Kay made this observation about the press in one of yesterday’s threads, and it stuck with me:
I think media’s absolutely bonkers level of focus on this tells us how bad Trump’s proposed appointees are. They can’t really face any of the new reality because they’re rigidly conventional, unimaginative people.
Dave Karpf uses a slightly different description, but I think he’s making a similar point:
This [freakout over Hunter Biden’s pardon] is of a piece with a broader pattern. Our political and media elites have made it clear through their actions that they value the appearance of order and propriety over anything else.
Donald Trump was elected President. Ergo he is legitimate, and must be afforded the same polite treatment offered to any other President-elect. Wipe the slate clean, so as to not sully the office he is set to occupy. We must all hope against hope that he behaves himself better his time around. And, if he does not, then it is our duty to cluck our tongues and register respectful, muted disapproval.
There is a right and proper way for Presidents to behave.
And there is a right and proper way for people to behave toward Presidents.
To do otherwise is to endanger social order and stability. (And it is maintenance of the social order, above all else, that our political, media, and economic elites value above all else.)
In pardoning his own son, Joe Biden did not behave right and properly. It smacks of favoritism, as though he put the well-being of his disappointing son ahead of the duties of his office. Even worse, he stated repeatedly he would not issue this pardon. Lying is bad. Presidents ought not lie.
So it is our duty to cluck our tongues and register disapproval. And that disapproval should perhaps be just a bit louder, as proof that WE show no such favoritism.
It is all just so… contrived.
Karpf also makes this point about the role of Democracy:
Democracy, at its core, is a compromise between political elites and the mass public. The public is given the vote as a pressure release valve of sorts — a form of legitimate dissent that affects the composition of the government. Elites, as a result, enjoy unparalleled social stability.
I’ve been thinking about that paragraph as we witness a manhunt after the apparent assassination of an elite, the head of a rapacious, evil insurance company. (Read this if you think I exaggerate.) If this CEO was killed due to the (horrible) actions of his company, then the elite order has truly been disturbed, and we’re in for it.
hrprogressive
The media is, and has been for a long time, a wholly owned subsidiary of the corprofascist shareholder complex, which is why they spend so much time sanewashing absolutely unhinged behavior.
They do not exist to educate the public.
They exist to ensure the wealth and power of the billionaire class is not meaningfully challenged or diminished.
To that extent, they have done a wonderful job of making sure the yawning disparities between the haves and have-nots don’t get truly noticed and processed by all the have-nots.
Betty Cracker
I remember talking to Adam about the massive protests in Israel before the 10/7 Hamas attack, when tens of thousands of Israelis were demonstrating nightly to protest Netanyahu’s power grab in the guise of “judicial reform.” I said something like wasn’t the strong reaction against Netanyahu by ordinary Israelis great.
Adam pointed out that the persistent demonstrations were NOT a good sign; it meant democracy was breaking down and they had no other recourse but to take to the streets. I think he was right.
stacib
United Healthcare sucks majorly. Earlier this year, the hospital said my mom needed to go to a SNF for about two weeks to get her back on her feet. After three days, UNC mandated she be discharged from the facility, so they kicked her out. Then, UNC refused to pay the at-home therapy bill, so her at-home health was cancelled, too.
Derelict
A more direct explanation:
1.) The media standard for Democrats is that whatever the Democrats are doing, they’re doing it wrong Wrong WRONG, and it’s a scandal. Thus Biden pardoning his son to help the kid escape what is a blatantly political hatchet job is wrong Wrong WRONG.
2.) The media adores Donald Trump because Donald Trump keeps the “BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!” chyron moving all day, every day. Clicks and ad dollars! More than they can count! And best of all? No need to do any of that tedious “reporting” and “fact finding.” Just print or quote whatever crap came out of Trump, make two phone calls to get “reactions,” and you’re hitting the bistro for lunch bang on time with no further work to do for the day!
Fair Economist
It’s not about the appearance of order and propriety, because they didn’t and don’t care about the dozens of times Trump did much worse pardons, notably his son-in-law’s father, convicted of massive financial fraud.
Daoud bin Daoud
The Reichwing will undoubtedly blame Antifa for this dastardly attack on one of our corporate overlords. My question: is this really the start of a gang war between rival factions of capitalists for control of the government?
m.j.
In the article I read, the author made note of the lack of security for the elite who was killed.
Pinkertons.
Dorothy A. Winsor
When you think about norms, you have to think about what value they’re meant to serve. It’s possible for norms to drift from their original goal
Belafon
@Derelict: Since the media liked to report what people were saying on Twitter, I wonder if they’ll start quoting bsky.
MazeDancer
The apt descriptions of the media reminds me of when I first realized how parochial NYC is.
After being away, out West, for some years, I returned. Completely because I was broke, had been sick, and desperately needed the money my skills and experience would net me.
All of my friends lived in the same large apartments they had owned for years. Most worked, if not for the same company, in the same field.
Liberals to a person, they still liked things orderly. Good schools, good art, good theatre, good museums, good restaurants, good worthy causes.
They wanted to help everyone have equal opportunity to enjoy those things. And, certainly, I support all those things.
But there was something so same-same about it. No risks taken.
The only variation was about taste. Facts faced, not everyone, no matter how nice, kind, or supportive of worthy orgs they are, has good taste.
So matters of taste are allowed free reign.
Chief Oshkosh
I hope a lot of sociopathic CEOs are sweating today. It would be a crying shame if Jamie Dimon stepped on a rake as he exited the posh country club restaurant that fed him a three-martini lunch. And hopefully Ed Bastion (Delta CEO) is starting to worry about taking his next flight on a Wheels Up jet.
Fair Economist
I’ve been struggling to figure a motive for the United Healthcare assassination. An aggrieved client (or relative) is the first reasonable one I have seen. United Healthcare was recently involved in a massive ransomware attack, and paid the attackers 22 million in bitcoin, but I haven’t been able to figure a reason somebody would kill the CEO over that.
NutmegAgain
Re: Biden’s decision to pardon son Hunter. I do not see this as “lying”. I think he changed his mind after weighing the new situation. I would hope that many elected officials have the capacity to change their minds.
m.j.
@Fair Economist:
Shouldn’t this comment be in a sarcasm font or something?
Jackie
Here’s a partial list, I’m sure, of Patel’s enemy list. This doesn’t include the J6 Committee members, or reporters – who we know are on TCFG’s personal list of the Enemies Within…
Martin
I think it’s worth noting how many of the norms were set and enforced by the media, and how much they relied on Democrats agreeing to the utility of those norms and self-policing. So long as they could tut-tut the Democrats into line, they had a reliable river of stories they could sail down. They gave the GOP a pass once it was clear that the GOP didn’t agree and wouldn’t work to abide by and defend those norms.
There is 100% a soft bigotry of low expectations by the media toward the GOP.
laura
Something something…Bader-Meinhof, something something Red Brigade.
Citizen Alan
@MazeDancer: This is actually an astonishing view point to me because I went to Queens for my LLM from North Mississippi. And I remain convinced that I could have gone out every single day and do/see something new and interesting every day for the rest of my life and still not seen it all. I only put 50 items on my bucket list and am still sad I only marked off 25 of them in the 9 months I was there.
Trollhattan
An occasional reminder that “yes, your vote may well make a difference” even if you live somewhere with overwhelming historical majorities.
Not only was the mayoral runoff as tight as a tight thing, the primary had places 2-4 separated by a percentage point and incoming mayor McCarty barely squeaked out his chance to run in fall.
He’s a good guy and I’m fine with the outcome.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I’m vaguely recalling someone giving a talk to his fellows at some Elite gathering, I don’t recall what or where, but sometime in the past few years, and saying bluntly to his fellow Masters of the Universe: “Do you want to know what I see in our future? Guillotines.”
This is the sort of thing that happens when the upper class breaks the social contract.
Baud
@Trollhattan:
I was initially wondering why you were happy about Kevin McCarthy.
Jackie
@NutmegAgain:
This. The very real possibility of an AG Bondi and FBI Director Pastel must have made Biden sick to his heart with dread. I would have changed my mind, too, and said the hell with “your” precious decorum.
p.a.
My comment from older thread:
There are executives who make decisions that can destroy towns, regions, poison the air, water, and land, and politicians and state entities that allow and encourage these actions, and they go about enjoying their lives like they’re Roman princes. Most of the time.
Just sayin’…
ETA: consequences are for little people. And when Scammy Sammy Scalito says “you have elections, chumps” and then the franchise gets fucked with…
laura
@Trollhattan: I’m ride or die Kevin McCarty. He has been a very good City Council Member, an excellent State Assembly Member and his policy priorities of early childhood education, law enforcement reform affordable housing and homelessness are genuine. He has been a true friend of labor and is very realistic about what can be done given the realities of budget constraints. Cherry on top was/is his absolute opposition to the public funding of the Golden 1 Arena. He failed in that regard and so we’ve gifted public funds to the sportsball team owners in the hope they won’t take “our team” away. Man of principle unlike that SoCal Kevin McCarty dude.
Citizen Alan
I am genuinely both saddened and horrified by how NOT saddened and horrified I am by the Thompson assassination. I consider insurance companies to be objectively evil, and I am simply incapable of summoning up any sympathy for a man who the internet informs me was paid $23.5 million a year to figure out new ways of cheating United Healthcare’s paying customers out of services to which they were entitled.
As I’ve said many times, the thing I hate most about Republicans is the fact that they have made me hate them so much.
suzanne
Well, we just got democracy, good and hard.
The mass public doesn’t seem to have much faith in the functionality or the mission of much of elite society. (I’m actually sympathetic on this point.) But they’re not taking it out on those elites. They’re acting out their anger on those just adjacent to them on the social ladder, those just above and below.
This is where my sympathy crashes into a brick wall and instantly transforms to FUCKEM.
Ohio Mom
@MazeDancer: I first heard New York described as parochial by my undergraduate advisor. Like me, he was product of the Bronx who had chosen to leave.
What he actually said was something like, The best thing is to grow up in New York because you are exposed to so many things but then live somewhere else as an adult because New York is so parochial.
My appreciation for this insight has grown over the years. It is fun for me to see you use the same word to describe the land of my birth.
@mistermix.bsky.social
Just a note that Dave Karpf is channeling journalist brain when he says that Biden “did not behave right and properly”. That’s not his position. I don’t know if everyone has picked up on that in this thread
Also, this was just added to the Guardian story:
“There had been some threats,” she explained in a phone call. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”
She also told the outlet that the police had informed her that it appeared the shooting was “a planned attack.”
“I can’t really give a thoughtful response right now. I just found this out and I’m trying to console my children,” she added.
Dave
Underrated point in the last paragraph. One of threads that keeps coming up when I talk to my brother who is fairly well off and very much a part of the Techbro set (minus some of their worst sins) is how large the idea that Democrats want to punish success looms in their consciousness and that they are maybe a single successful election cycle away from bringing out the guillotines.
It’s ridiculous and unconnected to reality (of course if you look you can find “eat the rich” rhetoric online it’s always existed and always will but is also miles and miles away from any actionable large scale reality) though this comes with the corollary that in their fear and short sighted “rational self-interest” they will take actions that actually creates that reality.
The other advantage for them of this is that it gives them a good rationalization to avoid confronting the real problem of extreme wealth inequality that in truth is only good, for a certain value of good, the true sociopaths at the top not the ones that have affected sociopathic traits to succeed. And curtailing that inequality would actually be good for almost everyone including most of the wealthy.
So even if this murder wasn’t about that if it can in anyway be spun in their own minds to be that they will act accordingly and by that I mean like righteously panicked dumbfucks if only because they aren’t any better, and may even be worse, at avoiding the sort of panicked anti-thought that rest of us losers are susceptible to. I really worry about the millennial apocalyptic thread that seems to be deeply woven into the underlying mental structures that they operate in
The media itself is similar to this with it’s own rituals and base assumption that it will simply refuse to ever examine and while this is influenced and reinforced by it’s oligarchic owners I think would independent of them on it’s own.
RevRick
@Fair Economist: The one other hit carried out in lower Manhattan of late was by a paid assassin who killed a law student who was owed $350,000 for cocaine, and the guy who owed thought it would be cheaper the student than to pay the debt.
As I said in another thread, two reasons come to mind. One is sex, like the CEO shtupping the killer’s wife. The other is, UHC denied a claim that led to the death of a loved one. And UHC has the highest percentage of denied claims ~33%.
WereBear
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I remember that too. It was a basic “can’t we tone down the arrogance and do some good?” and he was viewed like a dead mouse at a dinner party.
Dave
@NutmegAgain: Another flaw of our time updating out beliefs out actions based on changing circumstances and information is apparently proof of mendacity and faithlessness. That DJT receives a pass on this (partly because he never actually has once in his life challenged a his core beliefs) is damning.
Bupalos
This is an interesting perspective. I’m one of the few here that accept or think about the damage Biden’s move does to us, while still agreeing he did what is most simply described as really the only thing possible for him to do given who he is. But I admit to being a little shocked at the way this is being talked about in “the media,” which in general I’m intentionally just not exposed to. Namely that you could listen or read for 2 minutes straight without hearing the name Trump or any reference to the ways our democratic norms and values have been badly and repeatedly breached, and that this breach (like our terrible idea to run a campaign on the defense of democracy) comes specifically in reaction to Trump. I see how people here exposed to this are rubbed raw, and freak out when I reference the (mild) damage this will do to our ability to fight for democracy or to restrain Trump. How they hear more unfair criticism of Biden rather than a plain description.
All of this really is profoundly “unfair.”
However as we think about who and what is interested in maintaining social stability and the status quo, let’s consider whether “the media” really is a kind of separate “elite” here. Personally I think they do more reflecting their readers views back at them than anything else. Let’s remember we just ran a campaign that was sufficiently focused on social order and the status quo that we somehow ended up in bed with the Cheneys.
Dave
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: And they more than any other group create the reality they so fear. Much like slave powers who used to live in terror of violent revolt because on some level they recognize it is the only rational response if they make any other alternative to justice impossible.
Something I really very strongly want to avoid I’ve seen the result of chaos and civil breakdown and it is ugly and almost invariably empowers the worst most vicious actors in society.
WereBear
Was my first guess. Because I know they do it so often.
Someone really cool under pressure, too. Yet that doesn’t match the phone calls. They knew threatening wouldn’t do any good.
And the CEO apparently shrugged them off. I guess people hating his guts is part of his job, after all.
Melancholy Jaques
While I do not approve of murder I understand the hostility toward health insurance companies. I am currently struggling with United Health Group subsidiary Optum to get authorization for the cardiac rehab that my thoracic surgeon and my cardiologist say is critical to my recovery.
We don’t need health care insurance companies, they only exist to make money for investors off of people’s medical needs. I do not know why this is not more obvious to voters.
WereBear
@Dave: I believe that is why the Confederate descendants remain paranoid.
Still haven’t come to terms.
MazeDancer
@Citizen Alan: Don’t think there is conflict in our POVs.
Doing interesting things is a matter of “taste”. People will try things for fun.
Artists experimenting is supported heartily. Theatre, too.
There is just an orderliness that doesn’t change. It is why I can almost never get anyone to see how the NY Times is a rag. I gave up.
Because I, out of necessity, became a risk taker, didn’t realize how much people like order.
Maybe it’s not just NYers, but have noticed that people who do well enough to afford living in NYC, no matter how rich or poor their backgrounds, become parochially attached to order. They’re content. There is, as you note, so much to do.
Why change?
Was just noting this is like the media.
WereBear
@Melancholy Jaques: I have tried to explain. And here “But I don’t want the government to be in charge of my doctor.”
I point out they are letting a corporation do it, and they brighten. “They make jerbs!”
And if there is one puzzling seething resentment about the last 20 years it’s that Democrats never made a great big noisy fuss about the obvious erosion in public education.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
just a reminder that our democracy is very much the product of an elite movement, the enlightenment, which was run very much by the elites. The idea of democracy has been around for more than two thousand years, after all, and was disapproved of because the thought was that the population left to their own devices would just elect demagogues, like Hitler or Trump, hence the electoral college, restriction of the franchise, etc.
The communists, on the other hand, objected to democracy for reason set out in this post: it empowers an elite order.
Dave
@MazeDancer: People do like order. I like order there is an understandable deep seated terror in the human soul of the wages of chaos.
Order though breaks down when it tries to force stasis versus adaptation to changing circumstances. Too often slowly and then all at once.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Many of us use the tumbrels analogy and are only maybe one-quarter joking when we say that given the general frustration level that exists across a wide swath of the electorate because the upper class has been breaking the so-called social contract since, oh, 20 Jan 1981.
Apparently whoever did this finally took the tumbrel analogy and applied it in their own way.
And what Chief Oshkosh said in #11. Point tho: “sociopathic CEOs” is redundant.
Martin
@Fair Economist: My money is on aggrieved client. This may seem like something new, but it happens a lot – just not with CEOs. People getting a wrong drink order have come back with a gun and killed the barista, that sort of thing. That happens pretty regularly and gets fired under the ‘look at this crazy thing that just happened to some sacrificial worker’. It sure as shit doesn’t get national news headlines (though it should).
To be clear this falls under the category of ‘the economy’ and it’s shitty and it’s getting worse. I certainly don’t endorse violence for this sort of thing, but I long ago stopped being surprised by it.
If some customer gave into the voices in their head and was debating shooting the customer service rep or the CEO, I’ll prefer the choice of the CEO every time.
TBone
@Melancholy Jaques: I hope you prevail and that insurance is eventually disconnected from real health care. Profit from illness is no way for ANY human to live, and making sick people work so hard, during the crisis of illness, just to pay for care is unconscionable.
lynno
Oh, so there must be many who trust Trump with your children, grands, nieces, nephews. I don’t and I have encouraged all I know to get a passport ASAP. Gonna need one to get your youngones to safety. Our families are too valuable to trust their future to Trump’s fantasy.
Motivated Seller
The reason why there is “bonkers level of focus” is because it works on the clicks. If roles were reversed, would Trump supporters pour over media articles that criticized his antics? F-no! Media companies know their audience, and they produce content accordingly. Trump is an excellent vehicle for just another click.
Its not a comfortable situation for good-faith media consumers, but Progressives are allowing themselves to be triggered.
TBone
France is having a democracy crisis also too – no confidence in Prime Minister, economy hanging on the brink.
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Definitely a potential future career drag.
PJ
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The norms here are just gatekeeping about who is considered politically or socially approved. The media always disliked Biden because he was an old school politician who went to a state school and did nothing to assuage the egos of journalists. He didn’t give them a tire swing ride, or pal around with them on the airplane. That’s not the only reason, but it makes it a lot easier for them to want to put “Biden old” or “Biden pardon” six times on the front page for months on end.
Meanwhile, Trump, who flatters journalists when he isn’t threatening to lock them up, is the one they like, because even if he is too déclassé to be a member of the elite, he is “fun” for them (and he makes them lots of money), so real outrages committed or said by Trump are reported on for a day or two max (and buried deep in the paper), and then dropped.
Dave
@Trollhattan: Should have changed his name when the changing was good. Though to be fair 99% of voters probably don’t remember McCarthy if they even knew who was in the first place.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I wonder if this hit will cause the usual suspects to start examining how the gun used in the hit was acquired? And how that might lead to a larger conversation about the ubiquity of gunz in our country?
Nah, nothing of the sort will happen, the acid just kicked in when typing that.
Actually, I can now see where this will lead: CEOs with heavily armed bodyguards at all times. Which then means, SNIPER RIFLES! And so on, and so on.
suzanne
@Bupalos:
If you believe the media, disorder in cities/towns has been a big concern for voters. Homelessness, public drug use, shoplifting.
I don’t have a sense of how potent this issue is for people, because Inhavent heard it come up in any in-person discussions. And I will note that I live in a neighborhood with a bit more disorder than I’d like. But it does appear that at least a swath of voters doesn’t believe Democrats are credible defenders of public order.
Bupalos
@lynno: I’m going to start a service: you name the country you think you’re going to flee to, and I’ll provide the name that you can cut-and-paste into the place of “Trump” so you can recycle your old posts.
Martin
@Dave: Having lived in NYC, and rural areas, and suburbs – and having done a lot of work I the area of cognitive load, I think a lot of the parochial order in NYC is a response to potential cognitive overload. You cannot process everything going on in a city like that – you have to filter it in many ways, and one of those ways is through habits and conventions and certain kinds of conservatism – in form, activity, etc. You shrink your world down to a size you can process it.
ema
The only “alleyway” between 54th St. and 55th St. is 61/2 Ave, midway down the block, so the CEO was not using the hotel’s main entrance.
Also, the only way you can go “westbound” on 6th Ave. (Ave. of the Americas), is if you cross the street, from the east side of 6th Ave. to the west side. The Hilton is already on the West side, so no need to cross. Lastly, there are no CitiBike stands by the hotel; nearest ones are a few blocks away.
Bupalos
@suzanne: I don’t mean addressing the existing social disorder. We didn’t do that at all though I think Kamala “for the people” might have wanted to do more with her prosecutor bona fides.
I mean we cast electing Trump as a more thoroughgoing threat to the status quo and deeper socio-political order. We said “democracy” and many voters (and the Cheney’s) heard “status quo.”
Daven
@Martin: That checks out. I’ve felt it when I even go close to NYC but I also have other reasons why I’m particularly sensitive to intense environments.
Trollhattan
@laura:
Am optimistic about him and especially hoping he can forge an effective working relationship with the county. Quite a gulf there ATM.
Having met him a couple times socially, seems like a good person who is very dedicated and focused. His wife is charming and IIRC their kids are enrolled in SUSD schools, a commitment I value (and a rebuke to that other mayor named Kevin).
suzanne
@Bupalos: Understood; thanks for clarifying.
I do know that a swath of the electorate doesn’t see democracy as a thing worth saving. They don’t see our democratically elected government as being efficient or effective. This is another one of those things that I’m sympathetic to right up until they vote for social arsonists and then FUCKEM.
bluefoot
@RevRick: UHC is objectively election. The list of people who have died because of denied care would provide a lengthy suspect list.
my company is switching to UHC for its insurance for 2025 and most of the employees are up in arms about it. There’s been some good journalism (like the Propublica one linked in the OP) about their intentionally nefarious-to-evil practices.
i*wish* the oligarchs feared consequences more. But under TCFG II, it’ll be we normal people who will pay both literally and figuratively.
MazeDancer
@Ohio Mom:
Things may have changed in recent years, however. I live 2 hours away and rarely get to the city.
Also, finance went from orderly to evil. Perhaps it was always evil, I was just unaware.
Will never forget the day I realized there was no hope for the Hamptons. Which had been beach, potato fields, artists, and writers gathered under magical light to me.
Finance was turning NYC into LA. Where you didn’t earn money because of your worth and hard work. Money in NYC, would, just as it did so often in show biz, fall from the sky.
So, maybe NYC is not as parochial anymore. Because it has become so much more expensive.
But you can still conquer the city by giving lavish money to the Arts, Education, or Hospitals.
Something Phillip Morris understood – their death dollars used to be responsible for half of the shows that moved to Broadway – and Trump did not.
Anonymous At Work
@WereBear: Nick Hanauer, 2012 TED Talk on inequality and the need for higher taxes on the rich. “For some strange reason,” TED did not post the talk online.
Trollhattan
“I didn’t really mean it, it just comes across that way. Besties?”
RevRick
@MazeDancer: I don’t know if parochial is the right term, as it suggests small-mindedness. Perhaps insular is a better fit. My dad was born in The Bronx. My paternal grandmother was a dressmaker in the garment district after her family emigrated to the U.S. from Hungary and her oldest brother was a jeweler. My grandfather was part of a specialty machine shop that moved out to the wilds of Stamford CT in the 20s in order to expand. My wife’s great grandparents operated a restaurant in Far Rockaway. My in-laws were both born in the Queens. My wife has a cousin who has lived her whole life on Channel Island.
Russell Shorto, in his book, The Island at the Center of the World, would likely argue that NYC is the most world-facing city that ever was, an entrepôt beyond all others.
What is true that immigrant communities congregated in distinct neighborhoods, but that’s constantly being reshaped. And while they were no doubt insular, I don’t think they could survive by being parochial.
gene108
@suzanne:
Democrats are not credible defenders of public order. Democrats defend gays coming out of the closet and openly occupying public spaces from acting to politics to business. Same goes for supporting black people to go against the social order of this country like having one elected President.
The unwritten order of racial and class privilege is constantly being changed because of the groups Democrats have allied with.
Martin
@suzanne: Don’t overlook ‘the existence of trans people’ is internalized as a form of social disorder.
I wonder if anyone has ever done a study if demands for social order are inversely correlated to feelings of economic order. That if it feels like the aggregate set of decisions and problems people need to deal with on a daily basis for shopping, banking, etc. create a cognitive load that cause us to struggle to cope with otherwise mundane social matters leading to a demand to simplify that space (eg, more cops).
Heidi Mom
@suzanne: At the height of the discussion about people rethinking their employment choices post-Covid, my husband encountered a tradesman who said “I wouldn’t care if China took us over, as long as they made people go back to work.”
Elizabelle
CEO was a beancounter’s beancounter. Accounting degree in 1997 (?), and seven years at PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers).
Now do Boeing’s C-suite. (Kidding. But not so much.)
This could be something marital, or even gambling debts. To hear.
RevRick
@Dave: Order and liberty always exist in tension. Historian Robert Wiebe, in his 1967 textbook, The Search for Order, examined the era between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era as one where our country was grappling with the immense technological and economic challenges and groped for solutions. Some were frankly utopian and others sought to promote the one definite thing that would show the way to a better future. But the overriding impulse was to master the changes that were reshaping our nation.
suzanne
@Martin:
Agree.
I posted in another thread today about the whole idea being rolled around in evangelical Christianity of “Negative World”, which supposedly is a state of society in which domains of society largely view Christianity negatively. Evangelicals believe we are in that, and I’m sure they experience that as disorder and fear.
I think about this when we talk about racism here. I think most Americans don’t think of themselves as racist. But I think racism deeply frames our conception of what is normal. Deviations from that baseline feel like disorder.
Martin
@MazeDancer:
I don’t think so. Finance used to be very utilitarian and generally unambitious. They were pretty happy to collect their 1%, then drive home and eat a steak. The regulatory system made it clear they weren’t in the business of getting rich. Then we changed that, gave these guys computers, and they went from 5% of the economy to the largest industry in the US. Finance drove GDP, and lawmakers liked that, even if there was the occasional oopsie-doodle.
So yeah, they started moving away from orderly in the 80s, and it’s getting a LOT worse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@gene108:
In this instance, “public order” is simply a dog whistle for “tough on crime”. When people whinge about too much “disorder” in their neighborhood, they’re talking about crime, real and perceived.
It’s why Dems here in Denver don’t run on such a obvious platform, instead they serve up different slogans like “Fixing the Homeless ‘Problem'”, etc as a stand-in for “tough on crime”. The bigger problem is that a lot of people across the spectrum see urban Dem administrations that actually don’t do much to ensure a lot of basic “public order” things are enforced like traffic violations or small-time property crime.
I mean if one of our white transplants has their bike stolen, it’s basically a crime against humanity and we have an incredible, citizen-led, ad-hoc group of people that work simply on trying to recover lost bikes. OTOH, they have a point in that such basics simply aren’t a priority for the pohleeece anymore and it’s one reason that might explain why so many people sat on their asses and didn’t vote this time around, ie, if local Dems aren’t gonna do shit on the basics, why should I even bother to vote? It’s a derivative of Big Gretch’s “Fix the Damned Potholes” mantra.
That last part is simply another hot take on election results. What I do know as being part of two core neighborhood orgs, every time we have a meeting where we bring in the police community outreach officers, they get hit with the same questions and the same frustrations by neighbors.
MazeDancer
@RevRick: Perhaps parochial isn’t exactly right. Despite Ohio Mom’s advisor feeling it, too.
But your folks experience fits with mine in that NYC certainly welcomes hard workers and refugees. And for decades many of those refugees were women.
For many, many years, if you were a woman and wanted a career, the only place you were welcome was NYC.
It was against this background of if you have talents and work hard, you are welcome, that, after leaving and returning, I was surprised at how committed to order all these liberals were.
bluefoot
@bluefoot: whoops autocorrect mistake: I typed “UHC is objectively evil” and somehow it autocorrected.
i could see a group of victims of their denying care banding together to hire an assassin. Granted, that’s the stuff of tv but still…
suzanne
@Heidi Mom:
I observe all the time how much people deeply resent those who are, like, a half-click above or below them on the social/income ladder. Those just below for being lazy moochers who spend money stupidly, those just above for playing the game just a little better and for being condescending. Genuinely rich people are aspirational in this mindset, though.
Melancholy Jaques
@WereBear:
As a soon-to-be retired public school teacher, I share that seething resentment. The Democratic Party’s embrace & promotion of bullshit like corporate charters, union busting, and excessive standardized testing has been devastating.
Martin
@suzanne: Evangelicals entire worldview is centered on them being the persecuted ones. That is not some new idea rolling around – that’s what being evangelical is. All through the Bible, christians are warned that they will be persecuted:
It is baked into the brand and they are on the constant lookout for how the world is coming for them, even when they live in a cabin in the woods and nobody knows they exist – they are still persecuted.
mvr
The linked ProPublica story about United Healthcare tracks. UMR was my University’s insurance administrator for several years before we went back to Blue Cross (thank god or whomever?). My psychologist was out of network with UMR, which meant they would only pay a pittance per visit. But he was willing to jump through the hoops to become in-network. Unfortunately they didn’t make that easy and when he tried they offered to pay him on time (only) if he would agree to accept partial payment of what they were supposed to be paid.
Needless to say this was problematic and cost me money, though in the end my Doctor decided to see me for free.
Dave
@Bupalos: I was on the verge of writing a letter to President Biden earlier urging a pardon for his son. Sticking to some stupid promise in the expressed psychopathic promise of revenge would have been a textbook definition of insanity . If he wants to play Horatio at the bridge that’s his business but putting his son into the prison system under Trumps control is a textbook example of insanity
Dave
@Martin: In that case the world is persecuting them by not granting them the adoration and respect for their wisdom and moral authority they so clearly deserve.
See Rod Dreher and how much I wish he’d actually followed his Benedict Option and convinced others to as well.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
Yup. It’s another manifestation of how baked in Laughernomics/Reaganomics and the rest of the neoliberal economic agenda has become. Too many Dems spouting crap that’s basically libertarian policies of all stripes, see Duncan, Arne, Sec of Education, Obama, for a poster child in that as it pertains to education.
suzanne
@Martin: I was commenting earlier about this — if you are genuinely of Christian faith, you wouldn’t be afraid of being countercultural. For all the reasons that you state.
But the fact that so many right-wing Christians are terrified of being persecuted, or even not being a majority….. indicates to me that they don’t genuinely have strong faith. They have Christianity as a social alignment and a status marker.
Dave
@Dave: two Daves on this thread. Unacceptable there can be only one.
Or something.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@suzanne:
This is true. It does hurt us with some voters. Homeless people overdosing in public places completely freaks people out, for example. In Missouri, Republicans will just run them out of town, which at least stops those people from having to see it. St. Louis Democrats, on the other hand, will fight with each other over what to do about it, while the situation gets worse.
suzanne
@Dave:
Right.
Dreher is Orthodox, and he was apparently surprised by how Evangelical Christians were not into the Benedict Option. They don’t want to secede from society and be like the Amish. They want to run shit.
suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
To be fair, it also freaks me out. The dude who broke into my house a couple of years ago was high at the time of the crime, and he subsequently had an overdose out on his fire escape. He was naked and screaming for help, and my neighbor called an ambulance and saved his life. But, like, I also find this shit unacceptable.
Kayla Rudbek
@Fair Economist: either they weren’t paid enough or they were paid in fake/traceable bitcoin? Assuming that it was related to the ransomware attack.
Jeffg166
@m.j.:
Ronald Reagan was shot and he had good security.
Martin
@suzanne: A lot of people are reporting that they’re leaving evangelical christianity and catholicism because it’s been completely co-oped by the GOP. It’s just a political party now.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@suzanne: It would freak me out too. The homeless tend to congregate downtown and at major intersections, rather than in my neighborhood. I hear the news about overdoses all the time, but fortunately don’t see it.
The larger point still stands. The Democratic response is to either deliberately not chose to change the situation (see big controversy in St. Louis over the Unhoused Bill of Rights pushed by progressive activists) or fight over which minimally viable band-aid they are going to implement (more conventional Dems). Basically, we look ineffective at maintaining public safety and order, even though that is one of the main missions of government.
suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: IME, the progressives and liberals who rhetorically minimize the negative effects of public disorder are usually men, who simply do not have the experience of having to navigate public space as a potentially vulnerable target.
Geminid
@Martin: Russell Moore, a Southern Baptist Convention official, broke with the denomination in 2021. Moore cited it’s posture towards Donald Tdump as well as its refusal to face the sexual abuse problem among its clergy.
Best-selling Christian author Beth Moore (who is unrelated to Russell) also left the Southern Baptists around that time, citing their embrace of Trump and their patriarchal practices.
There is a very good blog called Wartburg Watch that is devoted to exposing abuse of all kinds among Protestant churches. The woman running the blog named it after the Thuringian stronghold where Martin Luther was hidden when the Catholic Church was after him. She has quite a following among Christian believers who reject the authoritarianism prevalent in American churches, especially the mega-churches.
JaneE
If Trump were smarter I would assume the scummiest nominees are just there so they can be rejected, giving the senate someone to reject and tout to their constituents, and then the nominee actually wanted could be slipped in as a better replacement. Maybe his advisors are smart enough to make nominees that really suck look good by comparison to the garbage that preceded them.
By the time this is over, the people will be satisfied if the nominees can spell the name of the agency they are supposed to head.
tam1MI
Which is why we should continue to turn our backs on the Legacy Media and not give them our time or money. They can either straighten up and fly right or they can die.
Kayla Rudbek
@suzanne: exactly! I would be much more inclined to go into the city by myself if I were male.
tam1MI
Disagree a bit here. They reflect EACH OTHER’S views back at EACH OTHER than anything else.
tam1MI
Reminds me of the online fights about public transit I see. While left-leaning people are ripping each other from limb to limb about buses vs. light rail vs. monorail vs. PRT vs. Hyperloop, Repugs just steadfastly oppose mass transit in all it’s forms. So no mass transit ever gets built.
RevRick
@MazeDancer: Order isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The financial system can’t survive without it. Insurance companies hire actuaries to calculate their risk, because bad guesses mean demise. The reason property insurance companies are panicking now is because they know climate change is real and is throwing an ugly wild card into their business model. Stronger storms and more intense wildfires mean bigger losses.
Even art requires order. There’s a reason why everyone talks about Ulysses and nobody reads it… it’s just too chaotic. Art galleries are noticing this too. People breeze through the ones with the most modern pieces, and then linger in the pre abstract pieces. Compare Beethoven to a lot of pop music.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Layer8Problem
@RevRick: ” . . . nobody reads it . . . ”
Well, some don’t.
Geminid
@Kayla Rudbek: A New Mexico commenter who had recently moved to Albuquerque from a more rural area said she didn’t use the city’s bus system because she did not feel secure. This is a real problem for mass transit if up to half of us are afraid to use it. I’m hoping we’ll have a thread about mass transit some time where this issue can be discussed more fully.
In the meantime I’ll just say that people who dismiss public safety concerns as “dog whistles” are ignoring real problems and playing into Republican hands.
m.j.
@Jeffg166:
Ronny had complacent and lazy security just like Donny had and probably still has.
My point was about money and how private security will become ubiquitous for those who can afford it. It will also become it’s own show. Which it seems is all that anyone cares about these days. It will also be about insecurity because it will hand law-like powers to tiny fiefdoms of criminality.
This is nothing like gangs.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
I used that characterization and it in no way was dismissive of public safety concerns. In fact, the exact opposite. I was merely commenting on how people try to skirt around, semantic-wise, what they’re trying to say, in this case the more (R)-centric “tough on crime” stuff, by using what are effectively dog whistles.
I live in a neighborhood that’s had two shooting murders in the last 12 months, both about 5 blocks from me, that’s not unusual. I’m on two neighborhood boards and we deal a lot with the resident’s perceptions regarding ‘public safety’ and do a lot of work getting the police and the public together in order to not only enhance understanding but also educate people.
The disconnect between the two sides (residents vs generically “the city”) isn’t actually over violent crimes in terms of actual threat vs the perceived threat(s) (which, once you start to get both sides talking, comes down to situations and locations), it’s as I pointed out, more mundane things like traffic and property crime. There’s a real public disenchantment with how a (D)-run city has dropped the ball on these basic government functions. Talking with most neighbors, they’ll be the ones to tell you that “the city” is the entity dismissive of the public safety concerns that impact them the most.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@suzanne: You are right.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I think this is the heart of why support for Democrats keeps eroding despite the fascist insanity of the other party. This is something we can work to change.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: I loved the mass transit system in NYC. I had a bus stop across the street from my apartment. I am less sanguine about the bus system in Fresno because (a) I don’t get the impression that the bus stops are conveniently located to any place I might want to go and (b) I have a vehicle in Fresno that gets good mpg and driving is a lot less daunting than it would be in NYC.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Yeah, me too. I then went back and looked carefully again at the name. D’oh!
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I did not mean to single you out and I apologize if you felt like I did. I’ve seen other people explain concerns about crime and public safety as matters of Republican hype and dog-whistles, and that is what I was thinking of.
They may be like me and live fairly free of worry about crime, but that is not the case for many of us, especially women. I think Democrats need to be proactive on these questions. We are on gun control, but that is not nearly enough in my opinion. Fortunately, I think our elected officials are facing these issues head on.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: I bet driving’s easier than in New York! I probably wouldn’t use the bus system either if I lived in your city. But it’s always good to know about your city’s mass transit system even if you don’t use it because it benefits you indirectly and many of your neighbors in more tangible ways.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
I appreciate the dialogue.
I’ve listened to my wife regale me with tales of taking the Colfax 15 bus back in the 70s, stepping over passed out prostitutes, etc., and she’s discussed at great length the safety issues that were drilled into girls of her age growing up in the 60s and 70s. That’s probably why I got snippy as we’re on the same side here on this particular issue.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I really would like to see more discussion of msss transit here because it intersects with so many other important questions.
Public safety is only one, but I was struck by the New Mexico commenter’s concerns about her security on Albuquerque’s bus system. I had become very interested in public transportation issues, but I’m also a dumb guy and the question of women’s security concerns had never occured to me!
This raised an important question: what good is a public transit system if up to one half of the public does not feel secure using it? And another question: what would it take to solve this problem? Because it needs to be solved.
YY_Sima Qian
If you look at the revolutions or counterrevolutions through history, they are almost invariably led by elites of one stripe or another, the “rabble” largely make up the fodder. It is mainly the elites that have the education, the time, the social networks & the familiarity w/ levers of power to actually seize & hold power. The elites could be those estranged from the current status quo (i.e., “minor nobility”), the cynical types from the existing elite looking to overturn existing power sharing arrangements among the current elites, or “elites” by virtue of wealth & education more than social status looking to overthrow the existing order (well educated upper middle class outside of nobility).
It is exceeding rare for a revolution or counter-revolution to be successfully waged from the bottom. Indeed, counter-revolutions are invariably led by the elites & vested interests that are displaced, threatened or disadvantaged by the original revolution.
Therefore, when the parts of the population discontented w/ the status quo look for “change” & “disruption”, they almost invariably gravitate toward people of elite backgrounds who claims to offer “change” & “disruption”, w/o thinking through the consequences. Of course, this dynamic does not apply for the 20 – 30% of Americans who are just unreconstructed nativists, “white” supremacists, militarists & authoritarians, who are flocking to people of elite backgrounds offering exactly that, & who understand exactly the consequences.
Kayla Rudbek
@Geminid: Japan has women-only cars on some of their subways, I think. Indian women also have a lot of safety issues on their railways, I think.
Kayla Rudbek
@YY_Sima Qian: yeah, I think in the French Revolution that Robespierre was a lawyer by training, for example.
YY_Sima Qian
@Kayla Rudbek: Yes, although lawyers back then are not considered part of the “elite” (that being the nobility), but part of the emerging urban “middle” class. However, by virtues of their education & family wealth they are still far above the “commoners” they mobilized & steered toward their enemies.
Ebony
@Martin: This is why I refuse to work in customer service. I hate customers. It feels like you are justify murdering retail and customer service workers who are part of the working class you claim to care about. Is it because more customer service reps are women and not manly men who work in the trades?
Paul in KY
@Martin: I think relative of someone that company fucked over. The fucked-over person probably died.
Gretchen
I keep seeing, with regard to Anthem wanting to limit anaesthesia payments, that this is the most highly paid specialty, and assertions that doctors are the problem with high health care costs. No mention that insurance excecutive’s compensation is orders of magnitude higher, with none of the specialized training and student loans doctors have, and no added value to the health of patients. The lack of sympathy about the recent murder seems to really be scaring the elites that the worm might be turning.
Yesterday’s Washington Post had stories tut-tutting about public reaction to the United Health executive’s death, the plan by Musk and Ramaswamy to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security by billions, and an article calling for retirees to work for free because what else are they doing anyway? The little people are getting uppity and it must be stopped!