Today in America | 03 FEB 2023…

 

When politicians get stuck between party lines instead of working on the issues, it is the American people who suffers.  Why is this the new normal?

 

Partisan Politics, anybody surprised?  

To be perfectly honest the country tends to be in one of two following categories. Either people realize about the partisan politics occurring in our U.S. political discourse, or they have zero idea of what that even means. Either case is not good necessarily news for us. And I would argue that the latter group is in fact problematic. Why? Because politics affects all our lives even if stomped people don’t understand why, or care to understand about how. And no, I am not asking for people to pursue a political science degree, but if I could make wish upon a star would be for people to enact critical thinking and intellectual honesty when it comes to politics.

We have to realize that there world is not black and white, and whereas a great segment of our voting-aged population is oblivious to our own politics, there are adversarial actors who use our political discourse as a catalyst to rally their own propaganda and narratives. And the fact is that we have a lot of negative noise in the political discourse. And news flash, some of that noise in the discourse are not even actual issues affecting the American people, but rather loosely inflated talking points that serve as red meat to less informed constituents.

Why you think is that? Control, and power. These can sound nefarious in some way or another. In reality, once there is a figure who gets “established” in a certain position of influence, it it’s very hard for them to leave. Seriously, for example in U.S. Congress alone, there are several Representatives and Senators who have served for decades. Surprisingly, ask every day constituents and they might or might not have any idea of the name of their elected senator or representative.

Do you know who your Senators and Representatives are for your state and district? Can you name me off the top of your head? How long has the current Senator or Representative been the incumbent? If you know the answer to all these three questions that’s good. If you don’t, then it might behoove you pay closer attention to politics. Why? Again, because it affects your life and looking the other way constitutes tacit consent for this person to do what he/she feel its best, regardless of whom this affects or benefits.

So even if you answered all three questions with an actual correct answer, do you know what are their policies, and how their voting record on legislation reflects on said policies? If you don’t know what I am talking about, then it proves my point that not everybody is paying attention to this situation. But you know who is? Any person who does not particularly want the great US of A to remain the #1 world’s superpower. When we pay pragmatic attention to what is happening in Capitol Hill and even our own State congressional matters, then we can be less susceptible to any propagandistic efforts. No matter if propaganda is coming from the left or the right, you’ll understand the facts. These are available to the world… if a person steps off their bubble.

But stepping off the bubble can be traumatic to many people. It is cozy in there, everybody agrees with their narrative, and all the “smart” people seem to be part of said narrative. Right? Well, not always right… there is a huge divergence of opinions, policies and reality. Some of that perceived reality is manufactured, as I said. Created to have a visceral response on people who will go out and vote based on that outrage. Is it despicable? Absolutely, but it works. And it is more despicable, because it actually clings on biases from otherwise good people, and exploit these biases in a way that they lose objectivity and become blindly obedient followers of a false narrative.

But there is another layer to this situation, and this one is even more problematic. Willful ignorance, and this one comes in more than one variety. We’ll discuss two for the sake of this topic – as they are relevant to illustrate the point.

Number 1. Willful ignorance due to apathy. These are people who could get information that is relevant to their lives, yet they CHOOSE to ignore all the available information, and remain disconnected from the realities that affect their very lives. And one of the reason for this group give for this apathy is because they find politics “boring” or “uninteresting” or think “there is nothing they can do about it.” But the fact is that there is something they can do about it, get informed and vote people in/out of office who do not meet the standard they should uphold when appointed to positions of high influence. Let enough people be willful ignorant and apathic, and then this “nothing they can do about it” will in fact become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are not there yet, but many countries around the world are in that very unfortunate situation.

Number 2. Willful ignorance due to echo chamber. We al have biases, every last one of us. And if we are not intellectually honest, these biases can be highly exploitable. We are all susceptible to be placed in an echo chamber. An echo chamber is when a person only receives information that “agrees” with them, and it is either shielded by dissenting points, of those dissenting points are berated in a way that they are either ignored or discarded out right. That’s a logical fallacy, because hearing dissenting points does not mean that a person will automatically agree with those points… if there is no actual merit. However, if there is merit to those points, then these views will be inconvenient for anybody who wants to control a certain narrative to an audience. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

 

The echo chamber.

There is no shortage of echo chambers in today’s fragmented society. Which is funny in a non-ha-ha way, because in reality we are a lot more similar than we are different. However, this fact is inconvenient to anybody who is holding or attempting to enact a particular narrative. Most people are good decent individuals, but there are a few who are truly terrible human beings. And the fact is that some of these awful people tend to get in positions of prominence, and normally are those who are more aligned with a controversial topic. It does not matter if you’re for against that topic – it will garnish attention and it will become part of the discourse, even if it is in fact a discussion with no substance. There are 435 U.S. Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, and there are 100 Senators in Congress. How many of them can you name? I bet you most people will remember those that show up in the news a lot, or have some level of controversy. But have no clue of the great majority of the other Representatives or Senators.  This makes it very easy to skew the truth if anybody is not very savvy on political doctrines.

 

 

 

Let’s speak about a couple of contemporary examples.

The gas stoves. There is a false narrative, unfortunately, predominately right-wing circles that claims the Biden administration is banning gas stoves from homes. Not true. But it sounds like it is a menacing situation, right? Well, think about it for a few seconds and see if it even makes sense. First off, there is a pretty sizable amount of Americans who already have electric stoves and prefer them in lieu of gas stoves. Why? Because they are convenient, and they present less of a fire hazard in the event there is a gas leak. Sensible, right? Well, some people will make you believe this hyperbolic situation is the brainchild of some sort authoritarian regime that will come and get your gas stoves at gun point. Nobody is forcing to get rid of people’s gas stoves.

So, where this gas-stove pseudo debate started? Well, there was a study that found people with gas stoves had a certain percentage of getting asthma, much like when a person is inhaling second hand smoking (tobacco).  And much like the latter, based on science it is not recommended if you can avoid it, but nobody is prosecuting you for second hand smoking… In that latter case, just makes the smoker an a$$#ole for forcing others to inhale all the harmful toxins we very well know are associated with smoking.

I personally know how annoying second-hand smoking can be. When was growing up my father and his mother (my paternal grandmother) smoked, a lot. It was the 80’s so they did not give a s–t who was affected by it. They would smoke in the car with the windows closed, in the house, in the restaurants, and pretty much anywhere they pleased. And being a kid, you really had no choice but to be in the cloud of smoke. My parents divorced when I was still very young, and of course I remember my mother and her mother (maternal grandmother) remark how much we stunk of cigarette every time returned from these court mandated visits to my father. And they were right, we stunk of tobacco after being exposed to this cloud of smoke the entire day and afternoon.

But this was not uncommon back in the day, people used to smoke a lot everywhere. In fact, it was the “cool people” thing to do… smoking cigarettes.  And I would be remiss if I did not confess I was too guilty of smoking, though I fortunately never got addicted. But it was the “fun thing to do with your friends.” I was just 14 years old when I smoked a cigarette for the first time… It did not affect me much… but then again, I’ve had second hand smoking for several years before that. I very well knew this was bad for my health, and that it was not a good habit to have… but hey, it was popular, and I dare say – expected at that time. Things fortunately changed, and that’s good because as a species we are supposed to learn from our mistakes. For instance, I have not smoked a cigarette is more years than I can remember, nor would I smoke around my child. I did enjoy a couple of cigars last year, but this was in a group of adults who were cognizant and consensual to this activity.

But hey, back in the day in Ecuador you could buy single cigarettes in a convenience store and they would sell them to you even if you were a kid. It was not even shunned upon. Imagine that nowadays in the USA? Imagine seeing your 14-year-old entering 7-11 and getting and buying a single cigarette and the attendant would even light it up for you. And possibly even sell you a beer for good measure. Yes, I had that exact scenario growing up in Ecuador – a few times. Well, do that here in USA and I’m sure the police department will be conducting a less-than-friendly enforcing on all involved parties.

But getting back to the stoves, do you think they will stop anybody from using theirs? No, they won’t… however – gas is in fact a fossil fuel and even though we can use it, and I don’t condemn it, there are alternatives out there. And a lot of times, people will chose what they want becasue it will be a matter of convenience.

Let me give you a quick example, right now as I type this article, my daughter is sitting on her new “yoga chair” and watching her videos in the living room. We have the fireplace on. This is a gas-fireplace. I love it, it is in this case more convenient than a traditional fireplace where I would have to chop wood, and have the chimney cleaned every so often to prevent my house from burning to the ground, and also would need to find ways to prevent my air conditioning to escape the house because there is a permanent opening in the house to the atmosphere.

But at the same time, I do have an electric stove… for the same reason – it is convenient for top-stove cooking… but my oven is a gas oven. However, I also have an air frier, and I have a grill who is half gas and half charcoal. Therefore if I am very concerned about the “favor” on each meal then I can pick and choose what I want to use. Convenience.

However, I’ll be honest – using my normal stove works just fine on any meal we prepare at home. There is an added bonus, the electric stove prevents the house from burning down because it controls the temperature to a certain degree. I’m not sure if gas stoves have that temperature control cap off feature – of course the more you open the bigger the flame.  But hey, I grew up with open flame gas stoves and we just always made sure to keep an eye on the stove so it won’t stay unattended while cooking.

Bottom line, if you have a gas stove and you enjoy it, use it. The government is not going to confiscate it. Whomever is telling you this, might also not forthcoming with other things. And just think about for a moment, if this is such a demonstrable, low hanging fruit falsehood… what else are they misrepresenting? What other liberties are they taken from the trust you bestow upon them? Want more examples? Sure… let’s do this.

Critical Race Theory. Yeah, there is no such thing. Sorry… I know it is being talked a lot during political rallies and it is all over the media, but it simply does not exist. Critical Race Theory or CRT as some people refer to it, has the premise that tax-funded educational entities are indoctrinating people to paint white Americans as oppressors of minorities. Teaching history, even if it is unsavory in a way does not equate to commendation of any race. Besides, we cannot be held responsible for what our ancestors did, even if that included human rights violations. We can and should be accountable for what we do in our lifetime. World History (to include American History) is peppered with messed up parts.  But when we learn about them, then we can learn not to repeat the same mistakes again, and be more objective in our approach.  In other words, we get the benefit of experience without needing to make the same mistakes over and over again.

This CRT often gets conflagrated with the resurgence of “woke” examples, which is also a non-sequitur because both of these terms are political footballs, but their definitions are so misrepresented that if you ask 40 people about how “woke” is defined, then you’ll probably get at least 35 different answers.  I know, because I was taking to a group of 40 people and asked them the same question, and about 35 people had different answers and 5 agreed with each other… one in a group of 3 and another in a group of 2. I know this is an anecdotal example, but it illustrates my point that the terminology gets tergiversated based on the intrinsic biases of each person. By the way, the origin of “woke” started in the 60’s. That’s why I said, re- insurgence.

Some of the people qualified “woke” as a good thing, and others went to the opposite side of the spectrum. Most of them were somewhere in the middle, but there still was enough divergence to call it unequivocally consistent. This “woke” theme will be the subject of a future long-form article, because there is plenty to talk about.  Meanwhile let’s give you the dictionary definition, and then we’ll discuss it a bit.

Woke: Adjective. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It is chiefly a US slang. And there are two main definitions associated to it.

1. Aware of a and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especial issues of social justice). Often used in context that suggest someone’s expressed beliefs about such matters are not backed with genuine concern or action. Also: reflecting the attitudes of woke
2. Political liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.

Well, it won’t take a PHD to realize that there are a few key words in the definitions that will lend themselves for political division. Did you see them? If you identify them, good on you – because these will be likely used for or against propaganda points. Keep this in mind as we continue this article.

Also, woke is past tense for wake. But the term has been prostituted to the point that the actual significance its high-jacked on either side as an all-encompassing term whenever there are some specific levels of disagreement. And I am saying specific level of disagreement, because the outrage described seems to be very specific to a certain issue, even if the same issue could constitute talking themselves into a corner.  And this talking-into-a-corner happens very often. It only takes a bit of paying pragmatic attention to both sides of the spectrum to realize this is happening. The math does not add up, and people are taken up for a ride of falsely justified rage.

The same thing goes along CRT, there is at least one politician claiming that there is an elementary school in Illinois which received 5.1 billion dollars to teach “equity and diversity. The politician in question was asking the comptroller or the head of the U.S. government Accountability Office during a Congressional hearing.  Read that again, and see if you can find out what is wrong with that. There is plenty wrong by this U.S. Representative claim by the way.

And that begs the question, is this person just misinformed, incompetent, deluded or, downright deceitful? And follow up question, does the staff for this Congress person failed to do research to ensure the statements spewed are at least in some way plausible? 5.1 billion dollars is a gigantic amount of money, and the U.S. educational system is notoriously recognized as being underfunded… so how in the world will ONE school get that money for ONE program? Consider that Illinois spends about 32 billion dollars for ALL K-12 students overall… or about $16,000+ per pupil… And most of the funding comes from state and local taxes, making the state the 11^th highest spending in the country and 20^th in funding.  For comparison, a US Navy destroyer Zumwalt class costed ~4.2 billion per unit.  So that means the staff thought that an elementary school would spend more than almost another billion dollars on one school for one program… hmmm.

So, let’s figure this out pretty quickly… simple arithmetic. 32-billions of dollars divided by 5 billion… that yields roughly 6.4 schools to receive the same budget of spending for this program… but then, how many schools are in Illinois? Well, there are about 368 elementary DISTRICTS! So, each district has more than one school… All together there are more than 39-thousands schools in that state. So, what makes this politician think that ONE school or even six schools would overtake the ENTIRE budget for ONE program? Especially if they use all the budget for this so call CRT project have been allocated for this one fictitious program? How does this politician’s staff do not get to perform this simple equation I just did now. This is not hard to understand.  Instead, this politician’s staff let the person say something categorically stupid and demonstrably ludicrous in the floor of the U.S. Congress, and make it part of American history? You want the name, sure. It is Rep(R) Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia’s 14^th district. It is no secret, it made it to national and international news. Why did her staff fail in such a demonstrable way. How did she not just ask the simple question about this math being categorically impossible.

This is the same Congress person who does not seem to understand why containing the conflict that is going between Ukraine and Russia is so important to our National Security, and our place in the world as a leader of the free world. These are not hard concepts to understand, and we have to realize that if we have legislators who are appointed to key position, they need to really immerse themselves in the abstract intricacies of National Security. Especially since now she’s been appointed to the Home Land Defense Committee. With this I am not specifically faulting the person who ends being the “face” of the district. I am more interested in what’s going on with her staff, because they are privy to the information that will help her make better decisions, especially if there is something that goes against a misperception.  Especially if this misperception will be part of the political discourse in the annals of Congressional history.

And I know that some people will say, well – they are representing the views of their constituents. Sure, that’s fine and dandy – but that does not gives tacit consent to keep constituents misinformed if they are already erred in their perception of empirical reality. One thing is pandering to a base, one very different is accurately representing a constituency – the person is put in charge to LEARN the facts and APPLY these facts in a way that will benefit their constituents and help them being part of the collective solution of having a United America. And hopefully set a record straight if there was a collective misperception.

 

Controversial Political Figures.

There are no shortage of controversial political figures on the left and the right side of the American political spectrum. Unfortunately for the right, there are more that are increasingly problematic within their own ranks.  And further, the Republican party is very much fragmented. I was speaking with life-long Republican friends of mine, and they say they cannot recognize their party anymore. And they wonder the same thing most of us do… how are many of these politicians elected to their office when they seem unready or unwilling to align themselves with what is real and what is not.

Case in point, Rep. George Santos… if that’s even his real name.  Since the last time I wrote about him more and more lies have come to the light. And it is mind bending that we’re even having a discussion about this person being in a sitting member of Congress. And yes, his actual name is one of those many points of contention, and he’s under several investigation. To include criminal investigation for in relation to campaign finances.  The Speaker of the House of Representative, McCarty has been challenged with this question several times.  How is it that Santos is still in Congress, and further why would McCarty appoint Santos to two different committees?  The more cynical people would assert because Santos will vote along McCarty policies, and McCarthy needs every vote because he has a very slim majority.  Even though Santos “stepped down” from the committees voluntarily – and sure, why not, right?  The fact he was appointed these committees in the first place when there is still a lot of open investigations on this person is already unfathomable. And by the way, there are still representatives in Congress who have no committee appointment whatsoever since Republicans got their slim majority over the House of Representatives.

I would be very surprised if in sometime in the future McCarty will have to concede to the fact that Santos is (and was) in fact a gigantic political liability. But McCarty said that it was the people of New York 13^th district who elected Santos. Technically, yes… but that election was based on a very false representation of who Santos really is. I spoke about that in a previous article. And Santos has been no strange to controversy, and even soft ball interviews with right-leaning-friendly outlets such as One America News (OAN) were not able to savage his gigantic levels of deception. There are calls all over his district for him to step down. I’ll have to write an entire article on him, because there is plenty to talk about… but the fact that we have to do so it is already a very bad thing for the Republican party brand.

Meanwhile, McCarthy has kicked out of committees to a bunch of other Democrats he found problematic. For example, Adam Schiff who was in the Intelligence committee, he was definitely making it harder on some Republicans to enable former president Trump to achieve unopposed impunity during his tenure. Even though Trump, for all intends and purposes waked away scot-free even though he has so many ongoing lawsuits against him… Trump problematic office standards were shielded by the Republican Party for the duration of his presidency, and continue to this day by some of his most fervent supporters. Though the Republican Party at large is trying to distance themselves from Trump very publicly.

Another example of party lines divergences is Rep Ilhan Omar who was voted out along party lines off her committee on Foreign Affairs.  By the votes alone this shows the stark polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties… they are just now working together for the American people.  If all the votes move along party lines, then whomever controls the majority (however slim) will just continue stone walling any dialog or actual viable legislation to pass for vote.

But remember, this current situation is actually destroying the Republic party more and more. There is an extreme side to the Republican party that has been thriving and it is turning off the majority of their former GOP constituency. That’s why the Republicans have underperformed in the last three elections, and hold a very small majority in the House of Representatives but they did lose control of the Senate.  That’s a huge deal.  The Republicans know this, and that’s why Trump is getting less traction than he did before, but they still cannot disavow him because they know there is quite a following (however shrunken) that are ardent Trump supporters no matter what.

The other problem they have is that if they disavow Trump, that is a de-facto admission they were not in the right path during Trump’s tenure. That leaves a lot explaining to do – and I’m sure they don’t want to go down that rabbit hole during a period of political tension. Letting Trump have a natural political demise its more convenient because it gives plausible deniability – and bank on the fact that a lot of American partisan voters do not have a long-term memory, or many were not paying attention to politics in the past.

Therefore, saying something new might be taken at face value even if there is plenty of footage and historical archives showing that a new position is demonstrably deceitful. And I know this to be a fact, because I ‘ve been paying attention to many politician’s narratives changing and outright lying to the American people in national television. It happens a lot, but many people won’t realize that because they have missed the context or are too cozy in their echo chambers – or still prefer to pay attention to anything other than politics.

So, today in America there is still a lot of willful ignorance, and we are in danger of losing our democracy to those and unfounded claims. There are people who are convinced that false narratives are true.  Why? Because the outlets “they like and trust” tell them so.  But what they don’t realize is that there is a lot these outlets are not telling them – and this is important to realize, because unless people start paying more attention the misrepresentation of facts will continue to divide us.

I could speak for hours about all the things that are in our political discourse that are divorced from reality, but I rather make you an invitation to look at it for yourself.  Look at both sides of the political spectrum on the same issue, and compare what makes more sense.  If you find there is a bias creeping through on your side, ask yourself the logic behind the merits of the argument – not the person.  We are all fallible, and you might agree or disagree with somebody you don’t particularly like or dislike.

If you forget anything I said, just remember that when you’re looking into politics you have argue in the merits of a topic, rather than the person taking about said topic. Even though there will be people attached to dissenting topics – the question is always the underlining issue behind that person’s words. That’s what is really important. But in today’s political discourse there is only fighting over cults of personality rather than the actual issues. And as I mentioned before, once we realize that some of these issues are not even real problem that merit the bandwidth they get, the better informed we’ll be as a nation.  There is a lot of misinformation that is designed to hype up people into voting one way or the other.

We have the presidential primaries just around the corner. My advice is to start looking at the historic on narratives for every candidate and talking head about the topics they discuss – or use for the doctrinal platform.  By seeing the information based on the merits alone, this become a very eye opening situation.  And even the unthinkable happens: politics suddenly become interesting.  It is really like a crazy drama – except that it is real life.  The information is out there.  The truth is somewhere in the middle, by learning to listen to both sides (even if you disagree with them), the critical understanding on the merits will follow.  I should mention that this process will be harder on some people, particularly those who have trouble coping with dissenting points of view.  Especially if these points of view directly contradict their previously strong held convictions – and sort of rocks their world, or blows their mind. If that happens to you, it’s ok… it is better to get our minds blown and learn the truth than forever living a lie.  Let’s continue the conversation. HLC