So some talking heads--talking voices, I guess, although that sounds less clever--on the radio were defending the pollsters from the 2016 election

I didn't catch the whole segment, so I don't know if they distinguished the raw data (which were, I am reliably told, within sampling error of parity, which happens to align with the popular vote numbers we saw) from the reported results of 90% or 95% or 99% in favor of Hillary, whatever it was.

But that extreme error is what they were defending.

They went on about how people being polled were reluctant to appear too in favor of such a contemptible fool as Trump, lest it turn out that the pollster was a DNC employee testing the waters for an opportunity to dox a defenseless alleged bigot--even though doxxing wasn't so widely known a thing back then--or worse yet, the people polled felt that they would come off as bigoted even though they still wanted to vote that way.

So the pollsters apparently just struggled with trying to discern how the non-responses would have broken down by party lines, and how many dishonest results they got from paranoid voters, and so on.  

Those are fair concerns, but those are the concerns that define the pollsters' job.  This wasn't some historical anomaly that just coincidentally led them all right into the blind spot that corroborated every modern electoral conspiracy theory.  That, I would have excused if they had looked at the roughly 50/50 numbers and came back with a solid lead for Hillary but Don still making a competitive showing.

Ninety-plus percent, though?  

A landslide would be putting it mildly.  How much closer to a unanimous vote would it have to have really seemed to them before they stepped back and said "You know what, we better double check our methodology."  They wouldn't even have to admit to themselves any realistic bias like "Hillary is one of the more polarizing figures of the decade and we better make sure we don't undercount the people who hate her and still turn out to the polls."  All they should do is say "raw counts make it a toss-up, final analysis shows Hillary did almost twice that well and Trump got almost nothing; isn't that a stretch?"

No, I don't think it was an honest mistake.  I think it's a "mistake" they plan to make again, if our memory is short enough to let them, and they're trying to prime us with the suggestion that they're generally responsible people who happen to completely fubar their job but can be trusted to do better this fall even though times are even more uncertain all around.

Have you noticed they tend to demand the dismantling of police forces now...

...but dreaming up a replacement, such as it might be, is only a subsequent concern?

Do they really think, or want us to think, that anarchy is a preferable alternative to some kind of gradual and measured and deliberate transition?

Or is chaos simply their goal?  Is their goal to make things bad quickly so in the collective panic that ensues, hoi polloi will accept any solution, no matter how bad?

Radio personality: "Grats to the LGBTs on the recent SCOTUS decision! If only black people could get the same rights...."

Is that nascent cracks in the alliance I'm starting to see?

Systematic racism is...personal, not institutional?

Larry Correia does some schooling on the shape of racism in the getting-paid part of the publishing biz.

Correia made a few good points in particular that I want to focus on for a minute.

For one thing, the publishing industry is heavily blue.  Most publishers' headquarters are in Manhattan, and they fit the stereotype.

So if there's racism going on, whose fault is it?  After being in the business for in some case literally centuries, there's really no one else to blame.

That's the loophole for them, though.

Like everywhere else in America, law prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, with a few exceptions for hiring practices.  So any racism literally can't be baked into the system as we are asked to believe.  The Constitution discusses slavery as a fact of life, but it was on its way out, and the fact that 1776 happened before we crossed that watershed is not germane.

So the only way that racism can persist is in the attitudes of the people who want to propagate it.

There are some back doors, of course.  Laws that affect certain demographics but seem colorblind until you note that there are well-known correlations.  But this isn't always racism.  Certain investment laws prohibit people using certain tools or strategies if they don't have enough liquid assets to back them aren't just to be mean to minorities or generally lower and middle class people, they exist to prevent amateurs from causing damage to the market with their ignorance.  But even where it might be, like with certain kinds of inner city zoning laws, if you've got people who know what's wrong getting elected...why are they still unable to set it right?  If you're a bleeding heart mayor who wants to help your city and you've been in office for thirty years, at some point the governor and state legislature stop being valid excuses.

But swap everyone in the system out for people who are equally competent but not indoctrinated, and there's no reason to expect the same things to keep happening.  Selective misanthropic unwritten policies should evaporate overnight, and bad laws that take advantage of artifacts of history will take a little longer for these unbiased replacements to weed out once they stop enforcing them.

And when a crisis like we're having these days happens, someone can always find some statistics that might be damning, or might not but can be dressed up to look that way, and so all these progress-leading Manhattanites can clutch their pearls and signal-apologize for nothing more specific than being part of the problem, and then after a few days of putting color-coded banners on their web sites and tweaking the language of their boilerplate, it's back to business as usual.

It's like they're springing the Kafkatrap of the retail clerk on themselves just so they can get out of it.  It's pretty clever, I'll give them that, but the problem with reminding yourself too much that you're clever is it gets very easy to forget that anyone else has any sense.

Like the black people you just signaled to.  Which is probably why you keep doing it and thinking that it's going to keep working.

Here's what I mean by the retail clerk Kafkatrap.  I borrowed this from somewhere but don't remember exactly where; I'll give credit or change the example if I find it or a kind reader points me in the right direction:

You're working in a store.  A black customer and a white one walk in at the same time.  Whom do you approach first to serve?  The white one because you're more comfortable?  Or the black one because you think on some level they're not to be trusted and need to be watched more closely?  Or the white one because you don't want to show that you might think that of the black person?  Or the black person to subtly contribute to elevating their social status?  The point isn't to reach an answer; the point is to think about it so In The Future You Can Do Better.

But what does "do better" in a case like this mean?  Eventually you have to stop the analysis paralysis and do your job.

But that's the Kafka trick.  When you're setting up the scenario as if to trap yourself instead of someone else, you don't have to answer.  Just framing it is the solution.  Let hoi polloi worry about what the actual right answer is; you've shown yourself to be woke enough to be above such things, and can choose to do whichever you want.  Since you're woke, it's always the right choice.

Well, not forever.  What amuses me about the explosion of obsequious fangirling is how everyone is suddenly an expert in this stuff.  In truth, they're not.  Many of 'em took good notes in their critical theory studies gen eds, but in most parts of the country there's not a lot of use, so their skills will whither; meanwhile, progress keeps moving in whatever direction is declared forward.  The wannabes are going to get left behind or consult the wrong focus group or use an obsolete phrase because even the MSM can't keep up, and eventually their virtue signal will be heard as an obsolescence signal.  And they will turn on their own.

Elaborating on lessons learned

I wanted to go into a little more detail.  That last post was long enough and dwelling on the specifics would have taken away from the overarching themes.

The two-dimensional political axis opens up a lot of understanding, but it obscures some things, too.  First off, nothing is simple, and a two dimensional space is generally better than a linear one, but even then it doesn't capture all the nuance.  Some specifics don't map neatly onto a political spectrum of any dimension because they are affiliated for historical reasons rather than logical or thematic ones.  That's why you hear about "liberals versus progressives" and conservatives and libertarians describing themselves as "classical liberals" whereas twenty years ago there were just "liberals" on the left and they were on average moderate enough for conservatives to have conversations and alliances with.

The two dimensions perhaps would be better considered as an evolution of the political landscape than as a diagnosis.  It's still common to look at conservatives and say "Hey, they want to restrict abortion, and drugs, and marriage not to mention sex itself, and liquor, and shut down businesses on Sundays, so how can they claim to be the party of liberty?" But as the arguments have developed, so have the stances on the positions, regardless of the positions themselves.  Democrats used to be the party of "keep your morality off my pursuit of happiness," but now you're more likely to see people who vote (R) saying "as long as you meet the low bar of not distressing my children in public, I'm more than happy to let you do your own thing  and to mind my own business."  The ones who vote (D)?  They're either saying "your disagreement with me is violence and it needs to be curbed whether or not you express it," or they're saying "You're perpetuating systematic if not acute violence and if promoting thought police is the best way to stop wrongthink from perpetuating white guilt, then so be it."

This has been their game for fifty-two years, but I think as their tent gets broader to include more obscure and artificial victim demographics, the tent poles of popularity won't be able to hold up all the canvas.  We're looking at pleas to accommodate people whose struggles have sunk to somewhere between "never experienced enough hardship not to take inconvenience personally" and "My coworkers oppress me with their coffee club because I prefer pop to java."  Sure, gender identity--whatever it is--is a more grave matter, but it's also something that usually is only called into question in cases of early abuse, and when it's not, is something that is usually outgrown when placed into its proper context (e.g. a girl might be a tomboy, but that doesn't make her a lesbian, nor does it make her a boy, even if it's not just a phase).

As for the boogaloo....

My first thought, wen I realized the "talks of CW2 are going mainstream" article wasn't just a report on that fact, was that it was an effort to preemptively paint it as a white nationalist movement.  Get the narrative in front of the truth, so to speak.

For one thing, white supremacists aren't ashamed of who they are.  They usually know to keep their mouths shut in mixed company but still tend to assume that everyone white still agrees with them secretly.  When they come out in force, there is little doubt.  I'll admit the Confederate flags muddy the waters a bit, but those being matched by Antifa flags, I don't think it's something one can honestly claim a difference of opinion on once the context is established (i.e. Lansing versus Minneapolis).

Secondly, for this to be white supremacists instead of Antifa, there would have to be protracted coordination between white bigots and BLM.  Do you seriously believe they would deign to do such?  Especially when the Ferguson riots and everything since have proved that urban American communities are enough of a powder keg not to need any outside help?  It supports their argument better than them planting shills and confederates to catalyze all the burning and looting and then claiming superiority.

It would also require them to be so numerous and well organized that they could spontaneously trigger riots not just in Minnesota, not just across the country, but in Europe and Asia.  Why would they even go to Korea to stage a riot?  Why do Europe and Asia care enough about a single additional case of police brutality ending in the death of a man with a rap sheet, to erupt like this?  I know our precious Wokes think they're so sensitive, but are they really so ethnocentric that they still think America is the center of the world?  Hong Kong is still getting crushed; why aren't we hearing about that from the MSM?

I mean, really--unless they're putting on white hoods, which they're not, they're not as organized as Antifa.  those confederate flags are over a hundred and fifty years old--not literally, but the movement--and these guys are pining for their erroneous dream of glory days; the MSM claims Antifa is a decentralized grassroots movement, but only sometimes, and they don't just bring flags to events, they have a de facto dress code, and a consistent M.O., and web sites where you can buy their swag.

The funniest part--not really, but you know what I mean--is all the concern some people are expressing about the lines out of the door at gun stores, where all the people are white.

Yeah, if you've only read the MSM stuff that puts white nationalism in the front of your mind, I can see the concern, but there's a glaring unasked question:

If it's the instigators of the riots who are buying guns, why did they wait until now to arm up, and if it's them, why are they falling back on bricks and molotov cocktails in the riots themselves?

I suspect a part of the answer is rioters bussed in from out of state can't get guns where they live, and don't want to risk getting caught during transport, so they fall back on the usual weapons of civilian insurrectionists.

And Antifa itself?  I don't know why people bother defending their legacy, no matter how lofty they claim their motives are.  "They're not really violent, violence just follows them." Do even they make that claim? Sure, they may not always do the provoking when real skinheads show up--usually it doesn't take much to get those guys to cross the line, no criticism there--but I submit it is not a coincidence that the two go together.  Especially when you see people in their uniform, and you see their flags, and you see them directing waiting rioters to particular storefronts and stashes of bricks, and then themselves get filmed breaking windows and starting fires.  After all that, the violence that spreads is a foregone conclusion.

Now, maybe Antifa are white supremacists in that condescending way that progressives tend to be--all compliments to minorities are backhanded, their claimed efforts and motives are patronizing and even infantilizing, and beyond the degree to which our self-proclaimed elites treat hoi polloi in general.  You know, how it's not just that white men actively held down all minorities and particularly black people but not particularly Chinese or Korean or Japanese people, but it's so ingrained and so pervasive that a victim can barely even make a healthful decision in his own life even if he's woke and unimpeded/*.  I'd certainly think so, considering they all seem to be white young men in black clothing and masks, and if I stuck to the MSM and social media I'd be told as much, but when you go to look them up...it's all suspiciously vague and oblique.

One might think they weren't really involved, if it weren't for the uniforms, and the flags, and the dearth of denying responsibility.

I learned a few things recently

And it's at least mostly my fault for not realizing them sooner.  Soon I'll post on where this is coming from and where it's going.

First, we've all heard about how socialism is slightly leftist, and communism is radically leftist (politically, anyway; I'm not sure how neatly Marx's vision maps onto the identity politics that pass for class warfare these days), and fascism and naziism radically rightist--or I guess, reactionary.

And you've heard me talk, at least if you've been snooping through my drafts, about these last two are actually wrong--that they're all leftist.

If you've read or seen Atlas Shrugged, let me remind you that of the scene where the government stooge shows up at Hank Rearden's foundry to tell him how to manage his orders.  It's still Rearden's facility, but this loss (or attempted loss) of authority to run it himself is an aspect of fascism.

The difference from socialism?  Socialism has more direct involvement; depending on the degree, industries may be nationalized and corporate management acts mainly as lieutenants to government agencies, or government agencies perform activities normally expected of the companies themselves. Roads aren't socialist, but the Eisenhower freeway system might be considered such; the FDA isn't quite fascist, but doctors and nurses who only receive federal stipends and are bound in their diagnoses and treatments by state instead of corporate actuaries would be communist.

So at fist I thought the accusations against libertarians and patriots and Republicans was just the Left projecting again, picking a random villain from recent history and speaking the name often in the hope that it sticks.  The USSR and Third Reich didn't get along well, so I wouldn't be surprised by lingering institutional animosity.

Well, it turns out that last bit is the crux of the biscuit.

I was trying to read up on Antifa the other day.  They're not much in the MSM currently, which surprised me until I stopped to thin about it.  The Wikipedia page turned out to be quite informative, though.  I knew it had started in Germany as a movement to oppose any residual Nazis or Naziism, but it turns out that is...not exactly wrong, but somewhat inaccurate, and not the whole picture by a long shot.  Well, communists being no true friends to Hitler or Stalin, they were happy to foment such action.  And what was something they did?  Categorize capitalism as fascism.

This actually makes no sense because the actual free market doesn't impose drudgery and toil on people.  Those things do happen, but it's an effect of the human condition, not a feature of capitalism.

But if you can dig up some early Cold War propaganda from that side of the Iron Curtain, you'll see all kinds of imagery about how Americans are wage slaves working in sweat shop conditions, while freedom and leisure for the soviet thanks to efficient central planning were just around the corner.

I used to work with a woman who emigrated from Ukraine after growing up there during the Cold War.  We used to laugh at how similar our attitudes as nations were toward each other--the other guys are bad, they live miserable lives, they're just going to bomb us if they decide to attack so all these infantry drills are silly, etc.  That was good time.

So okay, it makes sense on the propaganda level.  Conflate the existential opponent of communism with the historical one, then just make them sound even worse.

Thus I'm no longer frustrated when I see people compare the optics of German military culture to that of Latin American military culture, declare the latter to be an overall benign communism, and then force Germany to the other pole of a binary scheme; or even if they say "Well, there's communism versus capitalism on one axis, but then there's totalitarianism versus libertarian on another, and fascists are really free market totalitarians," which again makes no sense as such but when you live in a world where it's a question of degrees you can get away with it for a while even when you're being honest.

So that's the first thing.  The second dovetails with the first.

I was arguing with a loved one about some of the stuff that's been going on lately.  I know her personally so I can't dismiss her foggy thinking as another case of some anonymous idiot who thinks she's well informed because she consumes above average quantities of lies and propaganda.  I'm not sure I'll reach her because sometimes I have to end a conversation before I say something that would hit a little too close to home, but I have some hope in taking the indirect approach--like, if a discussion starts going sideways and she accuses me of relying on the lies of Fox News, I can remind her that none of the points I made were based on anything from Fox News.  It's also easier than getting caught up in a race to see who can send the most damning articles, and it helps me to keep an open mind if she brings up something I didn't know or actually was wrong about.

Anyway, she's been talking a lot about the patriarchy and white supremacy as if the whole country is 1950s Dixie.  I usually just ignore it and hope she'll learn I'm not interested in a discussion if she's coming out of the gate with name calling and middle school levels of nuance.  And then she sent me an article about the "boogaloo," which I'd heard of third or fourth hand as a sort of foreboding over how ripe the polarization in this country is going to get.  The article itself, of course, couched it all in terms of a white supremacy movement.  They didn't invoke the KKK or Tea Party, but when you've got the whole MSM on your side, even NBC can make the association while eliding labels and facts.

I'll write later about how the facts from that perspective don't add up; my point here is just that an epiphany I had watching the riot coverage on the they-call-themselves-news channels opened my eyes to my loved one's fears.

So for starters I don't blame her for having an objective fear of white nationalists.  Whether they're a credible threat, goodness never follows them, so I wouldn't be happy to hear about them gaining power or popularity even if it wasn't in my back yard.

But there's that "if" that made me suspicious.  Was this Screwtape scaring people into stocking up on fire extinguishers to deal with another flood?

What I noticed about the riots is that there seem to be three groups.  There's some overlap, but I think most of that is logistical or a subterfuge.  The first group is the actual protesters, people who are fed up and even strident but still in enough control to keep it from going past chanting and shouting and such.  This was a pretty mixed group.  The second group is the rioters, who as near as I could tell all were white people wearing black clothing and masks.  The third group is the looters, who partook of some recreational rioting but mostly raided stores for TVs and shoes and so on; it tragically perpetuates the stereotype so I'm not going to elaborate.

So I've been assuming, when no one was saying it, that the second group is Antifa.  Some might be the confederated grassroots types who think they're doing good and just not afraid to throw down with "actual" Nazis wherever they show up, but also the organizers who brought in pallets of bricks (check the Twitter feeds of the affected police departments; it's not just a rumor) and busted windows on the stores expected to be favored by the looters.

This is all going on and my dear loved one mentions a gun store near her home, where there was a line out the building all of white people.

She's white so I do find it a little precious for her to be so woke, but we can still talk about other things, so there's that.

My epiphany was that she made no distinction between the rioters I think are Antifa but she apparently doesn't (can't remember her ever using the word), the white supremacist boogeyman who dominates the news (I'm talking the specter of militant rednecks, not any actual people, except for Trump), and the white people she saw lined up at the store.  To her, it's all just escalation.

I'll save the rest for later.  Just wanted to point out that this really helped me understand the other side.