Female libs constantly preen to maintain social cohesion in their tribe by announcing what the guardrails are. Ignore the guardrails and you are banished from the tribe.
When the preening stops, however, as seen in The Silence of the AWFLs, there’s got to be some serious cognitive dissonance going on, and dare I say, some soul searching?
Common sense and truth have strong attractions, especially in the face of obvious Democrat failures. Only the most deluded think California’s problems are due to Trump, or white supremacy, climate change, capitalism, Nazis, or the other excuses. Hardliners will go down with the ship, but those more in the center are feeling the pull of the vibe shift.
I agree there’s a vibe shift, but why in LA and why now?
It’s got to be that Spencer Pratt’s message has somehow gotten to them.
His mix of blunt truths and positivity may be the perfect message to turn some of the left who are secretly tired of all of the stress that LA induces because of it’s devolution.
I am just reacting to Mr. Bray’s observation that the AWFLs are not putting up signs of support for the Dems.
That may seem minor, but it’s not.
The libs are all about virtue signaling to their tribe, for the sole purpose of staying in the good graces of their fellow loons, as they do not want to be banished from the tribe. The tribe is the core of their existence.
So why are they not virtue signaling all of a sudden? Very curious behavior from a crowd that depends on, demands, and always virtue signals.
The AWFL's are convinced that their AWFL friends will not disappoint them and will continue to vote D and it makes no difference which D they vote for. In their smug minds no friend or neighbor of theirs would even consider an R. It's hive mentality and California will continue to swirl down the drain because it's someone else's job to correct it as long as it's not a lowlife R that just might be MAGA.
Reality is moving the needle not one bit. We visited long distance blue family over the weekend and I thought my sister-in-law would punch me for saying that wearing a cloth mask during Covid was pointless. Needless to say, she and hubby are vaxed and boosted. Both had Covid. My wife and I, neither.
Women fear the homeless. Women, most at any rate, live lives of barely covered up fear. This is far less true of women of faith. AWFLs tho are completely fear based. There is a fear they have of being cut from the group. That is a big big fear. But their physical safety will eventually override that one. Because that fear is the biggest.
IMO toxic empathy is a coping mechanism to cover up their fear. And to a lesser extent, this is very contradictory, their craving for violence. Constant fear is unbearable. Violence actually assuages it and also justifies it.
It assuages it because violence is a type of release.
Yes. In theory, what happens in a voting booth stays in a voting booth, so it's quite possible that the virtue hand is acting as the shiny object while the I can't live like this anymore hand is voting for Pratt.
I used to subscribe to the LA Times, oh about the time of the Stone Age. Read it every day. I remember reading Robin Abcarian, and she was either hit or miss. Then I started wiping my ass with the LA Times because it became nothing but pressed pulp, until I realized I liked Charmin better, then I stopped the LA Times altogether.
The LA Times is like a high school newsletter, full of “Betsy joined the cheer squad!” or “The Honor Society went to the museum!” In praise of Chris, for daring to even read such dreck.
To the larger point, it does seem clear the lefties have painted themselves into a corner, and have forced themselves to support some of the worst policies dreamed by man. Illegal immigration leading to human trafficking: bad. Valiant Tom Steyer pledging to abolish the agency in charge of stopping the human trafficking: good.
The schism inside Robin Abcarian’s brain must resemble an abyss.
And I love Abcarian’s description of Steve Hilton: who doesn’t like a British accent?
I really liked the California section and columnist Steve Lopez. Up until a year ago, my mom still subscribed to the Sunday Times. One time when I was visiting her, I looked at some of the articles. It was like reading Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
I've experienced it with all "local" newspapers. Even in "red" states, the "local" newspapers are very left. (I've put local in quotation marks because all of these "local" newspapers are owned by national corporations.)
About 10 years ago, I had to quit reading the WSJ too. This was quite sad because it was absolutely my favorite newspaper in the 90s and even very early 2000s. Then the "news" section became biased in what it covered and how it covered everything. Nowadays, even the Editorial Board is usually more RINO than Republican and definitely not MAGA.
I have often thought that the role of French et al is to instruct those who cannot think how to feel their way through the delemina. So long as someone smart validates their feelings, they will stay as loyal sheet to chant the current narrative. It is spackle for a widening rift, but it is now too wide to spackle.
I have been subbing in several special ed classes, and the tactics used by the aids (whom I don't want to denigrate in any way, it is very difficult, exhausting work) are similar. Since you cannot logically explain anything to someone with an IQ of 70, you can only motivate them to do that which they don't want to by telling them that it will make them feel good, they get a sticker, the person with the most stickers gets an reward, is lauded publicly. etc. You need to do it CONSTANTLY , often several times a minute, as it is only effective if you repeat it endlessly. I don't really see this as any different...
"feel their way through a dilemma" is exactly it! Your feelings are always true, at least to yourself, so feeling your way through a dilemma must therefore mean it always feel as if you're in the right and doing right.
I had a conversation a few days ago with an AWFL. She can’t stand Trump. After I politely pushed back with a few FACTS, she finally admitted that she thinks of things emotionally. (At least she admitted it.)
I just told her, well, I search out the facts in any given issue and I base my opinion on the facts. She stared at me a little mystified, as if to say she had never given any thought to facts being relevant to a deeply held opinion.
Honestly, I don’t think there is any way to get through to these people. Objective facts are meaningless and irrelevant. The only thing that matters is “how they feel”.
I've had similar interactions with colleagues and students when I was still working. I once asked one "What is it that's so great about Obama?" (our state media was talking about him as if he was the second coming or something), and the best that colleagues could do was:
"He's done so many great things!"
But none of those great things could be described in detail. We had a good talk about that, that state media could induce in us positive or negative feelings by passing our conscious thought processes, if we consumed media without having our filters on.
But this was at an institution teaching political science, and if professionals are that easily affected, "ordinary people", pardon the phrase, don't stand much chance on the whole.
I think this emotion instead of reason behaviour is analogous to Kahneman's idea of System 1/System 2; the intuitive System 1 kicks in first, but the simultanous emotional self-identitfication stops System 2 from engaging at all, because doing so would lead to conflicting emotions, and emotions conflicting with facts (and our brains don't like when that happens).
Further, "what to thinkfeel" has gradually replaced "how to think & analyse" in education, including education for teachers, since the 1990s or earlier, and that robs the young of the chance of learning how to think for themselves.
It's very hard to not start seeing plans all over the place, after experiencing that change in real time during one's career.
That article reads like every discussion I see in my profession, librarianship. First there is the inability to focus on core issues that we have control over, like a dearth of jobs and low pay. No we MUST put our energy into trans stuff, racism, and homelessness; or in the case of California leadership, ICE.
But secondly, there is just the way people discuss serious issues. She writes like so many supposedly educated and deep-thinking people in my field do: emotionally, like a teen girl. "But, but, but...he really won my heart...Could it be I’m falling in love?" The only thing missing are all the exclamation points I see in library discussions. "So true! I totally agree! LOL!"
Journalism shouldn't sound like a TV show message board. The irony is that the one-time focus of those online chats, Spencer Pratt, presents himself in a better light than so-called professional, educated journalists. It's embarrassing.
Glad to hear others in the profession share my experiences. I feel like AI presents so many opportunities to a struggling field, but we'd rather shoot ourselves in the foot, stomach, and head with the nutty focus on fringe matters.
Sadly, I’m not sure if AI can save libraries. Instead of admin sending out illogical emails that are poorly written, they’re sending out illogical emails that AI wraps several layers of obfuscation around.
My library has recently had an increase in violent, really violent, incidents. Instead of solid security plans, we get heart emoji emails telling us how great we are. It’s insanity.
Most public library branches in Canadian downtowns are essentially homeless shelters and meth dens. A buddy worked in one in Toronto and a *good* day was when there was only one or two overdoses in the washrooms.
Agreed. There's a reason I'm no longer involved in any library organization or conference. And as a Canadian I can tell you it's *much* worse up here. Endless Gay Race Communism *plus* heaping doses of Trump Derangement Syndrome Canuck-style, articulated in that characteristically smug, self-righteous and sanctimonious manner that infects Canadians like the clap. Imagine the worst blue-state AWFL neighbourhood, apply it nationally, and that's most of Canada (with exceptions in Alberta and other parts of the prairies).
Ditto on no more conferences or library associations.
I’m sorry to hear about the state of Canadian libraries. It sounds hellish.
There’s a substack called Heterodoxy in the Stacks that has some interesting articles about viewpoint diversity in libraries. I encourage you and @JF to check it out.
Parkinson of the famous laws called concentrating on minor side issues bike shedding and it seems to be increasingly common in the professional managerial caste these days. They can't solve the real problem so the go focus on something else that makes them feel good
Good point. The only problem is they can't solve those other issues either, so I don't know how they can feel good about themselves.
And the professional managerial caste just bounces to leadership role to leadership role, so nothing ever changes. It is true of libraries, and it is true of society at large (e.g., the career of Kamala Harris).
Wow, being a based librarian these days makes you a pilgrim in an unholy land. The profession has become one of the epicenters of wokeness in the long march…
There are a few in my network - including one of my former profs - but we keep a *very* low profile. We're all white, heterosexual, conservative males in a profession that - up here in Canada at least - must be at least three-quarters female and who mostly vote for the New Democratic Party, which is the equivalent of having AOC or Mamdami lead a national political party.
My last county library refused to buy any books that were written more than 5 years ago. So no classics. I'm not sure about the county library where I live now. I do know that one has horrible/useless search and browse capabilities; it's impossible to drill or filter down past the general Nonfiction category.
The downfall of journalism dates back to the establishment of the first J school.
Before that, reporters were streetwise lower middle class guys who smoked Camels and drank whiskey and who actually knew how the world works.
Now, J schools churn out homogenized, self selected "professional journalists" who think there is no life east of Sepulveda Blvd or west of the Hudson river.
It's pretty hard to speak truth to power when you're a credentialed member of the power structure yourself.
J schools got taken over by MarComm, Pilot, and I don't know if there's even any of the old J schools left.
Before that you still had some departments that taught things like rhetoric, history, arithmetic, and research skills, then jettisoned their grads into the corollary of the newsroom/beat apprenticeship. Either on an internship or salaried basis.
Whether those skills did or could get practiced in situations where the student evaluations/paychecks are signed is an open question. I incline to conclude from experience, "Rarely, if ever."
Still, Pilot--no less a cynic than Henry Lous Mencken felt there were positive potentials in J-schools. And of course what he valued would hold whether or not a journo had a J-school degree.
"Newes" as we know it started out as hand-written gossip sheets at crossroads taverns/coach stops. And Lloyds of London coffeehouses. These existed to impart intel of use to the writer, and amuse/distract/misdirect/frighten the reader.
In the more modern era, once "news" became "marketing communications" became "selling audiences to advertisers" (initiated with print media, fortified with government propaganda, amped up with broadcast media, put on steroids with cable TV and computerized market research, now on turbo meth with the internet, and rocket sledding into Hell with AI) it was done and over.
Apparently nobody outside of community and punk media noticed for like 50 years.
I have known no setting more revelatory of local truths than the tap room 8 to 10 blocks from the waterfront. Close enough to be chthonic; far enough away not to be owned by the brothel keepers and worst mobsters. My own egregious nostalgia.
BRAYSOG and a few other operations click with that. But you can't have community memory where communities have been detonated/imploded/burned over by operations like "deindustrialization" and "globalization." Managed decline is very lucrative for some, especially when they control the levers of the Hypnosis Machine.
The rest just look for sinecures in that power structure, and do anything to get the credentials and retain their all-too-fragile slots. And there is no one they despise nearly so much as men and women who build, maintain, and repair the physical world. Hypnosis doesn't answer the 2 a.m. call when electrons, water, air, or traffic stop flowing.
My dad actually went to J School at the University of Western Ontario in the mid 1950s. Prior to that he was a railroad mechanic’s assistant in northern Ontario. In his journalism career he worked with and learned a lot from those cigar chomping, whiskey drinking older colleagues.
Bass wins with a turn-out of less than 35% because she's familiar to them, she's female and black and government must continue to be run by black females to make up for the crooked white guys (which they were) even though the present clowns are just as crooked, or well, maybe just stupid. Love it when I can write ridiculously.
Absolutely, 100% a turnout election. Bass has a machine that can harvest ballots and turn out rideshare voters. Without voter enthusiasm, it's over. I think Spencer Pratt can do it, but I don't know that he can do it.
The lack of lawn signs seems quite remarkable to me, Chris. Either the political apathy is overwhelming, or, something more fundamental could be taking place.
I have a terrible habit of optimism: maybe there’s a growing exhaustion with the long-time, status-quo insanity. Maybe this exhaustion is jerking eyelids open and forcing reality into their Karen-Quaalude-stupefied brains.
You wrote, “They’re trapped. They’ve trapped themselves.” That statement screamed itself off the page at me.
Lies generally refute reality. “Fresh air is racist.” When Progressives lie, to themselves or to others, they generally refute Reality. Lie often enough, lie outrageously enough, and you trap yourself in your own sticky, suffocating web.
My view is either in this election cycle, or certainly in the next, a sea-change will occur. In LA. And also throughout California.
Maybe. Maybe not. Again, I’m one of those optimist assholes.
> The lack of lawn signs seems quite remarkable to me,
This phenomenon has fascinated me, Rob, since late '15/early '16. When it became an action deserving of any imaginable malicious treatment to have, say, a DJT lawn sign.
My immediate neighbors are all beholden to the state for their paychecks--either working directly for it or with "professional practices" that benefit heavily from public programs like Medicaid. They have no qualms about putting out Dem or third-party lawn signs. And yet in the past decade, I have seen exactly ZERO Trump signs ANYWHERE, till getting 15 miles south of WA's state capital, Olympia (rural areas in Lewis County, e.g.).
A friend in the Chehalis Valley--very rural--said that his neighbors had Trump signs in '20...and one night somebodies rampaged through their area on the county road, setting fire to the signs/adjoining objects, smashing mailboxes, and "turfing" front lawns, and such.
Today they all have surveillance cams...and still few dare put out non-Dem signs.
The weaponization of opinion has been an effective strategy of mayhem/chaos/violence. It's also been very good growing weather for the Panopticon.
There’s ‘rural’, then there’s where we live. Everybody out here is on 40 acres minimum. It’s 30 minutes to a gas station and 40 minutes to groceries. On the outskirts of Heaven.
In 2020 my neighbor across the road hung a 2’x4’ “F—k Biden” flag on his front gate. He was the local hero for about a week then his wife told it was a bit over the top.
Conservative blogger Stacy McCain points out that despite the outward look of Bass as an incompetent DEI hire, she’s a hard core Cuban trained communist and was strongly considered for a position in the Biden cabinet. Brilliant writing in this column as always Chris.
"There's a lot of shame in the USA. People are ashamed of their complicity--the complicity during Covid, and the Fentanyl Floyd Riots, and the mass migration, and the homelessness, and the overdoses, and the trans kids, and all the batshit Leftist insanity. They can't admit their complicity. So they dig in and shout Orange Man Bad! and other madness."
Great assessment. It must be quite interesting to live a life attracted to a set of ideas, behaviors, slogans and opinions that are designed to signal high status, while it all illuminates profoundly harmful infantile stupidity. They are caught in a "do nothing" trap. They cannot tolerate the self-esteem destruction from admitting their idiocy, but lately they cannot accept the destructive outcomes resulting from their idiocy. Some of them just run away to places that are not dystopian hell holes yet where they can still play-act their childish, high-class luxury beliefs without having to live with all the poop, drugs, theft, rape and murder. But yes, the rest are stuck.
> ideas, behaviors, slogans and opinions that are designed to signal high status,
Based on my experience in those circles long ago, Frank, those aren't about "signalling high status." They're about signalling whatever it takes to keep from having the lowest possible status inflicted on one by deliberately or accidently dissenting from whatever the expected behavior is this day. Or hour. It's signalling "Do it to Julia, not to me."
The threat of and violence for nonconformity is very real. The violence isn't all arson and window smashing and such. As my darling used to say of the turbo marxies he and our Pardner had invade their workplace, "They'll shiv you in the ribs for eating the wrong brand of tofu."
This has been an airtight system of oppression and power posing as something else--high mindedness--for a long time. It's not. It is the most vicious, intimate, unrelenting war, and its battlefield is everywhere.
Interesting. I have to think about that contrasting opinion of their motivation. I do agree that people that adopt left/liberal progressive politics seem to all have a personality disorder of needing group validation for their psychological wellness. So I can see some of that "follow the herd" behavior. But I also see them strut with their opinion that their beliefs are higher status. Opposing beliefs, like those of MAGA people, are deemed lower class, disgusting and beneath them. Maybe it is both. However, what we can agree on is that it is a doom loop.
I see the same effect when substitute teaching at many local schools, The propaganda is still being handed out, (Anti ICE, pro Trans posters etc) but the uptake is not there, while there are fresh posters delivered to the break room, to virtue signal by hanging them in their classrooms. the teachers no longer them up (Like the 15 pieces of flare made famous in Office Space) . it seems an odd time capsule, like 6 ftt stickers on floors that no one obeys, you can even date them as 6 years old given the wear...
I was in an AP history class, the teacher has the requisite gay pride flag (in only a 3x5 card form and in an inconspicuous place) but also a picture of a cat existing an explosion, which is he common image used by el gato malo.... hopeful...
This Abcarian loon, and the AWFLs who are all of a sudden silent for the first time in their lives, are the embodiment of the famous X tweet by Millenial Woes:
“It’s amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible.”
The fact that Robin Abcarian is still employed by the Slimes (or any news media), after these many decades, tells you all you need to know about the Slimes. That truly is one of the most brain-dead columns I've seen in a long time, and she's written some real humdingers. Oh, heck, all their columnists have.
A Chris Bray-post and a cup of coffeee wakes me up like nothing else short of the fire alarm going off, and it's not even my nation he's reporting on!
"...graduate degree in journalism?"
What's the phrase? "That and two bits gets you a cuppa"? Only I think time is coming ms ABC-arian isn't going to be able earn a bent nickel from her degree.
On a more serious note *grabs lapels* what is happening is their feelings are re-adjusting due to real fear of what is obectively speaking happening impacting then negatively, and that fear is starting to edge out their conceited virtuousness, as you noted.
The effect in real life will be a massive turn, all at once, but not towards conservatism (whatever that is) or sense, but a turn to blame the Democrat party for not making it work, whatever *it* is.
That's the trouble with politics based in wandering wombs (hysteria): fear is reactive, not constructive or pro-active, and so you cannot build on fear.
Nor can you build on hope and promises.
Only actually doing something, and leading buy example, can be the foundation of something good.
Ms ABC-arian and her kind of people can not and will not admit that, but they are going to start putting words around it.
If the developent is analogous to here, the sensible center of yesteryear is the radical fringe of today, and what was then locked up in asylums is today's center.
But: in several European nations the parties of middle-of-the-road-politics are quietly adopting the programmes of the right-of-center parties, but using different verbiage and semantics to appease their core voters.
In a very weird way, we're seeing a simultaneous move towards even more extreme neoliberalism/progressivism than we already have, and 1970s-style nationalist ideas.
Thanks for the link, I don't get the chance to see the ads because I don't watch any local TV anymore. The ads I have seen are Din-o-mite. The ad with Batman characters is Erie with brutal truths. I think they will motivate voters, I know they have me fired up. I'm sure these are made with AI but these seems like award worthy.
Counter-example!
https://x.com/LatinosPorPratt/status/2054260378415288498
They could vote in their own best interest and lie about it to their friends.
The pride in which they do that I find nauseating. The modern liberal really is an unprecedented caricature..
Female libs constantly preen to maintain social cohesion in their tribe by announcing what the guardrails are. Ignore the guardrails and you are banished from the tribe.
When the preening stops, however, as seen in The Silence of the AWFLs, there’s got to be some serious cognitive dissonance going on, and dare I say, some soul searching?
Maybe Mr. Pratt is reaching them?
Common sense and truth have strong attractions, especially in the face of obvious Democrat failures. Only the most deluded think California’s problems are due to Trump, or white supremacy, climate change, capitalism, Nazis, or the other excuses. Hardliners will go down with the ship, but those more in the center are feeling the pull of the vibe shift.
I agree there’s a vibe shift, but why in LA and why now?
It’s got to be that Spencer Pratt’s message has somehow gotten to them.
His mix of blunt truths and positivity may be the perfect message to turn some of the left who are secretly tired of all of the stress that LA induces because of it’s devolution.
There's no soul searching. The AWFLs are just reloading.
I am just reacting to Mr. Bray’s observation that the AWFLs are not putting up signs of support for the Dems.
That may seem minor, but it’s not.
The libs are all about virtue signaling to their tribe, for the sole purpose of staying in the good graces of their fellow loons, as they do not want to be banished from the tribe. The tribe is the core of their existence.
So why are they not virtue signaling all of a sudden? Very curious behavior from a crowd that depends on, demands, and always virtue signals.
Yup. I've yet to see one of these AWFL's admit they're full of shit.
And anyone who wants betting action thinking a conservative will be allowed to win, send your money my way.
Not sure who will, but it won't be anyone who makes sense.
The AWFL's are convinced that their AWFL friends will not disappoint them and will continue to vote D and it makes no difference which D they vote for. In their smug minds no friend or neighbor of theirs would even consider an R. It's hive mentality and California will continue to swirl down the drain because it's someone else's job to correct it as long as it's not a lowlife R that just might be MAGA.
Unfortunately, no.
Reality is moving the needle not one bit. We visited long distance blue family over the weekend and I thought my sister-in-law would punch me for saying that wearing a cloth mask during Covid was pointless. Needless to say, she and hubby are vaxed and boosted. Both had Covid. My wife and I, neither.
I’d beware of Pratt. He’s a Candice Owen’s chameleon type, but if I lived in LA I’d still vote for him. Lesser of two evils.
They have no compunction against lying about anything else.
Women fear the homeless. Women, most at any rate, live lives of barely covered up fear. This is far less true of women of faith. AWFLs tho are completely fear based. There is a fear they have of being cut from the group. That is a big big fear. But their physical safety will eventually override that one. Because that fear is the biggest.
IMO toxic empathy is a coping mechanism to cover up their fear. And to a lesser extent, this is very contradictory, their craving for violence. Constant fear is unbearable. Violence actually assuages it and also justifies it.
It assuages it because violence is a type of release.
Doing just that, is an astonishingly regular habit of REAL moderates.
Me thinks they just need new friends! Imagine spending your adult life,
ACTING with your "real friends".
They may do so. We have seen that in the UK with Brexit
Yes. In theory, what happens in a voting booth stays in a voting booth, so it's quite possible that the virtue hand is acting as the shiny object while the I can't live like this anymore hand is voting for Pratt.
The fact that the AWFLs are not putting up signs for the Dems is a big tell.
They are, in effect, NOT signaling to their tribe what acceptable behavior is.
Lying comes easy to them so this might work. Of course it require an IQ above 80 which many of them lack.
I used to subscribe to the LA Times, oh about the time of the Stone Age. Read it every day. I remember reading Robin Abcarian, and she was either hit or miss. Then I started wiping my ass with the LA Times because it became nothing but pressed pulp, until I realized I liked Charmin better, then I stopped the LA Times altogether.
The LA Times is like a high school newsletter, full of “Betsy joined the cheer squad!” or “The Honor Society went to the museum!” In praise of Chris, for daring to even read such dreck.
To the larger point, it does seem clear the lefties have painted themselves into a corner, and have forced themselves to support some of the worst policies dreamed by man. Illegal immigration leading to human trafficking: bad. Valiant Tom Steyer pledging to abolish the agency in charge of stopping the human trafficking: good.
The schism inside Robin Abcarian’s brain must resemble an abyss.
And I love Abcarian’s description of Steve Hilton: who doesn’t like a British accent?
Good lord.
It was okay in the 90s. I subscribed. Liberal, but they got out of the office and looked at the city.
I really liked the California section and columnist Steve Lopez. Up until a year ago, my mom still subscribed to the Sunday Times. One time when I was visiting her, I looked at some of the articles. It was like reading Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
I, too, enjoyed reading Steve Lopez, pretty regularly. But that was a looong time ago.
My rule now is, all newspapers with names ending in Times is C&C'd: captured and corrupted.
I've experienced it with all "local" newspapers. Even in "red" states, the "local" newspapers are very left. (I've put local in quotation marks because all of these "local" newspapers are owned by national corporations.)
About 10 years ago, I had to quit reading the WSJ too. This was quite sad because it was absolutely my favorite newspaper in the 90s and even very early 2000s. Then the "news" section became biased in what it covered and how it covered everything. Nowadays, even the Editorial Board is usually more RINO than Republican and definitely not MAGA.
I have often thought that the role of French et al is to instruct those who cannot think how to feel their way through the delemina. So long as someone smart validates their feelings, they will stay as loyal sheet to chant the current narrative. It is spackle for a widening rift, but it is now too wide to spackle.
I have been subbing in several special ed classes, and the tactics used by the aids (whom I don't want to denigrate in any way, it is very difficult, exhausting work) are similar. Since you cannot logically explain anything to someone with an IQ of 70, you can only motivate them to do that which they don't want to by telling them that it will make them feel good, they get a sticker, the person with the most stickers gets an reward, is lauded publicly. etc. You need to do it CONSTANTLY , often several times a minute, as it is only effective if you repeat it endlessly. I don't really see this as any different...
Really good points!
"feel their way through a dilemma" is exactly it! Your feelings are always true, at least to yourself, so feeling your way through a dilemma must therefore mean it always feel as if you're in the right and doing right.
I had a conversation a few days ago with an AWFL. She can’t stand Trump. After I politely pushed back with a few FACTS, she finally admitted that she thinks of things emotionally. (At least she admitted it.)
I just told her, well, I search out the facts in any given issue and I base my opinion on the facts. She stared at me a little mystified, as if to say she had never given any thought to facts being relevant to a deeply held opinion.
Honestly, I don’t think there is any way to get through to these people. Objective facts are meaningless and irrelevant. The only thing that matters is “how they feel”.
I've had similar interactions with colleagues and students when I was still working. I once asked one "What is it that's so great about Obama?" (our state media was talking about him as if he was the second coming or something), and the best that colleagues could do was:
"He's done so many great things!"
But none of those great things could be described in detail. We had a good talk about that, that state media could induce in us positive or negative feelings by passing our conscious thought processes, if we consumed media without having our filters on.
But this was at an institution teaching political science, and if professionals are that easily affected, "ordinary people", pardon the phrase, don't stand much chance on the whole.
I think this emotion instead of reason behaviour is analogous to Kahneman's idea of System 1/System 2; the intuitive System 1 kicks in first, but the simultanous emotional self-identitfication stops System 2 from engaging at all, because doing so would lead to conflicting emotions, and emotions conflicting with facts (and our brains don't like when that happens).
Further, "what to thinkfeel" has gradually replaced "how to think & analyse" in education, including education for teachers, since the 1990s or earlier, and that robs the young of the chance of learning how to think for themselves.
It's very hard to not start seeing plans all over the place, after experiencing that change in real time during one's career.
Feelings are EVERYTHING, don't cha know? [Love your name BTW 😹]
That article reads like every discussion I see in my profession, librarianship. First there is the inability to focus on core issues that we have control over, like a dearth of jobs and low pay. No we MUST put our energy into trans stuff, racism, and homelessness; or in the case of California leadership, ICE.
But secondly, there is just the way people discuss serious issues. She writes like so many supposedly educated and deep-thinking people in my field do: emotionally, like a teen girl. "But, but, but...he really won my heart...Could it be I’m falling in love?" The only thing missing are all the exclamation points I see in library discussions. "So true! I totally agree! LOL!"
Journalism shouldn't sound like a TV show message board. The irony is that the one-time focus of those online chats, Spencer Pratt, presents himself in a better light than so-called professional, educated journalists. It's embarrassing.
Librarian here with similar observations. It’s maddening that “information professionals” have become retarded parrots.
Glad to hear others in the profession share my experiences. I feel like AI presents so many opportunities to a struggling field, but we'd rather shoot ourselves in the foot, stomach, and head with the nutty focus on fringe matters.
Sadly, I’m not sure if AI can save libraries. Instead of admin sending out illogical emails that are poorly written, they’re sending out illogical emails that AI wraps several layers of obfuscation around.
My library has recently had an increase in violent, really violent, incidents. Instead of solid security plans, we get heart emoji emails telling us how great we are. It’s insanity.
Most public library branches in Canadian downtowns are essentially homeless shelters and meth dens. A buddy worked in one in Toronto and a *good* day was when there was only one or two overdoses in the washrooms.
Agreed. There's a reason I'm no longer involved in any library organization or conference. And as a Canadian I can tell you it's *much* worse up here. Endless Gay Race Communism *plus* heaping doses of Trump Derangement Syndrome Canuck-style, articulated in that characteristically smug, self-righteous and sanctimonious manner that infects Canadians like the clap. Imagine the worst blue-state AWFL neighbourhood, apply it nationally, and that's most of Canada (with exceptions in Alberta and other parts of the prairies).
Ditto on no more conferences or library associations.
I’m sorry to hear about the state of Canadian libraries. It sounds hellish.
There’s a substack called Heterodoxy in the Stacks that has some interesting articles about viewpoint diversity in libraries. I encourage you and @JF to check it out.
Parkinson of the famous laws called concentrating on minor side issues bike shedding and it seems to be increasingly common in the professional managerial caste these days. They can't solve the real problem so the go focus on something else that makes them feel good
Good point. The only problem is they can't solve those other issues either, so I don't know how they can feel good about themselves.
And the professional managerial caste just bounces to leadership role to leadership role, so nothing ever changes. It is true of libraries, and it is true of society at large (e.g., the career of Kamala Harris).
Wow, being a based librarian these days makes you a pilgrim in an unholy land. The profession has become one of the epicenters of wokeness in the long march…
There are a few in my network - including one of my former profs - but we keep a *very* low profile. We're all white, heterosexual, conservative males in a profession that - up here in Canada at least - must be at least three-quarters female and who mostly vote for the New Democratic Party, which is the equivalent of having AOC or Mamdami lead a national political party.
My last county library refused to buy any books that were written more than 5 years ago. So no classics. I'm not sure about the county library where I live now. I do know that one has horrible/useless search and browse capabilities; it's impossible to drill or filter down past the general Nonfiction category.
Don't forget emojis, hearts and stars and hilarity ensuing.
Mustache man bad!
Potato woman Rad!
The downfall of journalism dates back to the establishment of the first J school.
Before that, reporters were streetwise lower middle class guys who smoked Camels and drank whiskey and who actually knew how the world works.
Now, J schools churn out homogenized, self selected "professional journalists" who think there is no life east of Sepulveda Blvd or west of the Hudson river.
It's pretty hard to speak truth to power when you're a credentialed member of the power structure yourself.
Accurate IMO.
J schools got taken over by MarComm, Pilot, and I don't know if there's even any of the old J schools left.
Before that you still had some departments that taught things like rhetoric, history, arithmetic, and research skills, then jettisoned their grads into the corollary of the newsroom/beat apprenticeship. Either on an internship or salaried basis.
Whether those skills did or could get practiced in situations where the student evaluations/paychecks are signed is an open question. I incline to conclude from experience, "Rarely, if ever."
Still, Pilot--no less a cynic than Henry Lous Mencken felt there were positive potentials in J-schools. And of course what he valued would hold whether or not a journo had a J-school degree.
"Newes" as we know it started out as hand-written gossip sheets at crossroads taverns/coach stops. And Lloyds of London coffeehouses. These existed to impart intel of use to the writer, and amuse/distract/misdirect/frighten the reader.
In the more modern era, once "news" became "marketing communications" became "selling audiences to advertisers" (initiated with print media, fortified with government propaganda, amped up with broadcast media, put on steroids with cable TV and computerized market research, now on turbo meth with the internet, and rocket sledding into Hell with AI) it was done and over.
Apparently nobody outside of community and punk media noticed for like 50 years.
I have known no setting more revelatory of local truths than the tap room 8 to 10 blocks from the waterfront. Close enough to be chthonic; far enough away not to be owned by the brothel keepers and worst mobsters. My own egregious nostalgia.
BRAYSOG and a few other operations click with that. But you can't have community memory where communities have been detonated/imploded/burned over by operations like "deindustrialization" and "globalization." Managed decline is very lucrative for some, especially when they control the levers of the Hypnosis Machine.
The rest just look for sinecures in that power structure, and do anything to get the credentials and retain their all-too-fragile slots. And there is no one they despise nearly so much as men and women who build, maintain, and repair the physical world. Hypnosis doesn't answer the 2 a.m. call when electrons, water, air, or traffic stop flowing.
My dad actually went to J School at the University of Western Ontario in the mid 1950s. Prior to that he was a railroad mechanic’s assistant in northern Ontario. In his journalism career he worked with and learned a lot from those cigar chomping, whiskey drinking older colleagues.
Bass wins with a turn-out of less than 35% because she's familiar to them, she's female and black and government must continue to be run by black females to make up for the crooked white guys (which they were) even though the present clowns are just as crooked, or well, maybe just stupid. Love it when I can write ridiculously.
Absolutely, 100% a turnout election. Bass has a machine that can harvest ballots and turn out rideshare voters. Without voter enthusiasm, it's over. I think Spencer Pratt can do it, but I don't know that he can do it.
The lack of lawn signs seems quite remarkable to me, Chris. Either the political apathy is overwhelming, or, something more fundamental could be taking place.
I have a terrible habit of optimism: maybe there’s a growing exhaustion with the long-time, status-quo insanity. Maybe this exhaustion is jerking eyelids open and forcing reality into their Karen-Quaalude-stupefied brains.
You wrote, “They’re trapped. They’ve trapped themselves.” That statement screamed itself off the page at me.
Lies generally refute reality. “Fresh air is racist.” When Progressives lie, to themselves or to others, they generally refute Reality. Lie often enough, lie outrageously enough, and you trap yourself in your own sticky, suffocating web.
My view is either in this election cycle, or certainly in the next, a sea-change will occur. In LA. And also throughout California.
Maybe. Maybe not. Again, I’m one of those optimist assholes.
> The lack of lawn signs seems quite remarkable to me,
This phenomenon has fascinated me, Rob, since late '15/early '16. When it became an action deserving of any imaginable malicious treatment to have, say, a DJT lawn sign.
My immediate neighbors are all beholden to the state for their paychecks--either working directly for it or with "professional practices" that benefit heavily from public programs like Medicaid. They have no qualms about putting out Dem or third-party lawn signs. And yet in the past decade, I have seen exactly ZERO Trump signs ANYWHERE, till getting 15 miles south of WA's state capital, Olympia (rural areas in Lewis County, e.g.).
A friend in the Chehalis Valley--very rural--said that his neighbors had Trump signs in '20...and one night somebodies rampaged through their area on the county road, setting fire to the signs/adjoining objects, smashing mailboxes, and "turfing" front lawns, and such.
Today they all have surveillance cams...and still few dare put out non-Dem signs.
The weaponization of opinion has been an effective strategy of mayhem/chaos/violence. It's also been very good growing weather for the Panopticon.
There’s ‘rural’, then there’s where we live. Everybody out here is on 40 acres minimum. It’s 30 minutes to a gas station and 40 minutes to groceries. On the outskirts of Heaven.
In 2020 my neighbor across the road hung a 2’x4’ “F—k Biden” flag on his front gate. He was the local hero for about a week then his wife told it was a bit over the top.
Conservative blogger Stacy McCain points out that despite the outward look of Bass as an incompetent DEI hire, she’s a hard core Cuban trained communist and was strongly considered for a position in the Biden cabinet. Brilliant writing in this column as always Chris.
I think this gets at the below-the-surface problem:
https://x.com/RamboVanHalen/status/2054239241551630588
"There's a lot of shame in the USA. People are ashamed of their complicity--the complicity during Covid, and the Fentanyl Floyd Riots, and the mass migration, and the homelessness, and the overdoses, and the trans kids, and all the batshit Leftist insanity. They can't admit their complicity. So they dig in and shout Orange Man Bad! and other madness."
Great assessment. It must be quite interesting to live a life attracted to a set of ideas, behaviors, slogans and opinions that are designed to signal high status, while it all illuminates profoundly harmful infantile stupidity. They are caught in a "do nothing" trap. They cannot tolerate the self-esteem destruction from admitting their idiocy, but lately they cannot accept the destructive outcomes resulting from their idiocy. Some of them just run away to places that are not dystopian hell holes yet where they can still play-act their childish, high-class luxury beliefs without having to live with all the poop, drugs, theft, rape and murder. But yes, the rest are stuck.
> ideas, behaviors, slogans and opinions that are designed to signal high status,
Based on my experience in those circles long ago, Frank, those aren't about "signalling high status." They're about signalling whatever it takes to keep from having the lowest possible status inflicted on one by deliberately or accidently dissenting from whatever the expected behavior is this day. Or hour. It's signalling "Do it to Julia, not to me."
The threat of and violence for nonconformity is very real. The violence isn't all arson and window smashing and such. As my darling used to say of the turbo marxies he and our Pardner had invade their workplace, "They'll shiv you in the ribs for eating the wrong brand of tofu."
This has been an airtight system of oppression and power posing as something else--high mindedness--for a long time. It's not. It is the most vicious, intimate, unrelenting war, and its battlefield is everywhere.
Interesting. I have to think about that contrasting opinion of their motivation. I do agree that people that adopt left/liberal progressive politics seem to all have a personality disorder of needing group validation for their psychological wellness. So I can see some of that "follow the herd" behavior. But I also see them strut with their opinion that their beliefs are higher status. Opposing beliefs, like those of MAGA people, are deemed lower class, disgusting and beneath them. Maybe it is both. However, what we can agree on is that it is a doom loop.
I see the same effect when substitute teaching at many local schools, The propaganda is still being handed out, (Anti ICE, pro Trans posters etc) but the uptake is not there, while there are fresh posters delivered to the break room, to virtue signal by hanging them in their classrooms. the teachers no longer them up (Like the 15 pieces of flare made famous in Office Space) . it seems an odd time capsule, like 6 ftt stickers on floors that no one obeys, you can even date them as 6 years old given the wear...
I was in an AP history class, the teacher has the requisite gay pride flag (in only a 3x5 card form and in an inconspicuous place) but also a picture of a cat existing an explosion, which is he common image used by el gato malo.... hopeful...
Gato can write and think.
This Abcarian loon, and the AWFLs who are all of a sudden silent for the first time in their lives, are the embodiment of the famous X tweet by Millenial Woes:
“It’s amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible.”
The fact that Robin Abcarian is still employed by the Slimes (or any news media), after these many decades, tells you all you need to know about the Slimes. That truly is one of the most brain-dead columns I've seen in a long time, and she's written some real humdingers. Oh, heck, all their columnists have.
A Chris Bray-post and a cup of coffeee wakes me up like nothing else short of the fire alarm going off, and it's not even my nation he's reporting on!
"...graduate degree in journalism?"
What's the phrase? "That and two bits gets you a cuppa"? Only I think time is coming ms ABC-arian isn't going to be able earn a bent nickel from her degree.
On a more serious note *grabs lapels* what is happening is their feelings are re-adjusting due to real fear of what is obectively speaking happening impacting then negatively, and that fear is starting to edge out their conceited virtuousness, as you noted.
The effect in real life will be a massive turn, all at once, but not towards conservatism (whatever that is) or sense, but a turn to blame the Democrat party for not making it work, whatever *it* is.
That's the trouble with politics based in wandering wombs (hysteria): fear is reactive, not constructive or pro-active, and so you cannot build on fear.
Nor can you build on hope and promises.
Only actually doing something, and leading buy example, can be the foundation of something good.
Ms ABC-arian and her kind of people can not and will not admit that, but they are going to start putting words around it.
I keep waiting for a turn back to sane Democrats, but it never happens. At all. Forty years ago, California had some. They all just vanished.
If the developent is analogous to here, the sensible center of yesteryear is the radical fringe of today, and what was then locked up in asylums is today's center.
But: in several European nations the parties of middle-of-the-road-politics are quietly adopting the programmes of the right-of-center parties, but using different verbiage and semantics to appease their core voters.
In a very weird way, we're seeing a simultaneous move towards even more extreme neoliberalism/progressivism than we already have, and 1970s-style nationalist ideas.
> I keep waiting for a turn back to sane Democrats,
[tapping engine block with torque wrench]
Well, there's your problem.
This ad for Pratt is amazing
https://x.com/i/status/2053828567574991052
“You had 20 years to fix things” is a very powerful line.
Thanks for the link, I don't get the chance to see the ads because I don't watch any local TV anymore. The ads I have seen are Din-o-mite. The ad with Batman characters is Erie with brutal truths. I think they will motivate voters, I know they have me fired up. I'm sure these are made with AI but these seems like award worthy.
Awesome column. As a fellow Angeleno I can only say bravo. Bravo. Nicely phrased.