To think a mere six months ago, the demographics and electoral map were such a force that pundits felt that Republicans might not win White House for a long time. As it stands now, we have much of the media and left leaning public in total damage control mode looking for blame all over the place. Trump is god awful. But I am getting some amusement from folks firing all sorts of arrows his way and wondering why none of them stick.

The people that voted for Trump don't care. They aren't watching CNN or reading the New York Times.

At this point, I just hope can enact a right leaning agenda to justify the jump in consumer and business confidence and the rising the stock market.

As for the global elite, I really don't care. They built these vast welfare states and international institutions. They play war all over the world and have bankrupted much of the first world in the process. They can't solve problems, whether it be regional conflicts or domestic issues.

I don't know what's coming next, but I fear it.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

To think a mere six months ago, the demographics and electoral map were such a force that pundits felt that Republicans might not win White House for a long time. As it stands now, we have much of the media and left leaning public in total damage control mode looking for blame all over the place. Trump is god awful. But I am getting some amusement from folks firing all sorts of arrows his way and wondering why none of them stick.

The people that voted for Trump don't care. They aren't watching CNN or reading the New York Times.

At this point, I just hope can enact a right leaning agenda to justify the jump in consumer and business confidence and the rising the stock market.

As for the global elite, I really don't care. They built these vast welfare states and international institutions. They play war all over the world and have bankrupted much of the first world in the process. They can't solve problems, whether it be regional conflicts or domestic issues.

I don't know what's coming next, but I fear it.

Policy shifts away from the interests of the broad public to the concerns of the “best and brightest.” Education is presented as a solution to every problem. Breaking down barriers to the top of the ladder of success becomes the primary civil rights issue. Women and minorities who are not striving for elite positions do not merit so much consideration. Economic disenfranchisement becomes an issue of who did well at school and who didn’t, not structural forces acting on society. What should be a progressive politics becomes just another version of the bootstraps myth, with grades and scholarships standing in for sweat and prudent personal budgeting.

Within the party, the leaders and officials become enchanted by expertise. They throw aside easy to understand solutions for thousand page policies. Silicon valley data wizardry is more trusted than shoe-leather campaigning and plain-voiced appeal to the masses of average people. To convince the public, they point to expert opinion rather than make emotional appeals to the lived experience of everyday life. The message behind the message is “listen up, we’re smarter than you.”

The candidate should win by qualifications alone. Political office is compared to brain surgery. Look at this study that shows that members of the other party are less educated. Watch this video of a supporter saying something laughable. The other candidate is pathologized; he is mentally ill, or on drugs, or has a sub-normal IQ. Rather than argue right vs. wrong, the battle is the smart vs. the stupid.

This puts off and alienates a majority of people. Most people didn’t make good grades or even like school. Most people don’t work in jobs with a clear ladder to climb based on educational and professional qualifications. Most people kind of like to see the experts shown up (think of clickbait that begins “Doctors hate this.”) In every movie, the slobs beat the snobs. Most people resent being talked down to, and are more keenly aware of it than the person doing the talking down.

Hillary’s primary pitch to the public, aside from negative messaging about Trump, was that we should see ourselves in her striving. That her triumph would be all of our triumph. We were to be With Her.

However, there simply aren’t enough success-driven educated professionals with lives similar to Hillary’s. Careerist ambition is not always an appealing personality trait to those who do not share it. Even white women, who would be expected to most see themselves in Clinton, did not vote for her in a majority.

Sexism, is of course, to blame for a lot of this. Ambitious women are not trusted or liked, and while this is unfortunate, it is a well-known social phenomenon. The campaign’s attitude seemed to be “well, they’ll get used to it.” The sexism of the public was not something to be countered with a different narrative, to be persuaded away, but rather something to be triumphed over. Those deplorable idiots would be proven wrong rather than won over.

The office in Brooklyn was filled with the best and brightest. The little offices in Michigan and Wisconsin were not. People in the field reported that they were giving out too few yard signs, that door-to-door canvassing revealed life-long Democrats saying they would vote for Trump, and that rallies were under-attended. It didn’t feel like a winning campaign in crucial states. But the valedictorians listened to their data experts, their fellow A students, and did not divert from their algorithmically determined strategy.

In the end, the snobs lost to the slobs, but true to the character of the well-educated, they simply will not hear criticism that does not come from the similarly credentialed. The loss is the fault of every stupid person. The voters were racist and sexist, those stupid hippy millennials didn’t turn up, morons believed fake news. The front of the class don’t need to change a thing, they’ve made good grades their whole lives, they’re never wrong, and they’re going to just keep on being right and losing fights.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

In the end, the snobs lost to the slobs, but true to the character of the well-educated, they simply will not hear criticism that does not come from the similarly credentialed. The loss is the fault of every stupid person. The voters were racist and sexist, those stupid hippy millennials didn’t turn up, morons believed fake news. The front of the class don’t need to change a thing, they’ve made good grades their whole lives, they’re never wrong, and they’re going to just keep on being right and losing fights.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been ... nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'.
- Isaac Asimov

Asimov nailed it

http://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2 ... orance.pdf

The victims are the American People and the Republic itself.

BIG SWING AND A MISS.

We have the most literate society in the world.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

BIG SWING AND A MISS.

We have the most literate society in the world.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

You don't have to be anti-intellectual to say that smart people get it wrong sometimes.

Literacy typically means the percent of the population that can read. I think most first world countries are near 100% literacy. In terms of our international test rankings, we are pathetic. We should be ashamed at our performance relative to many Asian and Nordic countries.

The victims are the American People and the Republic itself.

No you swung and missed. We're not the most literate society in the world... not close.
We do however lead the league in dinosaur deniers.

Thanks for explaining that to DS Denis.

He's had a tough year here, but you are still a great American.

Literacy typically means the percent of the population that can read. I think most first world countries are near 100% literacy. In terms of our international test rankings, we are pathetic. We should be ashamed at our performance relative to many Asian and Nordic countries.

Thanks for explaining that to DS Denis.

He's had a tough year here, but you are still a great American.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

Sometimes I think you are an idiot.
Then I read your posts, think about them, consider your points carefully and feel vindicated.

We should be ashamed at our performance relative to many Asian and Nordic countries.

These two back-to-back spectacular failures of data-driven predictions remind us that data can be deceiving, misleading, and sometimes just quits working. Blind faith in data can have disastrous and long-lasting consequences; the failure of polls “serves as a devastating reminder of the uncertainty in polling, and a warning about being overconfident even when the weight of surveying evidence seems overwhelming,” wrote the Economist shortly after the U.S. presidential election.

Let’s carry this over into the world of education. We have just been recently been presented with two huge sets of data about education in the world as well as myriad interpretations. Data from the 2015 TIMSS came out at the end of November, and results from the influential international assessment program PISA were just announced.

And now the parsing of the data by pundits, journalists, and policymakers around the world will begin, with new recommendations for educational policy and practices. commenting on the results, attempting to draw conclusions and make recommendations for educational policy and practices. For example, the Alliance for Excellent Education, a D.C.-based national policy and advocacy organization, has already declared December 6th PISA Day and created a website covering the results. It has planned a Deep Dive event the following day to discuss “PISA and the Global Economy.” Bob Wise, alliance president and former governor of West Virginia, writes on the website:

PISA Day not only provides a look at student performance through an international lens, it focuses on what lessons can be learned from other high-performing nations to ensure U.S. students — especially those who are underserved — are prepared to compete in today’s global economy.

But if the PISA data, like most of the Brexit and presidential election data, is no good, would any conclusions drawn and recommendations made from this data be any good?

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Sometimes I think you are an idiot.
Then I read your posts, think about them, consider your points carefully and feel vindicated.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

Remember, Christians are not arrogant, especially Seacrest. None of his posts are condescending at all.

In Seacrest's case, I don't blame his Christian faith for his arrogance. I blame Fenwick.

I'm a big dumb shitlib baby

The Board is a little chippy this morning. I blame the Jews.

Remember, Christians are not arrogant, especially Seacrest. None of his posts are condescending at all.

The victims are the American People and the Republic itself.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.