Candace Owens

superrific said:
This would be a better argument if a) the theories about Big Tobacco and Big Oil hadn't been proven true (and in the former case, the rot went further than anyone had claimed); and b) the 0.1%ers weren't acting exactly as socialists have always predicted the oligarchs to act when presented with a threat to power. If you wanted to explain the last year in one sentence, you could do worse than the peasant in the Holy Grail: "now you see the violence inherent in the system."
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Ah yes, our conspiracy theories are true.

To be a little less flippant, yes certain industries and individuals try to (and do) influence policy. But it is a collective effort of hundreds of different individual decisionmakers -- many of whom have directly contrary strategies and objectives. There is not a unitary 1% or "Big Pharma" or anything else in "control" of anything. That is not how the real world works.
 
Calheel said:
Ah yes, our conspiracy theories are true.

To be a little less flippant, yes certain industries and individuals try to (and do) influence policy. But it is a collective effort of hundreds of different individual decisionmakers -- many of whom have directly contrary strategies and objectives. There is not a unitary 1% or "Big Pharma" or anything else in "control" of anything. That is not how the real world works.
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I taught corporate law. I know that "multi-national corporations" are not, in general, what leftists make them out to be. In that respect, you're not wrong.

But Big Tobacco and Big Oil are incredibly evil actors who have undisputedly caused tremendous harm to humans and routinely lie about what their products do or don't do.

As for the 1%, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the 0.01% -- it's hard not to see the parade of centi-billionaires either kissing Trump's ass or actively doing his bidding and see anything else but Capital at work.
 
superrific said:
I taught corporate law. I know that "multi-national corporations" are not, in general, what leftists make them out to be. In that respect, you're not wrong.

But Big Tobacco and Big Oil are incredibly evil actors who have undisputedly caused tremendous harm to humans and routinely lie about what their products do or don't do.

As for the 1%, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the 0.01% -- it's hard not to see the parade of centi-billionaires either kissing Trump's ass or actively doing his bidding and see anything else but Capital at work.
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Yes, I know you are not a conspiracy theorist, although you do have some Payne-ish tendencies.

Of course there are uber rich people kissing Trump's ass. But almost none of them can stand each other and it serves little analytical value to lump them into the same bucket as "very wealthy" -- as if they are all on the same page and trying to accomplish the same thing.

The problem with Candace Owens and conspiracy theories in general is that they try to simplify a messy world with overly simple explanations. The left does this, too, albeit to a lesser degree and with more nuance.
 
lawtig02 said:
Education accounts for a lot of this. There are tons of educated Americans who are nonetheless under the thrall of the right wing crazies, but as a general rule, less education makes one far more susceptible to manipulation. And the American right has been shunning the educated and appealing to the less educated for decades now.
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I think the education gap is a little overblown. While people with post graduate degrees support democrats by a 2-1 margin, what percentage of the electorate is that?

This is from Pew:

"Voters with postgraduate degrees are even more Democratic than those with bachelor’s degrees. About six-in-ten registered voters who have a postgraduate degree (61%) identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 37% associate with the Republican Party. Voters with a bachelor’s degree but no graduate degree are more closely divided: 51% Democratic, 46% Republican.

Voters with a high school degree or less education and those who have attended some college but do not have a bachelor’s degree both tilt Republican by similar margins."

In other words, there is a slight bias of democrats with bachelors degrees and republicans without but its pretty close. You can't say that education or at least a college education magically imparts a resistance to right wing nuts while lacking college will make you putty in the hands of Trump. There are too many counterfactuals. It has to be something else in the right wing mindset that makes them substantially more susceptible while somehow left-wing hucksters can never gain that wide spread traction.
 
Adjust for religious beliefs. The stronger and more dogmatic, the less commitment to cause and effect and more allowance for the hand of God, fate, providence or whatever.
 
Calheel said:
Yes, I know you are not a conspiracy theorist, although you do have some Payne-ish tendencies.

Of course there are uber rich people kissing Trump's ass. But almost none of them can stand each other and it serves little analytical value to lump them into the same bucket as "very wealthy" -- as if they are all on the same page and trying to accomplish the same thing.

The problem with Candace Owens and conspiracy theories in general is that they try to simplify a messy world with overly simple explanations. The left does this, too, albeit to a lesser degree and with more nuance.
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Paine wasn't a conspiracy theorist. Just a historical materialist, which I am not.

I'm just going by what I see. The tech bros might have rivalries, but they sure turned to support Trump in a hurry last year, didn't they? Crypto is playing a big role, I think. Plus the corruption opportunities.
 
finesse said:
Adjust for religious beliefs. The stronger and more dogmatic, the less commitment to cause and effect and more allowance for the hand of God, fate, providence or whatever.
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Yes. There is a much stronger correlation based on religious beliefs but less so regarding education. You could maybe make an argument that the reason Republicans are more willing to support these wing nut shills is that they are willing to believe in jewish carpenter mythology. I just don't think less education is as strong of an argument.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
I think the education gap is a little overblown. While people with post graduate degrees support democrats by a 2-1 margin, what percentage of the electorate is that?

This is from Pew:

"Voters with postgraduate degrees are even more Democratic than those with bachelor’s degrees. About six-in-ten registered voters who have a postgraduate degree (61%) identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 37% associate with the Republican Party. Voters with a bachelor’s degree but no graduate degree are more closely divided: 51% Democratic, 46% Republican.

Voters with a high school degree or less education and those who have attended some college but do not have a bachelor’s degree both tilt Republican by similar margins."

In other words, there is a slight bias of democrats with bachelors degrees and republicans without but its pretty close. You can't say that education or at least a college education magically imparts a resistance to right wing nuts while lacking college will make you putty in the hands of Trump. There are too many counterfactuals. It has to be something else in the right wing mindset that makes them substantially more susceptible while somehow left-wing hucksters can never gain that wide spread traction.
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there are lots of colleges...
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Yes. There is a much stronger correlation based on religious beliefs but less so regarding education. You could maybe make an argument that the reason Republicans are more willing to support these wing nut shills is that they are willing to believe in jewish carpenter mythology. I just don't think less education is as strong of an argument.
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Personally I think it is more precisely not just "lack of education" but "lack of critical thinking skills" that is the big difference in susceptibility to this kind of stuff. There are a lot of people who manage to get college degrees while still having extremely poor critical reasoning ability. To the point about religion, the encouragement from some religious leaders to jettison critical thinking in favor of blind faith certainly could play a role.

But admittedly, critical thinking skills are not really something that's easy to test for or measure, so this is just a theory. I honestly don't know how you would really try to "prove" it, either.
 
finesse said:
Adjust for religious beliefs. The stronger and more dogmatic, the less commitment to cause and effect and more allowance for the hand of God, fate, providence or whatever.
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Not entirely related, but this post reminds me of something I see a lot in my line of work. A good number of my clients and their families are very religious. Religion doesn’t necessarily guide their lives, but in dire moments it is God that is the answer.

With these folks, when things turn out well with a case, it is all because of God. Not so much the facts, the law, the work I put into it, the way the prosecutor handled the case, etc. Sure, they appreciate the work I did and acknowledge it, but it was God’s hands that guided me. When things don’t turn out well, however, God has nothing to do with it. It’s someone else’s fault; sometimes mine. But never God’s or the client’s.
 
rodoheel said:
Personally I think it is more precisely not just "lack of education" but "lack of critical thinking skills" that is the big difference in susceptibility to this kind of stuff. There are a lot of people who manage to get college degrees while still having extremely poor critical reasoning ability. To the point about religion, the encouragement from some religious leaders to jettison critical thinking in favor of blind faith certainly could play a role.

But admittedly, critical thinking skills are not really something that's easy to test for or measure, so this is just a theory. I honestly don't know how you would really try to "prove" it, either.
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Why do you need education or critical thinking skills when everything is in God's hands?
 
Icky Mettle said:
Not entirely related, but this post reminds me of something I see a lot in my line of work. A good number of my clients and their families are very religious. Religion doesn’t necessarily guide their lives, but in dire moments it is God that is the answer.

With these folks, when things turn out well with a case, it is all because of God. Not so much the facts, the law, the work I put into it, the way the prosecutor handled the case, etc. Sure, they appreciate the work I did and acknowledge it, but it was God’s hands that guided me. When things don’t turn out well, however, God has nothing to do with it. It’s someone else’s fault; sometimes mine. But never God’s or the client’s.
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I also understand the hand of God directs favorable outcomes in certain sporting events. Many players are eager to praise God for a victory but never complain that he is responsible for a defeat.
 
dcf2 said:
God hating the Detroit Lions is an empirical fact.
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God also seems to hate Charlotte professional sports teams (outside of the MLS team, but that’s a godless sport anyway). I think He just felt that since He has always been such a big Tar Heel basketball fan, He needs under-compensate other NC sports teams. I would have thought His treatment of UNC football would have been sufficient.
 
farce© said:
I also understand the hand of God directs favorable outcomes in certain sporting events. Many players are eager to praise God for a victory but never complain that he is responsible for a defeat.
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There are two things I’d like to hear an athlete say after a sporting event:
(1) I’d like to hear an athlete from the losing team blame the loss on God.
(2) I’d like to hear an athlete from the winning team say something along the lines of, “God had nothing to do with this. There is no such thing, and even if there were, it’s ludicrous to think that he, she, or it would care about a sporting event. It just came down to us working hard, playing well, and scoring more points than the other team.”
 
Icky Mettle said:
There are two things I’d like to hear an athlete say after a sporting event:
(1) I’d like to hear an athlete from the losing team blame the loss on God.
(2) I’d like to hear an athlete from the winning team say something along the lines of, “God had nothing to do with this. There is no such thing, and even if there were, it’s ludicrous to think that he, she, or it would care about a sporting event. It just came down to us working hard, playing well, and scoring more points than the other team.”
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Neither of those made the cut in the scene from Bull Durham.
 
Icky Mettle said:
God also seems to hate Charlotte professional sports teams (outside of the MLS team, but that’s a godless sport anyway). I think He just felt that since He has always been such a big Tar Heel basketball fan, He needs under-compensate other NC sports teams. I would have thought His treatment of UNC football would have been sufficient.
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You are skating on some pretty thin theological ice, here. I'm pretty sure God is a huge Clemson fan.🤣
 
superrific said:
Paine wasn't a conspiracy theorist.
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Wish that dude would pop back in from time to time. I enjoyed reading what he had to say even when I didn't agree with him or even outright disagreed with him. Seems like a fairly rare quality in the online chatroom world. Plus he's my homeboy (grew up in the same county I'm from)...
 
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