Blip Thinking

From The Baffler:

For God’s Sake, Do Nothing

Blip thinking is also exculpatory; it exempts its users from thinking too deeply about how we got into this mess, what their own role may have been, and the difficult work needed to get us out. What gets lost amid all this is the obvious contribution that the old order made to the emerging catastrophe. The global “populist” moment did not arise in spite of liberal capitalism, in defiance of the global rules-based order, but because of them. The situation today is not the parenthesis of progress but its product. And this is what is truly deranging about blip thinking: by mistaking entropy for a fleeting moment of collective madness, it ensures the political establishment’s comfort in doing nothing to address the real problems besetting the world today. It is a call for only the most superficial form of action—which is to say, an excuse for inaction.

 Link.

 Propaganda as a form of inoculation only goes so far.

14 Years and Counting

See Welcome

White House Newsletter

From I've analyzed every White House newsletter since 2009, and Trump's are a propaganda machine obsessed with positive news coverage:

...the White House newsletter reflects this administration's complicated relationship with the news media. Despite press secretaries and a president who deride the journalists for their negative coverage, this White House also wants the validation and credibility that comes from media praise

And it's looking far and wide to find it. 

A window into Trump's insecurity?

Nothing

Nothingnees is not an empty construct--it just looks that way.

Melancholia

Melancholia is the brain's way of saying things are not so great.

Trust

Trust is the glue that binds a society, but can be also hinder or even stop its development if misplaced.

Conformity

A nonconformist will often find realization of nonconformist desires by forcing others to conform.  Thus do rebels become dictators.

Manipulation

See This Is How Manipulation Is Used in Today’s Product Design for a summary of techniques used to push sales.  These same techniques could be used for political campaigns and other forms of propaganda.

Seldom Defeat

Defeat is seldom more assured than when self-inflicted. But then what of martyrdom?

The Dying Days of Liberalism

Suggested reading: The Dying Days of Liberalism:How Orthodoxy, Professionalism, and Unresponsive Politics Finally Doomed a 19th-century Project

I think decadence is ultimately killing political liberalism.  However, social liberalism is still kicking, but its time will come.  It has become too reactive in terms of economics for anything else.  Economic insecurity is the bane of social justice.

At the same time, ravaged by the same decadence, social conservatism appears to be largely extinct.  Political conservatism is still a force, but will meet its final reckoning as well.  It's reactionary impulses cause it to ignore basic economic realities.  Economic insecurity is the bane of tradition.

Donald Trump, a thoroughly decadent public figure, embodies this overall downward trajectory.

More on Persuasion Analysis

See Trump’s Counter-Punch: A Persuasion Tactic.  Learn from the master of propaganda...

Emotional Spin

John Robb offers The Race to Weaponize Empathy to discuss emotional spin as applied to the news (beyond typical marketing).  "[People] see all facts within a social context and that context is identified by the emotional context attached to that fact."  In a fragmented society, people go to a news source to find out how to feel about a particular fact.  Hence, the uproar over "fake news" as the elite do not approve of those particular feelings.

The thought police have become the emotion police, which is much more difficult to control than simple access to information. (Hence, the desperation.  The result?  More fake news.)

But what about outright lies?

Persuasion Analysis

Why Clinton’s Slogans Failed (Hard): A Persuasion Analysis. Worth a read.

Broken

Being no fan of political parties, I enjoy mocking the losers (and winners, too).  As was true four years ago, I find it is more entertaining (to me) to do so in song:

More

If you lose to Donald Trump, you really deserve nothing but mockery.  How anyone can take Democrats for anything but corrupt and incompetent is telling.  For people who told everyone how "smart" they are, they really are not. I also find celebrity arrogance telling. They do not seem to understand their condemnation is an endorsement. I suppose it is all one can expect from people who surround themselves with lackeys and sycophants.

Images

An images may comprise/contain multiple symbols, thus making it something different than the sum of its parts.  Relationships are cause and effect.