How To Argue With: A Trumpaloo

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The Omnivore Lecture series continues with -- How to Argue With: A Trumpaloo. A Trumpaloo is, definitionally, someone who is so deep into Trump-right-or-wrong that they (a) don't care if he colluded--he had to save the republic by any means! (b) Deserves glowing press coverage no matter how much chaos he creates (c) Is GETTIN' IT ALL DONE (the wall is going up! Obamacare was repealed, and now the other countries respect us)!

In other words, someone who is detached from reality.

The Taxonomy of the Trumpaloos

There is a more complex taxonomy out there--but unless you expect The Omnivore to innovate the Octahedron Decision Icon, we are going with what we've got. It covers most of the conditions. Why does the Trumpaloo love Trump? Well, this is what they'll tell you!

1. He's Set The Economy ON FIRE (in a good way)
2. He Came To Washington as an Outsider to Drain The Swamp!!
3. He is Finally--FINALLY--Putting America First!

Let's look!

The Economy

The economy is, in fact, doing well--and, in fact, Trump deserves some credit for it! There was a "trump bump" in the market which turned into some Trump expansion when he delivered on executive orders to cut regulations. This is good for Wall Street and Finance. The tax cuts are even better for them.

Of course the economy was doing better and better for quite some time--nine years, in fact--and Obama was constantly criticized for fake unemployment or job creation numbers and the slowest recovery ever and a ton of other nonsense that, now on the tail end, Trump gets credit for. 

If someone is making factual statements about the economy--or even Trump's beneficial effects on it--that's fine. If someone is roundly ignoring the trend under Obama? Well, make sure you show them any of the stats!

The Swamp!!

Trump was supposed to be a different kind of guy--a straight shooter who would fix the corrupt mess of Washington! He was just the opposite. Now, let's get something straight--a HUGE amount of people's belief that Washington is just totally, awesomely corrupt comes from a slew of misunderstandings about how things work.

The process of making and passing bills is complicated--and often experts come with a point of view. Lawmakers need to find sponsors for things--that often comes with some kind of strings attached--and it's true that once you leave D.C. you can go straight into the loving arms of a company that wants to leverage your expertise.

On the other hand, a great deal of this "corruption" is just the miasma of trying to satisfy everyone to the point where you satisfy no one. This is why no one has been able to balance the budget by removing all the inefficiencies and graft: when you try, you find out that there isn't much graft and the inefficiencies are all there for one reason or another--one good reason or another.

What Trump did, though, was bring in guys who were, essentially, raiders. They moved in and began milking the system in grotesque and obvious ways. First-Class private plane flights, 30k dining room sets, hiring cronies, and using protection details as errand boys. Trump's crew--even leaving out guys like Flynn who may have been working for foreign governments--were/are a bunch of corrupt assholes.

Trump, himself, is working the system for his own properties like nobody's business. If someone claims Trump isn't corrupt ask about all the scandals--and don't stop.

A Strong and Manly America!

Maybe the MAGA-ing is about making America strong in the way it "once was"? Well, if you mean more-ok-to-be-racist-in? Yeah. In fact America First was a Klan and American-Nazi slogan before Trump re-purposed it. Maybe that's why the Klan and the Nazis endorsed him?

If it's about a strong national defense or posture? Well, if Obama bowed to a Saudi prince, it looks like Trump got down on his knees for Vladimir Putin (and don't let anyone tell you Trump has been harder on Russia than Obama--it's bullshit for a variety of reasons). 

No--between forcibly alienating our enemies, being submissive towards Russia, and chummy with North Korea, America looks more like a blind weakling floundering around world affairs than a strong-man.

Conclusions

Right now the working claim for the Trump-supporter is that we've gotta wait and see how things pan out (will tariffs work? Will a good DACA bill finally pass sometime once Congress is beaten into submission? Will the economy grow at 8 or 9% to make up for the tax cuts and spending bill?). The Omnivore is VERY dubious--but, at least, if the Trump-supporter can reckon with the fact that this hasn't all happened yet then you're dealing with someone who isn't divorced from reality.

Being optimistic about Trump may be overly credulous--but it isn't vile. Ignoring (much less supporting) the racist elements of America that have flourished under Trump--often wearing his colors or joining his party--and speaking his name--is vile--but that isn't everyone.

Still, if you do wind up with a Trumpaloo, let 'em have it.

How to Argue With: A BernieOrBuster

The Omnivore Lecture Series 'How To Argue With A' continues with the BernieOrBuster. A Bernie-
Or-Buster is a voter who, at least ostensibly, supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary but then, in the General voted for someone other than Clinton (or stayed home). There's nothing wrong with supporting Sanders in the primary--but if it were done for any logically consistent reason then there is no logical path for not voting against Trump in the general election.

What's Really Going On

The Bernie Or Buster suffers a narcissistic injury (don't @ me) when Sanders fails to win the Democratic Primary and retaliates by withholding their vote or even casting a vote for Trump to punish the Democrats. Of course this makes them definitionally petty and vindictive--things they cannot afford to admit (perhaps even to themselves) so they must rationalize the action. There are a number of common rationalizations for this, which we will explore--but mostly they boil down to being "mad at their mom" (whom Hillary and Hillary-voters represent in this self-contained drama).

Let's look:

HILLARY CONSPIRACY THEORIES

This logical fallacy is based on the (very real) fact that the DNC preferred Hillary to Bernie. Leaked emails confirm this and it's beyond logical: Hillary has been a champion of and huge fundraiser for the party for decades. Sanders wasn't a Democrat until the race started. What is missing is "what action the DNC took against Sanders."

According to legend the leaked emails "show proof of the fix." They don't. There isn't any. There is Donna Brazille giving Hillary "the answers to the debate." The problem is:

• She gave Hillary the question (not the answer)
• The question was on water-quality for a debate taking place in Flint Michigan
• Nobody cared about this anyway

In any event, if you want to make the case that this bit of malfeasance swung the primary, show your work.

The other conspiracy theory is that Hillary is a super-criminal who, despite being investigated for decades, gives up no proof of having done anything really illegal. The height of this is the theory that she had Seth Rich killed as retribution for his leaking the DNC data to Wikileaks. This is raw nonsense and you should point and laugh.

Solution: Ask them how they feel about the Flat-Earth theory. Keep asking until they are forced to admit they can't really prove the earth is round anyway.

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT

There is a (sliver) of a case to be made that Hillary, being corp-friendly--might have supported the Keystone pipeline--that's possible. However, one thing is really clear: no matter what Hillary did, she would not have been as hostile to the environment and the EPA as Trump has been (and, as we could all see it coming).

Solution: If the BernieOrBuster stakes their claim on the environment, list off the numerous things the Trump admin has done and laugh at them. Finish by saying that Trump has convinced you global warming is a hoax anyway.

WARMONGER

Hillary said she would institute a No-Fly zone over Syria. The Kremlin propaganda arm said this would lead to World War III (it would not). The lefty-left adopted these talking points--and a lot of people said they wanted Trump as the "Peace President." This was always incredible nonsense so you should just point out that they're really only carrying water for Putin here and that Trump, blundering around foreign policy, is more likely to spark an unnecessary war than project the strength necessary to keep us out of one.

Solution: Make it clear that their position is "Kiss Putin's ass to prevent WWIII--and that (supine) posture never really works.

How To Argue With: A Libertarian

The Omnivore got a message this morning from a friend who had a Facebook argument with a libertarian. "Have you heard about this Marxist Hegelian postmodernism gibberish?" He asked. The answer is "yes--but only kinda." In fact, unless one is happy and willing to have a philosophical debate about Marxism and Libertarianism there is no need to ever go there.

To assist those who do not want to get down into the dangerous weeds, here is The Omnivore's: How To Debate A Libertarian.

It's A Pretty Simple Decision Tree

Roughly speaking there are two basic kinds of libertarians:

1. People with emotional issues around being super smart, pretty racist, and liking weed.
2. People who want to make the world better and honestly believe that the free-market and so on will do that.

In general it's about 98% to 2%. And not in the good way.

The Two Big Libertarian Problems: "Let Him Die" and "Communism Has Never Been Tried!"

In practice, when debating (coming into verbal contact with) a Type 1 Libertarian you should quickly zero in on one of two problems. The first is exemplified by the 2012 Republican Debate where Ron Paul was asked what to do with a sick guy who can't pay:

Wolf Blitzer put a terrific question to Rep. Ron Paul at last night's CNN/Tea Party Express Republican debate in Tampa, Fla. What should happen, the moderator asked hypothetically, if a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it—and then becomes catastrophically ill and needs intensive care for six months? When Dr. Paul ducked, fondly recalling the good old days before Medicare and saying that we should all take responsibility for ourselves, Blitzer pressed the point. "But, Congressman, are you saying the society should just let him die?" At that point, the rabble erupted in cheers and whoops of "Yeah!"

This is, of course the hard-core reductionist libertarian decision on humanity and it's unpalatable to almost everyone with a drop of empathy (the working answer is that "somehow it'll work itself out [for white people I care about and fuck everyone else]')--but, if you don't accept wild handwaving, you get the crowd applauding this guy's death.

That, generally, ends the debate. They either sell out libertarianism or humanity.

The second mortal wound for philosophical libertarianism is the dancing-naked guy: when you put a critical mass of libertarians together in a room and try to build a party (out of the smartest, most objectivists uber-men that humanity has available, of course) one of them will take off their clothes and dance naked on stage trying to become the party nominee.

As a rule it will not be the most attractive libertarian in the room--or even the second most. No, you get the bottom of the barrel.

The point here is not the naked guy per-se, but the libertarians in general: When Ron Paul realized that the receptive audience for his message of glorious free-market-teering was white supremacists, he allowed his newsletters to sing the song of his people.

Today we can go back and read about the race war and shit. Although disavowed, Ron Paul's account keeps "making the same mistake" of tweeting racist shit to this day.

It, you know, doesn't seem like a mistake most people just keep making. No--the problem with any organized libertarian party isn't the philosophy, per se--it's the libertarians. When you realize this, you realize that Libertarians are, humiliatingly, in the same spaces as communists: they have to argue that "true libertarianism has never been tried!"

We don't buy that for commies. Why believe that some form of "true libertarianism" won't be hijacked by naked hairy lunatics or, erm, racists? Show The Omnivore that evidence first and then we can talk about Hegel.

It is worth making a point about women libertarians. They exist. If you run into one, ask if the libertarian movement as a whole is sexist: if you get an honest answer, skip the debate and just spend the rest of the time talking about that. You may learn something.

A Final Note: Some Good Ideas

The tag for this post is 'humor'--but of course it's a pretty pointed joke. The fact is that libertarianism does have some good ideas and markets are superior at some things. Dismissing all libertarian thought because of the usual standard bearers would be a mistake. If someone isn't committed to trying to push a utopian libertarian revolution, you might as well listen. There are plenty of good ideas out there and no one is immune to tribalism or some degree of partisanship.

But if they start talking Hegelian Postmodernism philosophy, make sure you ask if they have any pot: the chances are high they have a supply of the good stuff!