New war and energy alliances over next resource wars

Posted on October 29, 2024 by

Preface. My greatest fear is nuclear war over the remaining resources on earth, since that has the potential of driving us extinct.  But with the end of oil and endless growth capitalism depends on, the world will return resource wars — already is with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for their fertile soil, minerals, and more (Britannica Ukraine Resources and Power).

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Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”

Posted on October 25, 2024 by

Preface.  Wolff’s book continues the mordant humor of Fire & Fury.  His books are the best, by far, of the dozens I’ve read about the Trump Administration.  There will never be any books as insightful because Wolff was given unprecedented access. And so much fun to read too.

It amazes me that Fire & Fury didn’t force Trump out of office, since it clearly shows that he is too incompetent, unfocused, corrupt, and crazy to be President. The Mueller report or Ukraine impeachment trial the public knows the most about don’t begin to hint at all the corruption and stupidity of what’s going on in this administration.

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Why do people vote for Trump?

Posted on October 18, 2024 by

Preface. Before the election, it was widely known that Trump was a gangster who bragged about grabbing women’s asses, lied over 30,000 times during his term, went bankrupt 4 times, and much more. So how could people have voted for him?  Here’s a concise summary from Psychology Today.

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Politics | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”

Posted on October 15, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review of “Pandemic Politics” about the myriad ways Trump mishandled the covid-19 pandemic. With the 2024 election coming up, it is a good time to remember how spectacularly Trump failed in managing covid-19.

In 2016 Trump said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”   He was far too modest, he killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and lost few supporters.

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Posted in Pandemics, Political Books, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism

Posted on October 12, 2024 by

Preface (long). Over time the planks grew more and more religious, stopped mentioning voting rights in 1980 as well as a war on regulations, stopped supporting the equal rights for women, could care less about abortion to being against it to gain more votes.

A few from the 2024 platform: Drill baby drill, complete the border wall, carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, use existing Federal Law to keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America, defend the right to mine Bitcoin, support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing

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Posted in Critical Thinking and Scientific Literacy, Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why some people are conservative and others liberal

Posted on October 10, 2024 by

Preface. A book review of: Garcia, H. 2019. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide.

Although Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain” was brilliant, it didn’t address that politics must surely go back to the origin of modern humans 300,000 years ago. 

Garcia’s book addresses this, looking at politics from an evolutionary point of view. One finding I thought quite interesting was why women tend to be more liberal and men more conservative as can be seen in the 2024 U.S. election, men favor right-wing extremist Trump 25 points more than women in North Carolina, 19 points more in Michigan, 20 points more in Wisconsin, and 12 points more in  Georgia & Pennsylvania.

“Evolutionary psychology is a field that rests on the understanding that we humans have spent 99% of our history in small bands of hunter-gatherers, living in environments very different from those in which we currently reside. Survival in those environments was harsh, with perpetual threats from predators, starvation, disease, and violence from outside tribes. These are the environments in which our political predispositions evolved.” 

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Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America

Posted on October 7, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review of Belew’s “Bring the war home: The white power movement and paramilitary America”.

In hard times in the future, racist white republican groups, many who were or are in the military, could make regions of the country deadly for minorities, liberals, non-Christian religious groups ad so on, forming small armies going home to home to take food, cattle, money, guns, and anything else of value. 

Belew documents how they have far more guns and other weapons than you can possibly imagine from bank robberies, dozens of illegal and often violent crimes, and selling drugs. Above all, stockpiles of weaponry that military men have stolen from where they’re stationed:

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Book review: How Democracies Die

Posted on October 4, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review with excerpts from the first half of “How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. A few main points:

We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. But democracies may die at the hands of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany.  Or erode slowly, in barely visible steps.  Newspapers still publish but are bought off or bullied into self-censorship. Citizens continue to criticize the government but often find themselves facing tax or other legal troubles. This sows public confusion. People do not immediately realize what is happening. Many continue to believe they are living under a democracy.

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Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean

Posted on September 29, 2024 by

Preface.

This is a book review of “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean.

It is the best book I’ve read in explaining the history of conservatism and authoritarianism. Almost a year before Trump was elected in 2016, Politico wrote that “…the one trait that predicts a Trump voter is not race, income, or education: it’s authoritarianism. Because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate found in twice as many Republicans as democrats, it’s likely  that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow. Political pollsters have missed this key component of Trump’s support because they simply don’t include questions about authoritarianism in their polls…”

Easley (2021) summarized research showing much higher rates of Americans being right-wing authoritarian (RWA), 26% of them, than other democracies: Twice as high as in Europe, Australia, and Canada.  RWA beliefs include believing voter fraud determined the 2020 election, that Capitol rioters were defending the government, and that masks and vaccines are not crucial for stopping COVID-19. High-RWA tended to be older, right-leaning, and rural with less college education. This is hard to change since studies have been done that show this tendency may be very genetic. Twin studies show this tendency ranges from 10 to 25%.

And this article found that men who strongly believed in the culturally definition of masculinity predicted who voted for Trump, a trait also associated with racism, sexism, less trust of government, and xenophobia.

Right-wing religious groups are the Republican party, with 82% of white evangelical protestants voting for him and 74% of Pentecostals.  So did 63% of Hispanic protestants and 61% of white Catholics, and 58% of white non-evangelical protestants. The groups who overwhelmingly vote Democratic are atheists, agnostics, Jewish Americans, black protestants, and religiously unaffiliated Americans.

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Human Nature, Pat Robertson, Political Books, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”

Posted on September 24, 2024 by

Preface.  One of the many items I found of interest in this book “The Power Worshippers” was that it wasn’t until 1979, six years after Roe v Wade, that conservative activists seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a way to deny President Jimmy Carter because he was threatening to tax religious segregated (racist) schools.  

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Posted in Birth Control, Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments