state of fear/insecurity with authoritarianism. For authoritarian tendencies, you need to be the kind of person whose own hurt is ameliorated by lashing out at the person one step down the pecking order. The kid who responds to being bullied by bullying the next kid. Or you need to be the kind of person who belongs to the "right kind of people" and by extension is comforted by the spectacle of a chosen "strong man of your own kind" keeping the "wrong kind of people" in line. But either of these reactions are like scratching an itch, it only gets itchier and demands even more of the "cure." I think this is how authoritarianism can become a self-reinforcing cycle whose final outcome resembles the atrocities with which we're all familiar.
posted by tempythethird at 1:27 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Not all people respond to a state of fear/insecurity with authoritarianism. For authoritarian tendencies, you need to be the kind of person whose own hurt is ameliorated by lashing out at the person one step down the pecking order. The kid who responds to being bullied by bullying the next kid. Or you need to be the kind of person who belongs to the "right kind of people" and by extension is comforted by the spectacle of a chosen "strong man of your own kind" keeping the "wrong kind of people" in line. But either of these reactions are like scratching an itch, it only gets itchier and demands even more of the "cure." I think this is how authoritarianism can become a self-reinforcing cycle whose final outcome resembles the atrocities with which we're all familiar.
posted by tempythethird at 1:27 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Count me as one more who thought he meant Dan Savage, I never heard of Michael Savage but he sounds dreadful. I refuse to listen to talk radio, make my conservative friend turn on any kind of music in the car instead when we go somewhere. This does seem a good analysis of who Trump supporters are and where they get their rage.
posted by mermayd at 2:31 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mermayd at 2:31 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Count me as one more who thought he meant Dan Savage...
Unfortunately I knew of Michael Savage, but this reading-every-comment-as-talking-about-Dan-Savage game is pretty fun.
posted by Evilspork at 2:39 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Unfortunately I knew of Michael Savage, but this reading-every-comment-as-talking-about-Dan-Savage game is pretty fun.
posted by Evilspork at 2:39 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
Has anybody included George Noory in their list of similar on-air Savage cognates? The guy whose go to authority on Middle East news items is the OG birther Jerome Corsi? 'Cause that guy has turned what used to be Art Bell's woo-wo UFO Chupacabra Bigfoot Paranormal Coast to Coast AM into Obama and Hillary haters and climate change deniers Wingnut Central? Now with Space Cadet garnish...
posted by y2karl at 2:43 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 2:43 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Get used to it, lefties! This is not an oddball, a one of a kind radio guy. Trumpism is here! The good thing? The growing gap between the Left and the Right is not represented on the Right not by a conservative but by a slick talking salesman who is pitching hate to a fairly substantial body of people to the point that even Evangelicals, religious folks who would shy from such non-biblical loud mouths instead are embracing him. You say you want a revolution? This may bring it about.
Mild Bernie & trickster Hillary versus Savage Trumpster nation
posted by Postroad at 2:45 PM on March 11, 2016
Mild Bernie & trickster Hillary versus Savage Trumpster nation
posted by Postroad at 2:45 PM on March 11, 2016
> Related to everything you said before, there was an article on Vox talking about the tendency towards authoritarianism.
Please read that article if you haven't. It's long, but boy is it enlightening. And scary.
posted by languagehat at 2:47 PM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
Please read that article if you haven't. It's long, but boy is it enlightening. And scary.
posted by languagehat at 2:47 PM on March 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm familiar with his work.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:18 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
I'm gonna drop in here that the Vox podcast The Weeds is pretty good, too, for those of you that found the article interesting. Not shilling, just a fan.
posted by eclectist at 3:39 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by eclectist at 3:39 PM on March 11, 2016
I can't help but think of him as the Ultimate Hippie. A phoney who mainlined it for profit, and had zero guilt about doing so.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:24 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 4:24 PM on March 11, 2016
He's a super interesting, super intelligent and very charismatic guy who appears to have suffered some sort of mental break in the 90s and has been living in a weird delusion ever since. I'm not exaggerating or trying to put him down. He actually talks about this all the time. He was a beatnik and got a PhD in horticulture, worked as a social worker, etc. Then he applied to be a dean at Berkeley, didn't get the job, and has been a warpath ever since.
More specifically
Kava has a reputation as an empathogen (and an aphrodisiac), and I've wondered for a while now whether kava had on Savage's ability to have empathy an effect like heroin has on the endogenous opioid systems of some addicts, of long-term down regulation, making it very difficult for them to control pain or feel pleasure, because if the manifold islands of the empathyless ever got around to choosing a King, they'd be hard put to do better than Michael Savage.
To me it seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the son of a specialist in nutritional ethnomedicine would go on to formulate and sell a very successful energy drink, but Savage has been adamant in denying any connection to his son's business.
posted by jamjam at 5:11 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
More specifically
Weiner [Savage] has a doctorate in “nutritional ethnomedicine” from U. C. Berkeley. His 1978 dissertation documents his conviction that herbal healers in South Pacific island nations have traditional herbal medicine that can treat modern ailments. His research on the sedative kava kava became the basis for his doctorial research.And he did, of course, participate in Kava rituals on Fiji as part of his research.
Kava has a reputation as an empathogen (and an aphrodisiac), and I've wondered for a while now whether kava had on Savage's ability to have empathy an effect like heroin has on the endogenous opioid systems of some addicts, of long-term down regulation, making it very difficult for them to control pain or feel pleasure, because if the manifold islands of the empathyless ever got around to choosing a King, they'd be hard put to do better than Michael Savage.
To me it seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the son of a specialist in nutritional ethnomedicine would go on to formulate and sell a very successful energy drink, but Savage has been adamant in denying any connection to his son's business.
posted by jamjam at 5:11 PM on March 11, 2016 [5 favorites]
This just in: Trump rally canceled due to security concerns. Supporters and protesters battle in hall. This is just disgusting.
posted by Splunge at 5:33 PM on March 11, 2016
posted by Splunge at 5:33 PM on March 11, 2016
This is just disgusting.
"Protester" violently bit the ear off of a woman standing in line before finally being apprehended.
posted by stavrogin at 6:30 PM on March 11, 2016
"Protester" violently bit the ear off of a woman standing in line before finally being apprehended.
posted by stavrogin at 6:30 PM on March 11, 2016
"Protester" violently bit the ear off of a woman standing in line before finally being apprehended.
Ugh. Mike Cernovitch, professional troll.
posted by Artw at 7:02 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ugh. Mike Cernovitch, professional troll.
posted by Artw at 7:02 PM on March 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's not clear from context in this thread, but that protestor biting the ear off thing is a hoax.
posted by maxsparber at 7:03 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 7:03 PM on March 11, 2016 [6 favorites]
Cernovitch. Is a bullshit artist and Gamergate regular, and should be ignored. Though I guess it's appropriate that we have a showing from a new media troll in a thread about an old media one.
posted by Artw at 7:05 PM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:05 PM on March 11, 2016 [9 favorites]
Speaking of trolling, the Chicago Police Department don't back up Trump's story - they say that they never recommended canceling the rally, and that they didn't anticipate any greater levels of violence or discord than they could handle.
posted by codacorolla at 8:27 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by codacorolla at 8:27 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Considering the history of the Chicago Police, I wonder what that level would be.
posted by LizBoBiz at 9:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by LizBoBiz at 9:06 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
Can we add this guy to the list of good Savages please?
posted by Start with Dessert at 10:41 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Start with Dessert at 10:41 PM on March 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
I wish the right wing in the US could go reap their own whirlwind and leave the rest of us out of it.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:57 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by pattern juggler at 12:57 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
The Trump voting type of person is going to be perfectly content to keep the current crappy economic status quo, or even lose money, if it means hurting immigrants, black people, Hispanic people, gay people, etc. That is the top priority, not economic justice.
And, for a lot of Trump voting type people, there's something repellent and inherently immoral or wrong about economic justice.
I don't doubt that this is sometimes true, and maybe it's often the case in many of the southern states. But I'm from Maine, and I know plenty of pro-union, nominally pro-equality people who caucused for Trump. One such person is my own father. His stated reason was, "I think he's just unpredictable enough to ruffle some feathers and change the rules of the game."
This is a man who voted for Obama twice.
My father is a very smart man. He's an excellent electrician. He's capable of interpreting incredibly nuanced technical information. But when it comes to politics, he sees two buttons: same-old-bullshit and haven't-tried-that-one-yet. He just wants to see something different. The allure of a man who mocks the establishment can be so hypnotic to people like my father, i.e., people who have grown cynical as Democrats and Republicans have sold out their relative bases one election after another, that he's deaf to the xenophobic overtones of Trump's message.
I think we do the left a disservice if we depict all Trump supporters as bigots. To do so is to misunderstand and underestimate the seductive strength of the Dark Side.
posted by jwhite1979 at 1:27 AM on March 12, 2016 [9 favorites]
And, for a lot of Trump voting type people, there's something repellent and inherently immoral or wrong about economic justice.
I don't doubt that this is sometimes true, and maybe it's often the case in many of the southern states. But I'm from Maine, and I know plenty of pro-union, nominally pro-equality people who caucused for Trump. One such person is my own father. His stated reason was, "I think he's just unpredictable enough to ruffle some feathers and change the rules of the game."
This is a man who voted for Obama twice.
My father is a very smart man. He's an excellent electrician. He's capable of interpreting incredibly nuanced technical information. But when it comes to politics, he sees two buttons: same-old-bullshit and haven't-tried-that-one-yet. He just wants to see something different. The allure of a man who mocks the establishment can be so hypnotic to people like my father, i.e., people who have grown cynical as Democrats and Republicans have sold out their relative bases one election after another, that he's deaf to the xenophobic overtones of Trump's message.
I think we do the left a disservice if we depict all Trump supporters as bigots. To do so is to misunderstand and underestimate the seductive strength of the Dark Side.
posted by jwhite1979 at 1:27 AM on March 12, 2016 [9 favorites]
"You also can't talk about these kinds of broadcasters without acknowledging the man who paved their way: Bob Grant"
I'll add Bob Crane as another example.
posted by clavdivs at 2:08 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'll add Bob Crane as another example.
posted by clavdivs at 2:08 AM on March 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
It certainly doesn't help that the Dems look likely to run the ne plus ultra of Same Old Bullshit candidates, who due to a challenge from someone a bit more progressive has dug in hard on the impossibility of anything getting better. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of that against a shiny new fascist.
posted by Artw at 4:56 AM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:56 AM on March 12, 2016 [4 favorites]
jwhite1979
I don't know your father. But what I can say, is that I know a very vocal Trump supporter, who on the surface would deny being a bigot. He's not a KKK supporter --he's educated and prosperous. But he stands for, implicitly, white supremacy and misogyny. I see it in the way that he condescends to women, actually, I saw it recently on social media. White supremacy comes in many forms -- the obvious one is the KKK.
The less obvious one is the one that many Americans believe in -- it's the one that says that the United States used to be great, and that somehow, we've lost that greatness. In reality, the United States was founded on the genocide of American Indians and the enslavement of Black people. Washington and Jefferson owned Black people as property and they built a political economy based on Black slavery for wealthy whites, with poor whites given frontier land seized from American Indians via genocide. The Yankee North does not escape this political economy either, as the banking infrastructure that supported northereastern industrialization was based on institutions that people developed for the slave trade, and in fact, that worked synergistically with said trade. To call someone a white supremacist was, for many years, not an insult at all. If you read Ira Katznelson's book, Fear Itself you can find many examples of elected officials saying that they believe in white supremacy.
So yes, if someone stands with Trump, they are most definitely standing with white supremacy, whether they want to acknowledge this or not.
posted by wuwei at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2016 [12 favorites]
I don't know your father. But what I can say, is that I know a very vocal Trump supporter, who on the surface would deny being a bigot. He's not a KKK supporter --he's educated and prosperous. But he stands for, implicitly, white supremacy and misogyny. I see it in the way that he condescends to women, actually, I saw it recently on social media. White supremacy comes in many forms -- the obvious one is the KKK.
The less obvious one is the one that many Americans believe in -- it's the one that says that the United States used to be great, and that somehow, we've lost that greatness. In reality, the United States was founded on the genocide of American Indians and the enslavement of Black people. Washington and Jefferson owned Black people as property and they built a political economy based on Black slavery for wealthy whites, with poor whites given frontier land seized from American Indians via genocide. The Yankee North does not escape this political economy either, as the banking infrastructure that supported northereastern industrialization was based on institutions that people developed for the slave trade, and in fact, that worked synergistically with said trade. To call someone a white supremacist was, for many years, not an insult at all. If you read Ira Katznelson's book, Fear Itself you can find many examples of elected officials saying that they believe in white supremacy.
So yes, if someone stands with Trump, they are most definitely standing with white supremacy, whether they want to acknowledge this or not.
posted by wuwei at 9:07 AM on March 12, 2016 [12 favorites]
but all you ever find is blame on someone else.
so, excellent article for mefi.
And ...
I can't help but think of him as the Ultimate Hippie. A phoney who mainlined it for profit, and had zero guilt about doing so.
... is what I would call trump notrump, if discussion was bridge.
posted by Chitownfats at 9:55 AM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
so, excellent article for mefi.
And ...
I can't help but think of him as the Ultimate Hippie. A phoney who mainlined it for profit, and had zero guilt about doing so.
... is what I would call trump notrump, if discussion was bridge.
posted by Chitownfats at 9:55 AM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think everybody is right when they talk about Trump supporters, because there's several disparate types who vote for him: the authoritarians, the disgruntled white racists, the people who think he'll being chanhe, and the trolls who busy want to see the nation burn.
And probably by November they're will be scared people who hate him, but will vote for him because they know he'll win, and are afraid of what will happen to people who don't vote for him.
posted by happyroach at 1:02 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
And probably by November they're will be scared people who hate him, but will vote for him because they know he'll win, and are afraid of what will happen to people who don't vote for him.
posted by happyroach at 1:02 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
So earlier this week I had the thought that I should get out of my NPR/liberal/hypereducated filter bubble and I scanned through the car radio until I found an unfamiliar voice talking about politics. It was Michael Savage.
Before accepting calls about "whether you still trust Trump after the weekend," he took a few minutes to share some groundbreaking political reporting which has, thus far, appeared only in the National Enquirer: the news that Scalia's death at a Texas resort was a CIA-sponsored murder with a Mexican prostitute as the triggerwoman. "It must be true," Savage said, "because if they printed it and it weren't true, they'd get sued!"
Then he went to commercial. The commercials were for
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:23 PM on March 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
Before accepting calls about "whether you still trust Trump after the weekend," he took a few minutes to share some groundbreaking political reporting which has, thus far, appeared only in the National Enquirer: the news that Scalia's death at a Texas resort was a CIA-sponsored murder with a Mexican prostitute as the triggerwoman. "It must be true," Savage said, "because if they printed it and it weren't true, they'd get sued!"
Then he went to commercial. The commercials were for
- an erectile-dysfunction clinic, offering a discounted first visit and encouraging visitors to ask about a shot that "improves performance, stamina, and even size"
- a hair-transplant surgeon so talented that he can cover up the scars from earlier, unsuccessful hair transplants by those other guys
- an online loan service that somehow lets you bypass traditional credit checks
- an endorsement from Savage himself for organic canned beets that are guaranteed to give you more energy
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:23 PM on March 12, 2016 [5 favorites]
What, no spots for miracle cremes to remove unsightly calluses and scabs from the backs of one's knuckles ?
posted by y2karl at 9:48 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 9:48 PM on March 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
I thought about making this an FPP, but since this is the most recent open Trump thread, I'll put it here:
NYT article theorising that Trump's determination to rise to power began with his humiliation at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner
YouTube: Obama's and Seth Meyers's riffs on Trump from the dinner; worth watching for the way the camera keeps cutting back to an increasingly sour-faced Trump.
Tweet from Dylan Stableford: Trump was booed while walking the red carpet
2011 NYT article: "Obama Zings Trump at White House Correspondents’ Dinner"
Washington Post columnist Dana Millbank pointing out the inappropriateness of Trump being the Post's guest in the first place
MeFi thread from 2011 on the dinner and Trump
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:50 AM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]
NYT article theorising that Trump's determination to rise to power began with his humiliation at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner
YouTube: Obama's and Seth Meyers's riffs on Trump from the dinner; worth watching for the way the camera keeps cutting back to an increasingly sour-faced Trump.
Tweet from Dylan Stableford: Trump was booed while walking the red carpet
2011 NYT article: "Obama Zings Trump at White House Correspondents’ Dinner"
Washington Post columnist Dana Millbank pointing out the inappropriateness of Trump being the Post's guest in the first place
MeFi thread from 2011 on the dinner and Trump
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:50 AM on March 13, 2016 [10 favorites]
A Beginner's Guide to Savages
Don't forget Ben!
Or the Dragon.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:44 AM on March 14, 2016
Don't forget Ben!
Or the Dragon.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:44 AM on March 14, 2016
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posted by NoxAeternum at 10:11 AM on March 11, 2016 [3 favorites]