Friends that roll logs together vote together.
I have no puns! I bet you do.
Not a one.
This is part of a larger fallacy in America that politics is about personal and cultural affinity rather than competing interests and constituencies. It's also behind the "bi-partisanship" fetish that there's one sensible answer to every problem, as opposed to necessary compromises between groups that have different interests. And since it serves our corporate masters to keep workers divided, we get endless coverage of affinity issues.
Anyway, the fallacy of affinity politics.
Don't you have a video game to be practicing? Ideally while "You're the best around" plays in the background.
Class solidarity. It's stronger in the village than it is among the peasants.
Driving to the store this weekend I heard part of a NPR show interviwing Cory Booker, who seems to have a book out peddling this line of garbage.
Ugh.
Cory Booker might be the most Hillary possible VP pick.
Corey Haim is more Canadian than Ted Cruz. Also, dead. Corey Feldman doesn't have those problems, but he's a voice in Minecraft Story Mode, so he probably has too much on his plate right now.
To bring things back on-topic, what are the odds of Corey Feldman as Hilary's VP pick?
Corey Hart is also Canadian. No wonder the Trump people have gone nativist.
I wear my sunglasses at night,
So I can, So I can,
Forget my name while you complete the H1B.
I agree with 4. The thing is, we're talking about a human system, and there are lots of marginal situations where human factors, not just group interests, come into play. E.g., Sen. Portman changes his position on gay marriage because of a gay son. Sen. Baucus' anger at Sen. Grassley -- the subject of his famous 'drunk' speech on the floor -- was real, because up to then, norms were such that a guy you've worked with for decades who says he's going to vote with you if you do X then doesn't, even when he says he wants to, is a sniveling coward.
The Village is wrong to overstate the importance of this marginal stuff. Scientific politicals are wrong to act like the human dimension doesn't matter.
Scientific politicals are wrong to act like the human dimension doesn't matter.
This strikes me as an incredible straw person. Seriously, who is making this claim? I don't hear it from anyone.
There should be a word for the fallacy of pretending that Washington gridlock would be solved if only people had personal friendships that could transcend their appalling policy disagreements.
My first thought was that this is a relative of "High Broderism" but that isn't quite right. It makes me think of the people who talk nostalgically about the working relationship between Regan and Tip O'Neill. Based on this post which I just found we could call it the, "it's never six o'clock fallacy. But there should be a catchier name for it.
politics is about personal and cultural affinity rather than competing interests and constituencies
Personal and cultural affinity exist, and sometimes matter.
I have no puns! I bet you do.
Why won't Heebie lead?
Since (almost) no one actually believes in this fallacy, worrying about it feels like rehashing the internet of 2003 forever on an endless, stupid repeat. The far bigger risk right now seems to be from people on both sides of the aisle who believe that political dealing is somehow a betrayal of politics or that you never need to worry, ever, about whether ir not anything can get done because IM MAD AND THE VILLAGE IS CORRUPT. The totally valid critique of early generation Atrios has become an ossified parody of itself and repeating it endlessly as a mantra is at least close to being as dumb and thoughtless as the High Broderism was in 1999. Both are basically dismissive of politics and government as something that actually matters.
Put differently, if you're all going to be morons, at least have something interesting to say that's remotely attuned to the times and not just fourth hand Bob Somerby from 15 years ago.
Since (almost) no one actually believes in this fallacy
I know people who believe something basically like this as it applies to "bipartisanship", and AFAICT it underlies a substantial portion of the (enduring!) popularity of "The West Wing".
I'm sure more cliched posts on the internet will help the blithe morons who have been asleep since 1997 whom you may know to see the error of their ways.
Corey Feldman doesn't have those problems, but he's a voice in Minecraft Story Mode
What, really? Is he the voice of Jessie? Now I may have to make my kid watch Stand By Me.
I don't remember, but I remember looking it up after saying to myself, "That can't possibly be Martha Plimpton."
But it was Martha Plimpton, reader, it was.
23: Since (almost) no one actually believes in this fallacy
Yeah, really, Tigre, I heard it repeated just this morning on Diane Rehm's show, from a guest who was voicing her view that 'women knit the world', and who cited Jeanne Shaheen as having said that back in the old days, Congresscritters used to be personal friends, and the female Senators currently in office do have dinner together once a week, but the menfolk don't, and the women are often the behind-the-scenes drivers of successful legislation. Is that true? I dunno. But lots of people hold this view of collegiality and the lack thereof.
That said. Of course "If only they were friends!" sounds pretty freakin' naive.
and the female Senators currently in office do have dinner together once a week, but the menfolk don't
They're still mad that women got elected so they couldn't swim naked in the capitol pool anymore.
23/29 are right - almost every time I've heard the word "bipartisan" used in a non-sarcastic/not-bitter tone of voice it's been someone expressing exactly this fallacy. And the rest are just neutral descriptions of bills that passed quietly in the night where none of the right wing crazies could see it so that the Republican senators could get away with voting for whatever anodyne stuff was in it.
I actually don't understand what Tigre is saying. Obama still gets criticized for being aloof and not socializing with congress. Is that a different issue?
32: Tigre is saying that the internet has tried to explain to those people that they are morons for 15 years now, and it's time to give up.
33: Also that we are also morons for repeating ourselves.
Yes, and that the greater moron threat now comes from a different direction, the people who think that politics should be all about maximum incivility, yelling, and never, ever bargaining in good faith.
Previous presidents were able to work out bipartisan compromises with pork, but Obama won't do that because he's Muslim.
While it's good to be mindful of the greater moron front, that shouldn't mean abandoning the other moron fronts.
We are beset by morons on all sides.
OK, but it would be nice if people were less boring and repetitive and self-satisfied about the particular morons that they go after.
32: It seems like a proxy for the Democratic primary. See the thread a couple weeks ago about a picture of Clinton hugging Bush with apparently genuine warmth. Clinton fans think that's good, or regrettable but necessary, or not great but not nearly as bad as those pinko wackos who were opposed to the Iraq war make it sound like and you're a moron if you think things could ever be different. Sanders fans disagree.
(Oh, is this an uncharitable way to state the conflicting positions? YOU STARTED IT NEENER NEENER NEENER)
Since (almost) no one actually believes in this fallacy
Let me introduce you to numerous major foundation officials who control significant philanthropic resources.
Yes, people who actually have to work with other people with different political viewpoints. OH MY GOD THE CORRUPTION. My view is that the left internet is now about as moronic as the centrist media elites of the late 90s, only (unbelievably) about 10x as self-satisfied.
Comments like 40 are exactly the problem.
Is he the voice of Jessie?
Does he feel like a party everyday?
Sorry, ogged, my 33 and 34 are wrong.
Upon further analysis, Tigre is just angry that Bernie won all those primaries.
43: My view is that the left internet is now about as moronic as the centrist media elites of the late 90s
Good lord, what left internet are you reading?
I'm not sure I understand what R. Tigre is on about here, but surely we all understand that for liberals, collegiality with the modern Republican Party is more-or-less impossible, and therefore anyone preaching comity ought to be regarded with suspicion.
I'm not particularly troubled by Hillary's figurative embrace of Kissinger and literal embrace of Bush. If that's the only point that Tigre is making, I can sign on to that. The problem for Hillary is that she actually does seem too sympathetic to "realists" like Kissinger and neocons like Bush - so the symbolism of collegiality in this case seems to be backed by actual policy venality and stupidity.
49 -- basically, yes, though this has creeped into other areas as well.
Anyhow, the last sentence in 43 is less justifiable and more plain ranting than the main point, which is that repeating fourth-hand Bob Somerby stuff in 2016 is boring, pointless, cliched, and stupid, and that the late-90s/early 00's liberal internet critique of "non-partisanship," while perfectly valid in its time and in its way, has now become an ossified shibboleth that's obscuring, not revealing, the reality of how government does and should work. Yes everyone with a baseline knowledge of politics, regardless of ideology, now acknowledges that centrist good-feeling hasn't and won't work. But that's morphed into some view that maximum non-compromise and maximum incivility means maximum effectiveness and anything less is a betrayal.
52: I'm trying to think of a Democrat who is guilty of this. Alan Grayson?
Grayson types have their place, and I don't see any danger that Grayson is going to have any particular influence on Democrats-at-large.
On the other hand, I do think it's pretty cool that in my Democratic primary, I can vote for Donna Edwards, who I find marginally less interested in compromise than Chris Van Hollen, and therefore a marginally superior politician.
I think Tigre is spending too much time on the internet. FWIW, I didn't hear any of that sort of talk at the caucus on Saturday.
I don't know what firebaggers are and never read Bob Somerby, so I'm a bit lost, but I do gather that someone has been very very wrong on the internet.
55: http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2016/03/campaign-watch-covering-candidate-trump.html
It's not too late to start reading Bob Somerby! He's still at it! And he's pretty much always right no matter what Tigre says.
I'm trying to think of a Democrat who is guilty of this
It's a rare disease among sitting politicians, who, for the most part, have work to do that needs to be done. But a common one among internet commenters.
It's the "nobody takes Thomas Friedman seriously any more" fallacy, which doesn't take into account that all the people who actually make decisions regarding the future of the country continue to take Thomas Friedman seriously.
Speaking of a common thing among internet commenters, is anybody else disappointed the Cuban Mistress Crisis isn't getting much real press?
56: Somerby is a crank, as the content of this link shows.
By and large, it's hard to think of a presidential candidate who has been covered more accurately and completely than Trump. Kristof's mea culpa is similarly off-base, as Pierce explains.
Trump has been the Republican front-runner from pretty much Day 1 of his campaign. When he says stuff, the media is obligated to cover it.
If people fail to realize that Trump is a nut, a liar and an authoritarian, you can't blame the media for that. The reporting has been crystal clear, even in the mainstream media and even among so-called "objective" reporters.
Trump supporters and opponents both have a much more clear idea of his proclivities than they ever did for, say, Cruz.
61: HRC has been the front-runner from Day 1, but Trump's gotten something like 5X (10X? Been awhile since I've seen a tally) the coverage. The press's coverage of him has been, as you say, pretty clear*, but the degree of coverage is unprecedented.
*I'd quibble at the edges, but I think this is basically correct. They didn't take him seriously at the start, but I'd say that, within the stupid bounds of objective journalism, they've done reasonably well since the start of the year, and maybe before.
If people fail to realize that Trump is a nut, a liar and an authoritarian, you can't blame the media for that
Maybe they needed to explain that those are bad traits.
59: The National Enquirer didn't put the original story online, so I didn't read it, but the story seemed much less well-developed than, say, the Edwards story.
From the abbreviated online item:
"Private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had," claimed a Washington insider.
If this is all the Enquirer has, then it's not actually claiming that Cruz had affairs - in fact, it's two distinct steps away from making that claim. Its actual two-part claim is that:
1. somebody says that
2. Cruz is being investigated based on rumors of five affairs
The Enquirer makes no claim that Cruz engaged in extramarital affairs.* The Enquirer doesn't even claim that there are private investigators looking into the allegations.
All the Enquirer is saying is that someone like Roger Stone told them that the investigations were taking place.
*Unless the printed story makes that claim.
Roger Stone is very good at being like Roger Stone.
62: By any sensible standard, Trump has been more newsworthy than Hillary.
1. His race is more competitive. I betcha Hillary coverage has dwindled as she had become a more prohibitive favorite.
2. Trump says and does genuinely newsworthy things. If Hillary starts inciting violence at her rallies, she's going to get more coverage.
3. Trump is unusually accessible. If Hillary wants more coverage, she can arrange to call in to TV shows every day, too. I don't see any evidence that she has attempted this and was rebuffed.
News consumers would have a legitimate gripe if the media dismissed Trump's lunacy as being uninteresting. In fact, news consumers have a legitimate gripe against the media for downplaying Ted Cruz's awfulness.
Trump's gotten something like 5X (10X? Been awhile since I've seen a tally) the coverage.
No kidding. Its one thing when shitty blogs do it. But the other day I was looking at the front page of WaPo, and out of the 6 "opinion" pieces it was highlighting, 5 were about Trump the other was about how Bernie Sanders is terrible. Really WaPo? Is there nothing else going on in the world to have an opinion about?
From what I've seen of it the Enquirer story is about as close to them publishing "Sources say the National Enquirer has run a story which mentions the possibility of Ted Cruz having AFFAIRS! with MULTIPLE WOMEN! in a SLEAZY WAY!" as it gets.
Also I agree with the other people here: the media "I blame only myself!!"s are getting to be a bit much. The main difference with how they covered Trump is that they thought he was unserious enough that they didn't bother to give him the gentle smoothing over that they gave the other Republican candidates, and reported accurately the insane stuff he was saying while explaining exactly how insane it was.
I've been thinking I could do a website where (maybe with some journalist) we do a numerical rating of a tabloid's confidence in their own scandal story, based on legal tells in the phrasing, where they're willing to publish the story, etc etc. I mean they all operate from a defamation-avoidance handbook that's literally given to their authors, so why not turn them back at them to rate their stories. Anyhow, I give the Cruz story confidence level 2 dead hookers out of 10 on the Tigre scale.
Sounds to me like it's something everyone knows but no one has printable proof yet. If somehow he starts to seem viable, we'll hear about it again, or maybe even regardless.
Right, 70 does not exclude 71. The scale is only about level of confidence in evidence, not underlying plausibility. In terms of underlying plausibility you have to account for the fact that Cruz is a creepy ass creeper and there's zero chance he hasn't slept with someone throwing himself at him as a Senator or, before that, with a prostitute. In the real world, there is no chance at all that this hasn't happened. But it can be damn hard to prove.
I can't help but notice that Ted's denial seemed firm, but it didn't mention if he was counting oral.
71
There are places you can find the names of three of the five women suggested as Cruz paramours. I'm not going to link to them but they are out there.
73
Depends on what you mean by "was" and "oral."
If you had a large enough corpus of tabloid stories + the results of whether the scandal was true or false, you could train a neural network to spit out a number and pretend it means something.
If the network swallowed the number, it would mean something.
you could train a neural network to spit out a number and pretend it means something.
Or, if you could display the data visually, you count train pigeons.
Oh look, LGM has helpfully linked to an in-the-wild example of what I was talking about:
Rand Paul could bring back an era in American politics when conservatives and liberals socialized with one another. This alone would solve some of the gridlock in Washington.
By one H.A. Goodman. Ha! I say.
I have another theory that can explain that. Libertarians are dumb as bricks.
Okay, so, has everyone forgotten how a conspiracy of Skull & Bonesmen from both parties has been running the country for the last 120 years or so? They all take off their masks and socialize in their actual, Lizard Person, forms.
Also, yes, Trump being in the news all the time & all has been good for him in the primary but it looks like bad news for him in the general tbh.
Now here's someone who really should be apologizing for her role in creating the Trump phenomenon (and is). It's kind of a fascinating glimpse into the psychology of Trumpism.
Earmarks would be more helpful than sharing a beer across the aisle. "What's in it for my constituents [and my chances for re-election]?" did a lot more good for government policy than anyone's willing to admit.
83 is more or less the same as what I said in 1, which wasn't completely a joke.
"What's in it for my constituents [and my chances for re-election]?" did a lot more good for government policy than anyone's willing to admit.
Except Don Young. For all the man's (many, many) faults, one thing I do like about him is that he's been very upfront about saying that earmarks were useful and getting rid of them was a mistake. I suppose that's the sort of lesson you learn from 40 years in the House.
A man who threatens to bite like a mink know civility isn't the answer.
Indeed, Young's longstanding aversion to civility has served him well.
Was 72 a typo or is Tigre implying there's a gay sex Cruz scandal coming up? Because that would be such a concentration of awesome it would probably form a black hole.
The last king of Rome was named "Superbus". I think somebody should have taught me that in school because I would have remembered it better than 11x9.
If this is all the Enquirer has, then it's not actually claiming that Cruz had affairs - in fact, it's two distinct steps away from making that claim.
1. somebody says that
2. Cruz is being investigated based on rumors of five affairs
The Enquirer makes no claim that Cruz engaged in extramarital affairs.
In UK legal terms, this wouldn't be true. The "somebody says that" part doesn't get you off the hook at all. Repeating someone else's defamatory statement is the same, liability wise, as making it the first time. The second part would also be a questionable defence, based on recent jurisprudence, depending on how the story was worded, though I strongly suspect the law on that is different in the US (particularly around public figures). But is there really a "mere republication" defence in the US?
What if you repeated somebody else's defamatory statement in the course of repeating a repudiation of it?
As I understand the law (i.e. not very well), in the United States you need to demonstrate actual malice (not just half-assedness) to be liable for libel when the person you are writing about is a public figure. Whether it is possible to talk about Cruz without malice is something for the courts to decide.
It's hard enough to win a libel lawsuit in the U.S. that Cruz not suing Stone only proves that Stone is as big of an asshole as Cruz, not that Stone can prove anything. We already knew that, but still it's fun to watch.
Compared to the US (from what I know) the UK's rules on libel are incredibly restrictive.
They can't even publish claims out incest in outhouses without either carefully sourcing the reports obtained from hacking into voicemail systems.
What if you repeated somebody else's defamatory statement in the course of repeating a repudiation of it?
As long as a reasonable person would interpret your publication as a repudiation, rather than an innuendo that the statement is true*, you're probably OK. I understand that it's much harder to defame a public figure in the US, I'm just surprised that there would be a blanket defence of repetition, even for non-public figures, outside of specific carveouts (eg ISPs, unmoderated blog platforms).
* This is more or less where the second step might fall down in the UK. A court found that (one paper's not particularly accurate) reporting of actual investigations of misconduct created the defamatory impression that there was actual misconduct. I'm not sure that the verdict would still go the same way after the recent libel reforms, but it stood up under appeal.
Really quickly:
1) everything GY says about UK libel law is true of US libel law as well. Writing "People are saying that Joe is a rapist" is not a defense to a libel suit from Joe, even if people really are saying that, if the newspaper has good reason to know that Joe is not a rapist. Phrasing something as "in the opinion of many, Joe is a rapist" or even including a repudiation ("Joe denies the evidence, which we're now going to describe in great, lascivious detail, that he's a rapist") is not good enough to get you off the hook, so long as a reasonable reader could believe that the journalist is republishing a provably false statement of fact.
2) The key in the US is the reasonableness of the investigation. For a public figure* the standard is "reckless disregard" as to the truth or falsity of a statement. So, no investigation at all is not OK. Having clear evidence that you just ignore that the statement is false is not OK. Some investigation, with semi-credible sources, is enough. Tabloids have manuals and in-house lawyers that teach writers how to stay just over the safety line. This allows the "people are saying" defense to come in through the back door, despite the re-publication rule; if people really are saying that, and you do an investigation, it strengthens your case that your investigation was semi-reasonable and you're not going beyond the results of the investigation.
3) In England, and in the US until the 60s, you had strict liability plus a republication rule -- so even if you reasonably believed that your story was true, and even though you were republishing it from elsewhere, you could be liable if the story was false. Now everywhere in the US has a negligence rule, even for defamation of private figures, and the lenient recklessness rule for public figures in most situations.
4) England's defamation law is stricter than the US, but since 2013 it's not very strict. People will now republish very weakly sourced articles in England. If you want to gauge a tabloid's level of confidence, look at whether or not they publish in their French and especially German editions. Those countries are where the action is now for big defamation awards.
*(at least about an arguably public matter -- this second part is broadly construed and thus often gets forgotten, but can be important)
Ah, OK, that makes much more sense.
Here's the investigation libel I was talking about, though the facts aren't quite as I remembered them. It seems the main issue was online republication (by the English law definition) of the article about the investigation after the investigation exonerated the complainant. I'd have to double-check to be sure, but I think there were material inaccuracies as well which meant the justification (truth) defence didn't stand up.