Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Trump’s “Stanford” experiment

The MAGA faithful, at long last, have not seen the light. That Road to Talledega moment, that flash of insight when the scales fall from their eyes and their political savior is revealed a bronzer-caked madman bent on the destruction of the red, white and blue nation they hold so dear? Never happened.

What has happened since Donald Trump’s Veterans Day “vermin” speech is that the mainstream press and others have finally stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Donald Trump is a fascist,” late-night host Stephen Colbert told his audience. Former Republican Tom Nichols declared Trump had “crossed one of the last remaining lines that separated his usual authoritarian bluster from recognizable fascism.” Even the New York Times this week broached the subject.

How it started … how it’s going pic.twitter.com/7AnF9DaX4n

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) November 23, 2023

But the answer to why the faithful have not wavered might be found in Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment and its aftermath. Zimbardo famously set up a mock prison in Stanford University’s psychology department. He recruited students to play the roles of prisoners and prison guards for a study in human dynamics.

The New Yorker recently summarized:

According to the lore that’s grown up around the experiment, the guards, with little to no instruction, began humiliating and psychologically abusing the prisoners within twenty-four hours of the study’s start. The prisoners, in turn, became submissive and depersonalized, taking the abuse and saying little in protest. The behavior of all involved was so extreme that the experiment, which was meant to last two weeks, was terminated after six days.

Less than a decade earlier, the Milgram obedience study had shown that ordinary people, if encouraged by an authority figure, were willing to shock their fellow-citizens with what they believed to be painful and potentially lethal levels of electricity. To many, the Stanford experiment underscored those findings, revealing the ease with which regular people, if given too much power, could transform into ruthless oppressors. Today, more than forty-five years later, many look to the study to make sense of events like the behavior of the guards at Abu Ghraib and America’s epidemic of police brutality. The Stanford Prison Experiment is cited as evidence of the atavistic impulses that lurk within us all; it’s said to show that, with a little nudge, we could all become tyrants.

But not so fast. The study was controversial and drew critics. Among them, Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland. They speculated that perhaps Zimbardo’s recuitment ad influenced who volunteered to participate in “a psychological study of prison life.”

In a 2007 study, the psychologists Thomas Carnahan and Sam McFarland asked whether that wording itself may have stacked the odds. They recreated the original ad, and then ran a separate ad omitting the phrase “prison life.” They found that the people who responded to the two ads scored differently on a set of psychological tests. Those who thought that they would be participating in a prison study had significantly higher levels of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance, and they scored lower on measures of empathy and altruism.

There was more nuance, of course, but subsequent studies and papers never quite dispelled the urban legends.

One of the few, true talents Trump possesses is for self-promotion. The faux-business genius/reality TV star’s rise to power in this country has been one long advertisement for “aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance.” We see in those who have volunteered to join him a group that seems self-selected for lower scores on empathy and altruism.

What Trump promises to create in his second term is a nationwide experiment in which “regular people” will be invited to play guards at expanded detention camps for undesirables. His plans to centralize more power in the presidency, to bring more federal agencies under direct presidential control, and to prosecute his enemies and rivals is an intentional, months-long advertisement for the type of people Zimbardo’s experiment attracted by accident of wording.

Trump is recruiting Americans predisposed to stare long into the abyss.

Not yet

Kevin Drum has an interesting observation:

How is Joe Biden doing these days? Courtesy of CNN, here are his approval ratings from a variety of national polls over the past few months:

From August through October Biden’s approval dropped about 1.5% per month. Since the Israel-Gaza war broke out a month ago, his approval has improved by about half a percent.

I’d like to generate a chart like this just for young Democrats, but I can’t find the data to do it. My suspicion is that Biden has been hemorrhaging approval from young voters for a long time and the Israel-Gaza war hasn’t really had a big effect. But I don’t know that.

In any case, even if it has had an effect, it’s apparently been counterbalanced by increased approval from older voters. Taken as a whole, the war has rather surprisingly had only a very small effect on Biden’s approval, and probably a positive one.

POSTSCRIPT: The change is even more dramatic if you draw two separate trend lines for the before and after periods:

I think there are probably quite a few people like me who are appalled by what is happening in Gaza but think that Biden is doing the best he can to keep the whole thing from hurtling out of control while trying to rein in Netanyahu, for whom he has no love. US control of the situation is limited to “influence” over Israel which is less powerful than a lot of people think. But the global ramifications of this going sideways regionally are profound.

I do think the protests in the US and Europe have an effect on this however, by showing the Israeli government that there is serious objection to the overkill in Gaza and it gives the US and allies some leverage. Not that I’m sanguine Netanyahu gives a damn. He knows the whole world is worried that this thing is going to explode the region so perversely he’s being even more reckless than usual in order to keep the US and its allies closer than they want to be. It’s a mess.

As for the polling, I don’t know what to make of it. It does appear that Biden is holding on to his pathetic approval rating regardless of what happens in Gaza. That’s about the best we can hope for at this moment. I’m hoping things settle down soon.

The ones who love him anyway

Brian Beutler on this new “relationship” between Trump and Univison.

If you haven’t read this already, you’ll want to. It’s left Democrats deeply unsettled. They were surprised as everyone to see Univision offer Donald Trump a fawning, hour-long, primetime interview earlier this month, particularly after the abuse he heaped on the network during his presidency and first campaign; they were stunned when Univision summarily canceled ads the Biden campaign had purchased to run during the interview, citing an undisclosed policy the network, by all appearances, adopted special for Trump; they’re aghast that Univision tried to create the false impression that it approached the Biden campaign with the same offer; and now they’re really worried, because they see Univision prevailing on local affiliates to pull popular programming off the air to carry Trump rallies live. 

They’re upset, and understandably so, about the effect that transforming the most watched Spanish-language news network into a pro-Trump propaganda outlet will have on the election. It caught my attention because of the role Jared Kushner seems to have played behind the scenes with network executives to land the interview and seemingly draw Univision into a new, pro-MAGA incarnation. 

Maybe it all came together through an above-board process of relationship-building and persuasion. But if you’ve followed Kushner’s trajectory through American political life, and then as an international influence merchant, you’ll be highly skeptical. There’s almost certainly something seedy at the heart of this arrangement. 

I like to think, though can’t say for certain, that the Washington Post was trying to wink in that direction with these paragraphs. 

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, a friend of one of the executives, helped arrange the interview and was also in the room, according to multiple people familiar with the event.

“All you have to do is look at the owners of Univision. They’re unbelievable entrepreneurial people, and they like me,” Trump said in response to the question about Latino voters.

Entrepreneurial, you say? How so? 

There are many possible answers, and I hope reporters seek them out. 

But unearthing the secret details of a presumably corrupt bargain between Kushner, Univision, and the Trump campaign will be a tough reporting challenge. The people who really should be seeking them out are the ones with subpoena power. A year ago, after Democrats grew their Senate majority in the 2022 midterms, I did a crossover podcast with my then-colleague Jon Favreau about whether and how they could use their agenda-setting power to neutralize GOP propaganda. I argued they should stage dramatic battles that attract a lot of media attention and (thus, also) reach the swing voters who decide U.S. elections. We closed out that episode in agreement that if House Republicans decided to Benghazify™ Joe Biden, Senate Democrats should match them investigation for investigation, subpoena for subpoena. 

I read earlier today that they are going to start carrying Trump’s rallies live.

This is a real thing and I fervently hope that both the press and the Senate get to the bottom of it. It’s fishy as hell.

On Monday one shot 4 people in Ohio

The mass shooting on Monday garnered hardly a mention in the news because the shooter only managed to wound four people before he killed himself. No biggie in America’s shooting gallery. But it is worth noting that it appears he had an ideological motive:

The man suspected of shooting four people at an Ohio Walmart earlier this week was inspired by racially motivated violent extremist ideology, according to authorities.

Benjamin Charles Jones, 20, of Dayton, Ohio, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a Beavercreek, Ohio, Walmart after he shot two Black females, a white female and a white male Monday, the FBI stated. 

One victim remained in critical condition, while three others suffered from non-life-threatening injuries.

Based on evidence, including journal entries, investigators believe the attack was at least partially racially motivated, when Jones fired from a Hi-Point .45 caliber carbine purchased two days before the incident, according to a news release. 

Court documents obtained by News Center 7′s I-Team show two Nazi flags, “the SS history book,” a shooting complex card, handwritten notes, a laptop, and an external hard drive were also allegedly among items investigators found at Jones’ house.

Let’s not lose sight of the right wing racist antisemites in our midst. They’re the ones with all the guns.

Thanksgiving menu at the Plaza Hotel 1899, courtesy of Michael Beschloss:

I would have loved to watch that kitchen in action.

Moms For Liberty paying off their friends

It’s all one big grift:

A Pennsylvania school board that banned books, Pride flags and transgender athletes slipped a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office, hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda.

But the Democratic majority that swept the conservative Moms For Liberty slate out of office hopes to block the unusual — they say illegal — payout and bring calm to the Central Bucks School District, whose affluent suburbs and bucolic farms near Philadelphia have been roiled by infighting since the 2020 pandemic.

“People are really sick of the embarrassing meetings, the vitriol, they’re tired of our district being in the news for all the wrong reasons. And … the students are aware of what’s been going on, particularly our LGBTQ students and their friends and allies,” said Karen Smith, a Democrat who won a third term on the board.

The district, with about 17,000 students in 23 schools, has spent $1.5 million on legal and public relations fees amid competing lawsuits, discrimination complaints and investigations in the past two years, including a pending suit over its suspension of a middle school teacher who supported LGBTQ and other marginalized students.

I wonder if those moms got a little taste…

This is a perfect lesson for people to see exactly who it is that’s causing all the trouble in our politics. It isn’t a bunch of woke college kids, it’s these Real Americans who have all lost their minds. And, by the way, they’re corrupt too! Surprise!

From your once and future (God help us) president

Well, at least he didn’t call anybody vermin.

Update:

The New York judge overseeing Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial and his law clerk have received hundreds of harassing messages that court security has deemed “serious and credible” since the former president began publicly criticizing court staff.

Since October 3, when Trump posted on social media a baseless allegation about Judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk, threats against the judge “increased exponentially” and were also directed to his clerk, according to Charles Hollon, a court officer-captain in New York assigned to the Judicial Threats Assessment unit of the Department of Public Safety, who signed a sworn statement.

Hollon said the threats against the judge and his clerk are “considered to be serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative.”

Trump’s social media posting prompted the judge to impose a gag order prohibiting the former president from making statements about court staff. The gag order was later extended to include Trump’s attorneys from commenting on the judge’s private communications with his law clerk.

At the time, the judge said his chambers had received hundreds of harassing and threatening calls and emails. The additional details made public in the Wednesday filing, however, reveal the extent of that contact, including dozens of messages daily, phone doxing and the increased use of antisemitic language.

Engoron has fined Trump twice for a total of $15,000 for violating the gag order.

Last week, a New York appeals court judge temporarily lifted the gag order after Trump argued it violated his constitutional rights. The ruling to stay the order is temporary to allow time for a fuller panel of judges to weigh in.

In a court filing Wednesday, a lawyer for the Court Administration for New York state asked an appeals court panel to keep the gag order in place and deny Trump’s effort to permanently lift the gag order. Hollon’s sworn statement was included in the filing. Lawyers for the New York attorney general’s office also urged the court to keep the gag order in place, writing that a “speedy denial” is necessary to ensure the safety of court staff as well as “the integrity and the orderly administration of the proceedings through the end of the trial.”

Hollon said Engoron’s law clerk has received 20-30 calls per day to her personal cell phone and 30-50 messages daily on social media platforms and two personal email addresses.

On a daily basis, he said, the judge and his staff receive hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls, email and voicemail messages such that security staff are “having to constantly reassess and evaluate what security protections to put in place to ensure the safety of the judge and those around him.”

Since the gag order was lifted on November 16, Hollon said, the number of messages increased. He also said about half of the harassing messages the clerk received were antisemitic.

He named her. Clearly, he wants to send the message to his cult to do her harm. And they are listening.

“I would much rather be us than them”

One red state I track from cycle to cycle showed half its Democratic county committees leaderless or unorganized this time in 2022. When I checked the state party’s website again this week, Every Single One had a county chair listed with email contacts (all but one). I was elated. It won’t change anything electoral-count-wise in 2024, but it’s remarkable organizing progress in two years. It could mean a less-red state legislature in the near future, and a more hospitable environment for residents, especially women. It’s something to be thankful for today.

Something else (Daily Kos):

In a historic victory, Democrats have gained their first majority on the Board of Commissioners in Dauphin County since at least 1919—and possibly ever—after Republican Chad Saylor conceded to Democrat Justin Douglas following this month’s elections. Notably, the county includes the state capital of Harrisburg and nearby suburbs,

Combined with Democratic wins around the state, every county that Joe Biden won in 2020 will now have a Democratic-led county government, covering 56% of the state’s population. As Bolts Magazine’s Daniel Nichanian has detailed, Pennsylvania’s county governments play an important role in administering elections, determining access to voting, and certifying election results in this major swing state.

Democrats are winning almost everywhere lately. Simon Rosenberg (Hopium Chronicles) is among those who have taken notice (Salon):

The Democrats have been winning in off-year elections. We won in the red wave midterm that we weren’t supposed to win last year. We won in the general election. This idea that as the electorate gets bigger, it gets more Republican is false. The Democrats have won more votes in the last seven out of eight elections than the Republicans. No political party has done that in American history. In the last four elections, we’ve beaten the Republicans on average by 51 to 46 by five points.

In addition, there is a big anti-MAGA majority in this country and it continues to show up to give the Democrats big electoral victories when nobody expects it. I also have no idea how Donald Trump is going to pick up a single new vote beyond the voters who voted for him in 2020. And it’s far more likely that he gets 45% of the vote than he does 49% of the vote. Trump is not a strong candidate. He’s only getting 60% of the Republican field right now. That means 40% of Republicans are not supporting him right now. Trump needs 95% of Republicans to even have a remote chance of winning. He is very far away from that. Trump is actually showing a lot of structural weakness, not strength.

I know the polls have shown what they’ve shown. First of all, the election is a year away. Not to be overlooked, there are polls showing Biden up by between two and five points nationally over Trump. There is contradictory data out there — which is what happened with the non-existent red wave in 2022. For Trump to be in the high 40s, or even ahead of Biden, it would put Trump in a place that no Republican candidate has been in 20 years. I just don’t buy that given the fact that when actual Democrats and Republicans go vote, we do well, and they don’t. I’m not going to tell you we’re going to win. I can’t predict that. But I would much rather be us than them given everything I know about politics.

The Republicans are in far greater trouble than is generally understood. Consider these facts: Trump has been convicted of sexual assault, he was involved in one of the largest financial scandals in American history, he will have been probably responsible for the greatest security breach in the history of potentially the United States and even the West, he will have overseen a party-wide conspiracy to overturn an election and to end American democracy, and he is more responsible for ending Roe v. Wade and taking away women’s reproductive rights than any other single person in the country. When you add all that up, I just don’t know how Donald Trump, the worst candidate in American history, wins.

Rosenberg will host NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton (photo at top) in a Zoom event next Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET. A few of us geezers helped this Gen Z superstar take the reins here and begin prepping our state to go blue in 2024. Clayton is another reason for me to be grateful this Thanksgiving. Us Boomers? The wisest of us know when to step aside. We’re done. We’re advisors.

There is a lot of grassroots energy out there that’s not visible to Average Joe. Some of the organizing occurs on Zoom and in the streets rather than in the press. (Not seeing it on your vidscreen doesn’t mean it’s not happening.) But the level of commitment and activity is as high as I’ve seen since the first Obama campaign, even if the hair at most of those meetings is still too gray for my liking.

(h/t BF)

$29.99 is very affordable

My relations are generally cool. But for those less fortunate….

Note those headlines. They are unusually … direct. Paul Campos at LGM notes this phenomenon as well, taking a look at one of the most jarring from Tom Edsall in NY Times today headlines “The Roots Of trump’s Rage::

Edsall specializes in long think pieces for the NYT, in which he interviews experts who try to understand the Trump phenomenon in, what up until now, has been a kind of “even handed” way, i.e., yes Trump is a disturbing figure, but let’s try to understand why nearly half the country elected him and wants him to be president again. Today’s edition of this series, published on a notable anniversary in American history, goes in a different direction right from the top:

Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captures the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an Oct. 1 essay, “The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.”

Klaas argues that the presidential contest now pits

A 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him, and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power

against “an 80-year-old with mainstream Democratic Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.”

“One of those two candidates,” Klaas notes, “faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit ‘takes’ arguing that he should drop out of the race. (Spoiler alert: it’s somehow *not* the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges).”

This is a long piece, but there’s never any gesture towards “on the other hand” at any point within it. The whole thing is a brutally straightforward indictment of Trump as a literally insane aspiring autocrat, based on interviews with mental health experts, who document Trump’s ongoing deterioration into pure grandiose narcissism and psychopathy:

I asked Joshua D. Miller, a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, whether he thought Trump’s “vermin” comment represented a tipping point, an escalation in his willingness to attack opponents. Miller replied by email: “My bet is we’re seeing the same basic traits, but their manifestation has been ratcheted up by the stress of his legal problems and also by some sense of invulnerability in that he has yet to face any dire consequences for his previous behavior.”

Miller wrote that he has

long thought that Trump’s narcissism was actually distracting us from his psychopathic traits. I view the two as largely the same but with psychopathy bringing problems with disinhibition (impulsivity; failure to delay gratification, irresponsibility, etc.) to the table and Trump seems rather high on those traits along with those related to narcissism (e.g., entitlement, exploitativeness), pathological lying, grandiosity, etc.).

I asked Donald R. Lynam, a professor of psychology at Purdue, the same question, and he emailed his reply: “The escalation is quite consistent with grandiose narcissism. Trump is reacting more and more angrily to what he perceives as his unfair treatment and failure to be admired, appreciated and adored in the way that he believes is his due.”

Grandiose narcissists, Lynam continued, “feel they are special and that normal rules don’t apply to them. They require attention and admiration,” adding “this behavior is also consistent with psychopathy which is pretty much grandiose narcissism plus poor impulse control.”

Again, the whole thing is like this, with no equivocation or on the other handing or Joe Biden is really old.

This kind of accurate unflinching coverage is also reflected in a NYT story from earlier this week, that reported on Trump’s fascistic rhetoric about “vermin” and “poisoned blood” while pulling no punches.

Edsall again:

Most of the specialists I contacted see Trump’s recent behavior and public comments as part of an evolving process.

“Trump is an aging malignant narcissist,” Aaron L. Pincus, a professor of psychology at Penn State, wrote in an email. “As he ages, he appears to be losing impulse control and is slipping cognitively. So we are seeing a more unfiltered version of his pathology. Quite dangerous.”

In addition, Pincus continued, “Trump seems increasingly paranoid, which can also be a reflection of his aging brain and mental decline.”

This was not followed by any temporizing comments about Joe Biden’s mental deterioration, real or imagined.

What may be happening here is that the elite media are finally beginning to come to terms with what is actually happening in this country at this historical moment.

A society and its political and legal systems are not suicide pacts. Donald Trump cannot be allowed to become president again, for reasons laid out cogently by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies. His re-election would be a fundamental revocation of liberal democracy.

A dictator is trying to break into the White House, and liberal democracy has both the right and the duty to stand its ground.

Have they finally realized that the threat isn’t just to immigrants and hippies? They’re personally at the top of the list.

They have to keep it up constantly for the next year for it to truly penetrate. The media needs to absorb this deeply into their consciousness as part of their responsibility.