Oh, yeah. He was racist, all right.

As a proud Baltimorean, I take great offense at Donald Trump’s Baltimore-bashing tweet storm.  The 45^th president declared open season on Charm City, called it filthy, rat-infested, and unfit for human habitation, and laid responsibility for these conditions on Representative Elijah Cummings’s door.  I believe that Council President Brandon Scott correctly diagnosed the obvious:  such a vicious tweet aimed at an African-American representative of a majority-minority city, especially when seen in light of similar attacks aimed at four female representatives of color, can be called nothing but racist.

Like many other Baltimore residents, I immediately posted photos of the city of I love, re-posted the statements from Mayor Young and Council President Scott, applauded the Sun editorial board, and agreed wholeheartedly with John Waters that Trump would never have the guts to come to B’more and say these things to our collective face.  I’m guessing that Trump doesn’t want to find out why our other nickname is “Mobtown.”

But while I’m an enthusiastic city dweller, I’m not saying that Baltimore is perfect.  Far from it.  Our city, like many other cities, is plagued by deep-rooted problems:  along with our lovely tree-lined neighborhoods and fun-filled tourist centers, there are areas where life is much shorter, more violent, and more filled with despair than, say, Guilford or Federal Hill.  That observation is not racist.  What is racist is blaming these conditions on the people of color (or their Congressional representative, for that matter) who have to live in them, instead of taking a long, hard look at the racist policies that created those circumstances in the first place.

Now, let me stop you before you tell me that you don’t have a racist bone in your body.  Fine!  Great!  But your absent racist bone is irrelevant.  Your personal lack of a racist bone will not change the fact that a person born in Roland Park is likely to live twenty years longer than someone from Clifton-Berea.  Racism is more than the accumulation of individual acts of bigotry (although they sure go a long way towards supporting racism).  Instead, racism is an ideology that is based on the notion that one ethnic group is superior to another, along with the policies, laws, and practices that flow from that ideology.  As long as a society’s norms and practices are underpinned by racist ideology, then that society is racist.

Here’s a helpful analogy to explain what I mean.  Let’s say you’re a capitalist—the kind of gung-ho free-market fan of the invisible hand who would make Milton Friedman blush. You don’t have a communist bone in your body.  But if you happened to live in a communist society, your actions, thoughts, and opportunities would be inexorably linked to and limited by the policies, laws, and practices flowing from your society’s belief in a communist ideology.

So too with racism. American society has favored white people over black since the first African slave arrived in Virginia in 1619—and as a white, middle class woman living in a leafy neighborhood previously designated as white only, I can say that.  Racist ideologies gave rise to a plethora of discriminatory housing practices:  the City’s mandatory residential segregation legislation, blockbusting, the County’s segregationist housing policies, redlining, and the discriminatory policies embedded in the G.I. Bill, to name but a few.  These in turn weakened African American neighborhoods, thwarted the generation of wealth in African American families, diminished housing stock, and forced black families to pay high rent or high interest mortgages for substandard housing.  Similarly, race-based school segregation not only resulted in substandard schools and inequitable distribution of resources, but is also linked to a growing achievement gap between black and white students.  This loss of human potential is tragic on both a personal and community level, and has a doubtless impact on the health, happiness, and well-being of those neighborhoods.

It is obvious that Trump’s vicious, racist attacks on Cummings and Baltimore are only the worst dog whistles to his base. But we cannot afford to ignore our city’s problems. We must confront the vacant houses, neglected schools, infant mortality rates, high crime rates, open-air drug markets, and other ills that plague Baltimore.  What the answers are, I do not know.  But offering solutions to these problems without examining the racist ideology that created them would be like putting a band-aid on a hemorrhage. We must be honest about our history if we want to have any chance at healing our city.

Feline Sneer Muscles Detected

PRESS RELEASE—FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

Following up on the groundbreaking work by University of Portsmouth researcher Dr. Juliane Kaminski on the evolution and function of the “puppy dog eye” muscle, the Institute for Higher Research at the Lower Uppsala Technical College is pleased to announce a breakthrough in feline evolutionary biology.

The research team of Dr. Tabitha Twitchit has determined that a similar muscle has evolved in domesticated cats—but with a crucial difference.  According to Dr. Twitchit, “Cats have developed a powerful but deceptively small sneering muscle between the lateralis nasi and caninus muscles on the upper jaw.  We have dubbed it the ‘anterior pars contemptionem,’ or ‘the side contemptuous muscle.’ It appears that this muscle plays a decisive role in feline-human bonding.”

Dr. Twitchit’s curiosity was first stirred when she observed that cats in shelters were more likely to be picked for adoption if they displayed contempt towards their potential owners.  “The more the cat rolled it eyes, sighed in a huff, and curled its lip in a sneer, the more likely it was to be adopted. I began to wonder:  was there an evolutionary basis for this codependent behavior?”

Her team of veterinary anatomists compared the facial muscles of domesticated cats and Scottish wildcats (they used existing specimens—no animals were killed for this study).  “The difference, once you know what to look for, is quite extraordinary,” Dr. Twitchit explained. “The wildcats have open, earnest faces, while the facial muscles of even the smallest tabby are capable of producing an array of sneers ranging from the merely supercilious to the devastatingly disdainful.  Additionally, looking at mummified Egyptian cats and other historical specimens, we have been able to confirm that the muscle has developed significantly over time as cats and humans deepened their interactions.  It’s almost as if the more they know us, the more they despise us.”

Upon establishing the existence of the “snotty muscle,” as Dr. Twitchit’s team members have unofficially named it, she went on to establish whether there were an evolutionary advantage to its development.  It turns out that there is, for both humans and their furry feline friends.

“Human volunteers interacted with different cats.  The team, after applying first aid to the volunteers’ scratches and bite wounds, took both human and feline blood samples.  Both groups showed almost dizzying levels of oxytocin, the so-called ‘love hormone.’  The more contempt the cat displays, the happier it is. Somehow—possibly through pheromones thrown off by the totally buzzed cat—this activates a corresponding release of oxytocin in the human, resulting in greater human interaction with the cat.  The cat feels a corresponding surge of contempt, triggering a further oxytocin rush that reinforces a cycle of feline-human contempt and neediness. Eventually, the cat’s pleasure is so acute that it becomes almost intolerable, forcing it to be the adult in the room by stopping the cycle by scratching the crap out of the human. But despite sustaining substantial blood loss and permanent scarring, the memory of the pleasure of being rejected by the cat is so powerful that it drives the humans to re-initiate contact with it, starting the whole tango over.  By the end of its life, a tiny domesticated cat can subjugate an army of human caretakers, inveigling them into providing them food, shelter, and clean cat boxes. All it costs the cat is some unwanted human attention.  It’s really quite fascinating, and a truly satisfying answer to my initial research question.”

©2019 D.R. Miller

So long, Sarah!

Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

Press Office

White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, D.C 20500

 

Dear Sarah,

I was rather surprised to hear of your decision to resign from your current position as White House Press Secretary.  I understand that it is a very stressful job not to hold press briefings and to disseminate  both dis- and mis- information.  I imagine you’re looking forward to spending more time with your kids and reacquainting yourself with general standards of honesty and decency.  But, seriously, you were such a great match for Donald that I imagined that the two of you would be together to the bitter end.  In a bunker.  Like Hitler and Goebbels. Only without the laughs.

I was a little worried for you at first.  When you stepped into the breach after Spicey jumped ship, I thought, “Uh-oh.  How is this sweet little Arkansas rose going to cope with the daily grind of apologizing for Trump’s lies?” But how was I to know that you’d hit on the perfect strategy for keeping Trump happy by doubling down on his lies?  I’d watch in utter awe as you’d insist that black was white, day was night, and Jared was a fucking genius. You didn’t drown in the swamp:  you claimed it as your own and swam in it like an otter, or maybe a water snake.  Good for you, not to let a little thing like integrity get in the way of you and your boss.  It’s almost as if you didn’t think that a free press were essential to a democracy!

So, Sarah, this one’s for you.  I’m raising my metaphorical glass of Kool-Aid to you. Here’s to Sarah Huckabee-Sanders.  The one who put the “fun” in “dysfunction,” the “dis” in “dishonesty,” and, most of all, the “F.U.” in “obfuscate.”  We’ll never see the likes of you again.  If we’re lucky.

Best regards,

D.R. Miller

 

©2019 D.R. Miller

A Big and Beautiful Presidential Library

Dear Friend,

It is truly exciting to invite you to take part in a historic opportunity—the establishment of the Big and Beautiful Donald Trump Presidential Library.  The library project received an enormous boost upon the generous donation by Warden Gerald J. Smithers, Leavenworth Federal Prison, of Cell Block 1—the scene of many happy hours between former President Trump, his sons, and, of course, his son-in-law Jared.  However, there remain many improvements and refurbishments that need to be made before we can have a library that is truly representative of the many accomplishments of our biggest and greatest president, the likes of which we had truly never, ever seen before.   With your donation, we can fund the following:

• A continuous slide show of President Trump’s finest tweets, including “The Fake News Media is going CRAZY! (7/31/18)” and “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! (1/27/19)”
• A cafeteria, serving massive amounts of FAST FOOD, including over 1000 hamberders
• Over one linear foot of book shelving to hold multiple copies of The Art of The Deal
• The Donald J. Trump Research Carrel for Studying Really Big and Really Wet Hurricanes
• The Melania Trump Christmas Decoration Diorama (not recommended for small children)
• The Mike Pence Reversion Therapy Center for Insufferably Smug Religious Hypocrites
• Climate controlled archival vaults for preserving historically significant documents, such as Steve Bannon’s signed deal with Satan, Stephen Miller’s membership card for Jews for Hitler, and Rudy Giuliani’s disbarment papers

Other plans include the “American Carnage” wing, an interactive Russian money laundering scheme computer “game,” and an Imaginarium, where you can visualize “The Wall That Mexico Built,” “The Biggest Inaugural Audience EVER,” and “Endless Fields of Nambian Cofeve.” But the most exciting installation is doubtlessly a reconstruction of the very bathroom where all those 3 AM tweets were crafted—thanks to a contribution of the actual gold-plated White House toilet and fixtures by Madame President Pelosi (or, as we call her, President Pelosi), who accompanied her gift with the words that she’d rather choke on a chicken bone than sit on that.

Contributions will be accepted through either third-party international money wires via Deutsche Bank or brown paper bags filled with wads of non-sequential bills dropped off at the Star Bucks in Trump Tower.  Suggested donation:  $130,000.

Yours in Making America Great Again,

 

Reynard J. Foxworthy

Treasurer, Foundation for The Big and Beautiful Trump Presidential Library

©2019 D. R. Miller

 

 

Trump and McConnell: The Falsest Dichotomy Ever

There are many dents in the walls in my house resulting from my destructive habit of listening to Trump apologists on the TV or radio.   I work from home, and NPR is on the background to provide sound wallpaper.  The constant background of current events chatter hides the fact that I live in somewhat-less-than magnificent isolation (a writer’s life is a lonely one), as well as providing grist for the satirical mill.  The downside is that the call-in shows and panel discussions frequently feature some member of Trump’s cabinet/family/fan club who is more than ready, willing, and able to speak in defense of some asinine policy or bigotry. This assault on reason generally takes some form of false equivalency, usually “Benghazi,” “Iran deal,” or “Emails.”

False equivalencies can come in a wide variety of forms:  ignoratio elenchi, red herrings, tu quoque, straw men, and two wrongs don’t make a right.  Regardless of the form they take, however, they can generally be boiled down to “but what about (fill in the blank)?”  The topic that usually fills in the blank is generally irrelevant and the intent of the blank filler is to distract the audience or reader’s attention from the original subject of the debate.  For example, while debating Trump’s precipitous decision to pull our troops from Syria, one caller-in asked, “But what about Obama’s Iran deal?”  Presumably the caller was making the point that both decisions might strengthen Iran’s position in the region.  That may or may not be true, but the fact that Obama might  have made an error in judgment does not in any way have any relevance to the issue of whether Trump’s actions are justified.  (It may be possible that there might be some historical nexus between the two policies, and that, somehow, Trump’s decision was the result of Obama’s.  In that case, there might be a relevant reason to bring it up.  Rest assured, dear reader, that the caller made no such effort whatsoever.  It was, pure and simple, an example of whataboutism.)

However, the fallacy that has lately caused me the most anxiety (and head-banging related injuries) has not been the false equivalency, but the false dichotomy.  A dichotomy is “a division into two especially mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities.”  A “false dichotomy” occurs when someone says that there are only two solutions to a dilemma:  if you don’t do a, then b.  This is also known as “limiting the options,” “the either/or fallacy,” or “the false dilemma.”  They are fallacies because there is rarely a situation that has two, and only two, possible outcomes.  Instead of focusing on a range of possible solutions, the victim of a false dichotomy is tricked into choosing the opponent’s desired outcome.  But we’re too clever to fall for that trick, right?  Just to be on the safe side, however, let’s look at some examples.

Turning as ever to Trump and his coterie as negative didactic tools par excellence, we can examine two current instances of false dichotomies.  And, as luck would have it, they are actually relevant to each other.

The first is the false dichotomy that Trump has created in regard to his freaking wall.  Perhaps you were lucky enough to be in a coma since 2015.  If so, then you would be unaware that Trump promised his base that he would build a big, beautiful wall along the US-Mexican border.  As if that weren’t ludicrous enough, he even said—wait for it—that Mexico would pay for it!  I know!  Ain’t he a hoot? Of course, even Donald knew that this would never happen in a millennium of Sundays.  The US taxpayer would end up paying for it (and no, Virginia, the wonderful new agreement with Mexico will not pay for the wall—any more than tariffs on Chinese made goods are paid for by Chinese corporations).  In the meantime, Congress was working on a continuing resolution to keep the government going.  On December 11, Nancy, Chuck, and Donny met to discuss the budget. Donny (who was out of his element and therefore clearly did not know what the fuck he was saying) demanded five billion dollars for the wall.  Using the diplomatic skills of the truculent toddler that he is at heart, he not only threatened to close the government down if they didn’t give in to his demands, but he would gladly own it.  Hardly believing their luck, Chuck and Nancy skipped out to meet the press, and Nancy, absolutely rocking her gorgeous red Max Mara coat, gave her immortal  “tinkle contest with a skunk” speech.  No one, not even Trump, took his threat seriously, and on the 19^th, the Senate passed a bill that left out the wall appropriation.  Everyone, especially Mitch McConnell, thought Trump would sign off on it.  However, thanks primarily to those odious gnomes, Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, Trump said, “Never mind,” and took the country down the path to the longest partial government shutdown in its history.

In this instance, the false dichotomy was the one Trump created when he linked the wall appropriation to shutting down the government.  Apparently, the absence of the wall creates such an existential crisis that the government shouldn’t and can’t run without it.  There are, of course, obvious logical inconsistencies with this stance.  If the wall were so damned important, then why couldn’t a Republican president convince a Republican-controlled Congress to fund it?  Or, if he really wanted a wall, why did he reject the Democratic offer in 2018 to appropriate over twenty billion dollars for the wall, in exchange for DACA protection?  Or, why not listen to border patrol officials, and beef up border protection technology and hire more immigration judges to deal with the “crisis,” rather than rely on a defense mechanism proved worthless when Ghengis Khan breached the Great Wall and invaded China?  Could it be that Trump doesn’t really want the wall, and instead wants only the symbolism of the wall—or rather the thwarted wall—in order to convince his gullible followers that Democrats do not want border security?  Perish the thought!  For our purposes, however, the important point is that there are not only two possible outcomes:  there is an array of possible solutions to the issue of border security.

While Trump’s false dichotomy reveals yet another concerning lack of courage and, well, intelligence on Trump’s part , McConnell’s false dichotomy is actually the more pernicious.  As noted, McConnell led the Senate to pass unanimously a “clean” CR that did not reference the wall. This strategy would have allowed the Congress to take up the matter of border security later; given the fact that the House is now controlled by the Democrats, and the Senate remains under the thrall of the Republicans, this gambit would have enabled a bipartisan approach to solving a pretty thorny issue.  This is a pretty reasonable approach—so reasonable, in fact, that Pelosi’s first legislative act was to led her Congress to pass identical legislation and send it to the Senate.

To have done this in the first place, McConnell must have been pretty certain of Trump’s support.  After all, there isn’t a picture of a turtle in the dictionary next to the definition of “courage.” So, I imagine the Mitch was as surprised as the rest of us when Donny reneged on whatever agreement he and McConnell had sorted out.  (He shouldn’t have been, though—Trump flip flops so often that he could double as casual summer footwear.)  Anyway, McConnell obviously buys into that “fool me once” adage, because, even though Pelosi sent him his very own bill to consider, McConnell has said that he would not reintroduce the bill because Trump would not support it.  So here, the false dichotomy is, either Trump supports the bill, or no bill will be passed.

This is obviously a silly dichotomy, not only because millions of people are being directly and indirectly hurt by it, but because Trump is so obviously begging McConnell to do it.  Every gesture, grimace, and glance reveals that Trump desperately wants out of this shutdown, but has no idea how to do it.  Help him, Obi Wan McConnell!  You’re his only hope!

But McConnell’s false dichotomy is even worse than it looks.  Boiled down to its most basic elements, McConnell is saying that Trump is calling the plays for the Senate.  Now that, in and of itself, is breathtaking in its scariness.  I imagine that Trump would have difficulty calling the plays for a second- grade dodgeball game, much less for the world’s second-oldest deliberative body.  Yet even if Trump were a bloody genius, a veritable Einstein of public policy, I would derive no comfort from McConnell’s position.  The Founding Fathers were astute readers of history and big fans of the Roman Republic.  There were, however, flaws in the Republic that eventually led to its downfall.  Hamilton et al. found this fact more than a tad disconcerting.  As a result,  taking a key idea from Montesquieu, they built into the Constitution a system of checks and balances premised on the idea of co-equal branches of government.  If Trump doesn’t like the idea of a clean CR, he could, of course, veto it.  But the Senate and the House of Representatives could override that veto—and given how unpopular Trump’s idiotic shutdown and wall are, that should not be a very difficult trick to pull off.  That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So why doesn’t McConnell do it?  Why doesn’t he reintroduce his own very popular piece of legislation and save the day (and the Constitution)?  Well, my guess is, he’s pissed off at Trump and has no great desire to lend him a helping hand out of this quagmire.  But he should do it anyway, even though, believe me, I can see the appeal of watching Trump stew in his own juices.  He should do it for the hundreds of thousands of federal employees on furlough or working without pay.  He should do it for the millions of people not getting their SNAP payments or farm loans or VA mortgages.  But most of all, he should do it to preserve the integrity of the Senate.  Leadership demands sacrifice—even if that sacrifice entails unhoisting a jackass from its own petard.

©2019 D. R. Miller

 

 

Sorry, Brett

In light of Donald Trump’s apology to Brett Kavanaugh (the likes of which you’ve never heard before, believe me), I, too, decided to join the National Day of Self-Flagellation.  Here are my apologies to the newest member of the Supreme Court:

First of all, I am sorry that from the start of the confirmation process, your sponsors acted to cast doubt on your candor and honesty. Take, for example, the small matter of your emails and other correspondence from your stint in George W. Bush’s White House.  Now, granted, some of those documents might very well be privileged information; indeed, given your role in the White House counsel’s office, it would strain credulity to think that all of your documents could be disclosed.  However, it is a source of remorse that the process for determining which documents could be released certainly raised a few eyebrows.  First of all, I beg your pardon that Senator Grassley’s decision not to ask for any documents related to your job as Bush’s Staff secretary was a tad unusual.  The gentleman from Iowa thought they would be irrelevant because the role of Staff secretary was equivalent to being a human inbox, but I regret that I must disagree–after all, according to Bob Woodward’s reporting on how Rob Porter allegedly saved the world, that role can be pivotal.  I’m therefore sorry that I bet, buried amongst the usual secretarial emails about coffee funds and cleaning out the staff fridge, there might have been some tidbits about your views on waterboarding detainees or so-called “partial birth abortions.”

As for the papers that were requested, I apologize that unorthodox breaches with practice have become the norm. Rather than having experts from the National Archives vet the papers, as is the usual practice, I regret that your buddy and former White House co-worker, William Burck was tasked with the job of overseeing the review process.  While it must have seemed comforting to have such a simpatico guy taking part in your confirmation process, I imagine that you probably regret some of the fall out of that decision.  First of all, it is a source of immeasurable sorrow to me that we don’t know what standards Mr. Burck employed before deciding whether a document were privileged or not.  It’s pitiable that we have only his word that he stringently applied the rules relating to executive privilege. I apologize that the Judiciary Committee was denied access to hundreds of thousands of documents, and that only a relatively few documents were released under the most stringent of time constraints. (I suppose I’m also sorry that I agree with Senator Klobuchar’s observation that no one could review 42,000 pages overnight “no matter how much coffee you drink”).  I therefore mourn that your allies did everything they could to give the impression that you were a man with something to hide.

I also regret that your behavior during the confirmation process did not reflect the standup kind of guy you undoubtedly are. I’m sorry that your steadfast refusal to answer any question with a direct answer stumped even Senator Harris. Given her status as a former U.S Attorney and lead prosecutor, this was quite a trick, but it didn’t make you look good.  Ditto for your refusal to discuss whether a president could be subject to a criminal law investigation—despite your 2009 law review article.  Other regrettable areas for concern include your previous statements about your role in the Pryor and Pickering judicial nominations process, your truthfulness about whether you knew that documents forwarded to you by your pal Manual Miranda were stolen from Senator Leahy’s office, and your role in White House discussions on waterboarding.  I’m extremely sorry that these issues will cast a permanent pall upon your reputation for  honesty and evenhandedness.

I further lament your opening statement in response to Dr. Blasey Ford’s allegations. I understand that you wrote it yourself, with no outside comments. I guess I’m sorry about that, too.  I apologize that it is so hard to determine what was the most appalling aspect of your deeply partisan and more-than-just-a-touch-paranoid response:  the screaming, the crying, or the chilling warning that “what goes around comes around.”  It is regrettable that not only did you maintain a sneering and evasive course in response to legitimate questions from the Democratic senators, but that the Republican senators decided to join in the fray. My heart is heavy that every decision in which your partisan biases could be called into question will inevitably be marked with an asterisk.

I mourn that so many of your responses to questions about Dr. Blasey Ford’s allegations were misleading. I am sorry that, contrary to your assertions, Dr. Blasey Ford dated one of your buds (how could you forget Squi???) and your 1982 calendar indicates that on 1 July you attended a party similar to the one described by Dr. Blasey Ford. I regret that you confuse “refuting” with “not recalling.” If, as you state, “boofing” refers to farting, and you boofed for the first time when you were 16, then I also regret your gastrointestinal track’s sorry state of affairs.  I further regret that Renate Schroeder Dolphin found your “Renate Alumnus” club a hurtful betrayal of the friendship she thought she had with you.  Additionally, I am sorry that you like beer so much—and I’m certain that Dr. Blasey Ford shares that regret.

I apologize for the fact that the FBI “investigation” into Dr. Blasey Ford’s allegations was limited in scope and time. I am stricken with unfathomable sorrow that, by failing to question you or Dr. Blasey Ford, interview people with knowledge of your drinking habits in high school and university, or delve into the other allegations about your behavior raised by Deborah Ramirez, the report would inevitably be incomplete and its findings of dubious worth.  It is regrettable that you will always have to live not under a cloud, but a Category 5 hurricane of suspicion, simply because the White House acted as if it were desperately trying to prevent the discovery of something truly reprehensible about you.  Ancillary to this apology, I am sorry that Susan Collins does not know the difference between a criminal trial and a job interview and that Lisa Murkowski is the only GOP Senator with a spine.  I also regret that Joe Manchin decided that political expediency trumps personal integrity.

Finally, and most importantly, I deeply regret what your confirmation has revealed about the state of our country. I mourn how powerful men refuse to listen to victims of sexual assault.  I deplore that the current occupant of the White House has mocked Dr. Blasey Ford in order to launch his flying monkeys into action against her.  I’m extremely sorry that Orrin Hatch has dismissed justifiable and utterly constitutional protests with a wave of a hand and an admonition to “grow up.” I repent how the discredited “mistaken identity” canard has been so gleefully spread to disparage the stories of Dr. Blasey Ford and other victims.  And I beg your pardon that your installation onto the Supreme Court has called into question the probity, honesty, and evenhandedness of the highest court in the land.

©2018 D.R. Miller

Twenty Questions (Kavanaugh Rules)

These are urgent times.  In order to keep the Blue Wave rolling, we need to get as many votes as possible—or at least neutralize the energy Trump is whipping up at the expense of Dr. Blasey Ford.  We need to think seriously about how to convince people that voting Republican is not in their best interest.  Even if they would never, in a million years, vote for a Democrat, perhaps we can get them not to vote at all.  In an earlier blog, I noted that merely spouting off facts will not change anyone’s political opinion.  Indeed, the more contrary facts we’re exposed to, the more entrenched our political beliefs become.  We reason with our brains when it comes to everyday matters, but our politics, which form part of the basis for our identity, reside in our guts.  Political opinion is truly visceral.

Indeed, so deeply ingrained are our political views that some have questioned whether we should expend any energy at all on trying to persuade Trump’s supporters to change their minds.  Instead, we should focus on the independent or undecided voters, who have not yet drunk the Kool-Aid.  I have some sympathy for this position.  For one thing, it seems that the average Trumpanista simply does not want to participate in a robust debate on the merits.  Let me give you an example from my personal experience.  My local rag recently published my little op/ed piece on Kennedy’s retirement (you might recall it: it was a jauntily prescient piece called “Dear Justice Kennedy:  Why Now?”).  While I got many nice emails in response (thanks, kids!), I did, predictably, get a few nastygrams.  While most were the kinds of garbled mixtures of venom and sweat that one would expect, there was one that was actually coherent.  The gist of my correspondent’s criticism was that I had a liberal perspective.  Well, duh.  But since this particular person had bothered to respond to my essay without resorting to personal insults, I wrote back.  The fact that I was a liberal really had nothing to do with the legitimacy of my argument, any more than him being a conservative would have to do with his.  Instead, I asked him, what about the substance of my argument?  Where did he see the weakness?

His response:  I was a stupid libtard snowflake.

So, yes, I see where people are coming from when they say, “Fuck reasoning with MAGA-hat hounds.”

But I am a teacher, and almost by definition, teachers have an optimistic view of human nature.  Why else would we spend so much time working with other people’s children if we didn’t believe that reason can overcome passion?

Therefore, I think we should continue trying to engage with them. For no other reason, if we want to rebuild civil society, we need to talk to each other.  But, instead of telling them what we think, I believe that the more effective stratagem would be to ask them what they think.  As any teacher can tell you, there’s nothing like a carefully worded question to kickstart those rusty cognitive belts and gears.  Additionally, as outlined in the truly profound “How to Win Hearts and Minds in the Age of Trump,” those questions should be related to the three techniques that are likely to change minds:  use paradoxical thinking, keep it personal, and make it relevant.

Now, I realize that sometimes it’s hard to remember which questions to ask when what you really want to do is throttle your blow-hard cousin until he can no longer say “lock her up.”  Never fear, kind reader.  I, your diligent correspondent, have composed a list of twenty questions regarding a variety of topics, entirely suitable for use between now and the midterms.  You’re welcome.

Kavanaugh Questions[1] and Other Relevant Queries

1. If your house were burgled, wouldn’t you want the cops to interview you and the suspect?
2. If you were accused of a crime, wouldn’t you want a thorough investigation to clear your name? [This question is especially adaptable: you can use it for Kavanaugh, Mueller, Trump Foundation, and Stormy Daniels questions, too!]
3. Sure, we’ve all had too much to drink at one time or another—but when was the last time you lied about it under oath?
4. How are you going to get coverage for your [fill in the blank] if Kavanaugh overturns the pre-existing coverage provisions of the ACA?
5. If the news is fake, why doesn’t Trump sue for defamation? Wouldn’t you, if you were as rich as he is?
6. Can I call it fake news the next time you catch me eating the last brownie?
7. A deep state conspiracy? With thousands in on it? And no one letting on?  I don’t know, man– we couldn’t even get the six of us to keep quiet about Grandma’s surprise party.
8. Doesn’t it piss you off when he says one thing the one day, and then the opposite the next? I mean, does he think you’re stupid?
9. When you tell the truth, do you keep changing your story?
10. How many vacation homes will you buy with your tax cut?
11. How are you going to pay off your farm loan if you can’t find a market for your soybeans? (Or: How will you manufacture those widgets if your company can’t afford the steel to make them?)
12. So, let’s assume Kavanaugh is right and a president shouldn’t be subject to criminal laws. Does that mean he actually could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it?
13. So, if little Suzie goes to university and gets raped, don’t you think the university should do something about it?
14. You don’t believe in science? Can I have your iPhone, then?
15. Hey! Too bad your house is built [at the bottom of the hill] [on the riverbank] [next to the slag heap] [less than a mile inland] [beside a hog shit pond]—the floods from global warming will do a real number on it!
16. Every time I read about those kids locked up on the border, I can’t help but think about your little [fill in the blank].  What if he/she/they were locked in a metal cage and not allowed to play? [Be as Dickensian as you want—your imagination will never match the horrors these kids face.]
17. Speaking about the tax cut, you did talk to your HR about how many exemptions you should take to avoid a huge tax bill after January, right?   You didn’t?  Really?  Ouch!
18. Which is more likely to affect your retirement plans: a tax cut of $1316 until 2027 (for a household income of $ 75-100K) or cuts to Medicare and Social Security to fund permanent tax benefits to the rich?  Or do you have $2 million socked away to self-fund?
19. Let’s assume that you’re right, and global warming is a hoax. Wouldn’t you still want your kids and grandkids to drink clean water and breathe clean air instead of dealing with pollution from fossil fuels?
20. How do you talk to your kids about bullying and sexual assault these days?

Oh, there are scads more questions you can ask–I barely scratched the surface.  For example, you might have noticed that I omitted the classic “I don’t think Gramps/Uncle Bob/Cousin Billy Joe died in France/Germany/the South Pacific just so Stephen Miller can strut around and pretend to be Heinrich Himmler, do you?” But now you know what to do, and I have every faith in your ability.  So, what are you waiting for?  Go!

©2018 D.R. Miller

[1] By the way, by “Kavanaugh Questions” I do not mean yelling at the other side,  accusing them of plotting against you, staring blankly until their time is up, or turning any of their questions against them.  Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley might think that’s appropriate behavior, but I think it’s clear by now that we have higher standards than that.

How to Win Hearts and Minds in the Age of Trump

Faithful readers of this blog will probably be not at all surprised when I state that I am not exactly a fan of our 45^th president.  And, frankly, that’s kind of the point of the blog in its current form. My pre-Trump blog is quite a different animal from its present incarnation, containing travel commentary, parental advice, and that light-hearted classic, “An Observed Humanity: Structure and Form in Cannery Row” But sometime in December of 2016, my beloved suggested that perhaps I should snap out of my post-election stupor and actually do something constructive about Trump instead of moping around the house like a fifties housewife who just found out that she had popped her last valium.

About that time, some Trump dupe had walked into Comet Ping-Pong pizza restaurant, brandishing a gun and threatening to shoot someone unless the Podesta-molested children were released from their basement dungeon.  Happily, it was fairly easy to convince him that there were no kids in the basement, simply because there was no basement in which to manacle them (I’ve been there—there really is no basement).  The whole thing got me to thinking:  if only this poor schlemiel had known how to consider his source by using the mnemonic RAVEN, he could have avoided a four-year sentence for being a gun-toting jackass.  I had been a Critical Thinking teacher back in the UK, and I thought I would gift you all with a bit of my wisdom, and thus “Pizzagate:  How to Consider the Source” was born.  Since then, I’ve written my blog on a fairly regularly basis.  For the most part, with the exception of “The Noblest Roman” (about John McCain) and “Why We Need Mourning Bands” (about the death of my sister), I’ve heaped scorn and sarcasm galore on Trump’s metaphorical head while also, I hope, teaching a little bit of critical thinking along the way.  I’ve had fun, my readers have been tolerant, and my blood pressure has returned to its normal low levels (at least most of the time).

But, frankly, I doubt if I’ve managed to change a single mind about Trump.  For the most part, that has suited me just fine.  I’ve constructed a very nice silo, thank you, and if you don’t feel comfortable in it, well that’s too damned bad.  However, it occurs to me that, at this particular point of time, my attitude is a luxury that we (and by we, I mean anti-Trumpists of every stripe) can ill afford.  If we had a normal president, Brett Kavanaugh’s outrageously perjurious and partisan tantrum in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee would be immediate grounds for rescinding his nomination.  However, as we all know, this president is far, far, far from normal.  Not only is he not upset with Kavanaugh, I think Trump is delighted with his performance.  As he sees it, either McConnell will shove Kavanaugh down the Senate’s throat, or he won’t.  And if Kavanaugh is not confirmed, then Trump can claim it’s part of a plot against him, and use it to whip up his masses. He’s already been doing this, and support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation has gone up amongst Republican men.

The GOP has a long history of getting its voters interested in Supreme Court decisions.  That’s why they’re so keen on anti-abortion judges—it’s a red flag to all those evangelical and pro-life Republicans who will overlook any amount of chicanery to vote in Republican Senators who promise to overthrow Roe v. Wade.  Trump is ignorant, crude, and shallow—but he is not stupid.  He’s actually a pretty astute observer of human nature—he hasn’t spent all these years being a sociopathic narcissist for nothing, after all.  So, we, too, must be crafty.  We need to convince these men that it’s a good thing if Kavanaugh is not confirmed.  I doubt that this would make them vote Democratic, but perhaps it will convince them that maybe they’ll just sit this election out.

Now, it has been scientifically demonstrated that spouting off facts will not get someone to change his or her political opinion.  It seems that those pesky facts have the opposite effect, and make people even more entrenched in their position.  Indeed, it’s been suggested that it is such a hopeless task to change someone’s mind that we should instead concentrate on undecided voters who have not yet solidified their opinions.  But I’m a bit of an optimist, and I think we might be able to win a few hearts.

So, in the spirit of my original intention for this blog, here is some gratuitous expert advice on three different ways to convince a Trump supporter that Kavanaugh sucks.

1. Worst Case Scenario

This might sound odd, and it’s even called “paradoxical thinking” because it’s so freaking unexpected, but it seems that one effective way  to convince someone that her opinion is a tad lacking in logic is to present her with an extreme version of what life would be like if things went her way. Seriously. A 2013 Israeli study indicated that repeated exposure to pro-right videos caused a sizeable number of rightists to change their minds.  Perhaps it’s because seeing their side made them less defensive and more likely to consider different opinions.  Who knows?  But it’s worth a try.  So, the next time you’re talking to your Fox-consuming uncle about Kavanaugh, try asking him one of these:

“Do you want to live in a world where a woman is forced to give birth to a baby, even if she discovers that he has a birth defect that will cause him terrible pain and kill him within a week after he’s born?”

“What would you do if your granddaughter died from a back-street abortion?”

“Are you looking forward to having the Koch brothers write clean air regulations?”

If these don’t work for you, then raise your favorite Brett Kavanaugh nightmare—goodness knows there are plenty of them.  The bonus of this approach is that, even if you don’t change their minds, at least you got them to think for a minute, about the consequences of their position.

2. Make it Personal

Here’s a riddle:  What did it take for Jeff Flake to find a pair of balls?

Answer:  Two pairs of ovaries.

We all saw Jeff express his grave concerns regarding Kavanaugh.  His pain was etched on his face, and it was apparent that voting for Kavanaugh would result in deep moral qualms for the Senator from Arizona.  And then he announced that, hey, ho, what the hell, he’s going to vote for Kavanaugh.

I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I wasn’t.  Flake hates Trump and lets everyone know that he hates Trump.  But he always votes along with Trump.  Why?  Because he’s gutless.

Yet it was Flake who, gasp, strong-armed Gramps Grassley into agreeing to an FBI investigation.  Who’da thunk it?

What worked the magic?  Well, the proper question is who worked the magic.  Two forthright women, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, buttonholed Flake in an elevator.  They demanded that he look at them and listen to them as they told him the devastating effect that confirming Kavanaugh would have on them. By voting for Kavanaugh, Flake was essentially telling them and other victims of sexual assault that they might as well shut up because no one would listen. And Flake knew it—he had the same ashamed look that my dog gets when he craps on the rug.

These women forced Flake to look at the issue from the point of view of an individual.  Painful decisions are easy to make when you think about them abstractly—just ask Stephen Miller about his immigration policy, and you’ll see what I mean.  However, it is an entirely different matter when you are confronted with a living human being whose life will be unalterably damaged by your decision. Empathy is a powerful tool for changing minds.  Not only that, but sharing a story about yourself shows that you have skin in the game.  It’s not an abstraction—it’s a matter of consequence, maybe even life or death.  I think that people tend to respect people who fight for themselves, and that new-found respect might be the wedge you need to get Aunt Donalda to see that Kavanaugh would be a walking disaster on the Supreme Court.

3. Make it Relevant

Let’s face it:  everyone’s favorite topic of conversation is themselves.  Therefore, you can expect a more sympathetic reception if you make your pitch all about your brother-in-law.  Put your argument in terms that he can relate to.  For example, while very few of us have testified before the Senate, just about everyone has had a job interview.  So, try this:  “Geez, Louise, buddy.  Can you imagine screaming like that at HR?  You’d have been escorted off site in a New York minute.”  Or, if your friend spent a lot of his high school career nursing a grudge against the varsity squad, you might say something along these lines:  “Yeah, right.  Cuz jocks are known for their sobriety and chivalry.”  You get the point, I’m sure.

Now, it’s possible that none of these techniques will work, but you never know.  At the very least, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried your best and entered the fray.  And who knows?  You might be the straw the breaks the orange beast’s back!

© 2018 D.R. Miller

Three Takeaways from the Kavanaugh Hearing

There are, of course, many, many lessons to be gleaned from Thursday’s hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee.  For one thing, we learned that the GOP members need a “female assistant” to communicate with the victim of a sexual assault, but were perfectly at ease with apologizing to her [alleged] assailant.  We also found out that there is a scientific basis for gaps in a victim’s memory, and that we tend to remember the things that are seared into our hippocampus by the biochemical reactions known as “fight or flight”—such as the callous, cruel laughter of two drunken, arrogant teenage members of the gentry.  However, the details that are not associated with the actual act of repelling one’s would-be rapist, such as the exact date on which it occurred, or how you managed to make your shaky way home that night, might not be so indelibly tattooed upon your soul.  So, yeah, it takes a bit of self-discipline to confine myself to only three takeaways, but I think that they demonstrate so thoroughly Kavanaugh’s utter unsuitability for the position he so obviously thinks he deserves, that all other observations are merely the greasy frosting on a rancid cake of instability and misogyny.  But that’s just my opinion.

1. Bret Kavanaugh Cannot Abide Uppity Women

Kavanaugh’s utter contempt for the woman who raised these allegations about him—and the other women and men who demanded that they be examined—was obvious from the moment he began his opening statement.  In a statement he proudly proclaimed “I wrote myself” –as if Dr. Ford had not similarly written her opening address—he asserts that her allegations were at the heart of “a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.” Now, the obvious inability of the Democratic Party to organize anything as complicated as a pizza party at Comet Ping Pong makes it apparent that Kavanaugh is engaging in partisan hyperbole.   However, it is also clear that Kavanaugh regards Dr. Ford in a less than favorable light.  At best, she is a dupe.  A pawn.  A shill.  A misguided creature whose addled brains have been manipulated by a leftist cabal out to destroy an innocent man.  But what if, despite what he told Senator Harris, he did watch Dr. Ford, as earlier reported, and saw a brave, articulate, and fiercely intelligent woman whose forthright testimony very well might scuttle his nomination.  Would that have accounted for the screechy tones and unmasked fury he displayed from the start of his testimony?

That is, of course, conjecture.  Happily, we have more concrete and observable examples of Kavanaugh getting very pissed off at a couple of powerful women.  The first is his incredibly rude response to Diane Feinstein.  While she is trying to find out if he would agree to an FBI investigation, he interrupts her, avoids answering her questions, and mansplains how such an investigation would work.  His body language is even more telling:  he leans back and looks at the ceiling during her questions, and then leans in to her when “answering” them.  For all the world, he looks like a stroppy teenager caught out after curfew, having to listen to mom yammering at him.  How Senator Feinstein had the fortitude not to slap the smirk off his face, I’ll never know, but will always admire.

But the truly egregious behavior was reserved for Senator Klobuchar.  When she asked him whether he ever drank to the point of forgetfulness, he flipped the question back on her—not once, but twice.  By playing this game of “I know you are, but what am I?”, Kavanaugh has clearly forgotten his place.  Instead of treating this entire enterprise as the glorified job interview that it is, he retreated to the type of frat boy antics that I’m sure he was very familiar with back in the hallowed halls of Yale’s DKE house. If, as he earlier professed, he were eager for the truth to get out, he would have answered the questions posed to him forthrightly.  If, as he also professed, he were a qualified candidate for a position that requires probity and equanimity, he would have been polite.  Instead, he lashed out at the woman who is posing an obstacle to his goal. As Senator Klobuchar later pointed out, had she acted that way in his court, Kavanaugh would have thrown her out.  Given this display of outright hostility, how can we possibly believe his protestations that he will respect the rights of over half the US population?

2. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Privileged White Male Scorned

I have already noted Kavanaugh’s emotional and hostile behavior.  Ping-ponging between howls of indignation and tears of frustration, peppered with the occasional snarl and snide joke, his performance was highly reminiscent of Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I was a little surprised, frankly, when he didn’t serve Senator Feinstein a plate of dead parakeet for her lunch.  He was a portrait of thwarted privilege.  Every shrug, every smirk, every rolled eye ball screamed, “This Supreme Court seat is mine! How dare you keep it from me?”  Frankly, while Trump might find this performance admirable, I think it makes Dr. Ford’s testimony more plausible.  His behavior revealed him to be the type of man who, despite an outwardly friendly exterior, thinks he needs to knock the smart girl down a peg or two.  I don’t know what the young Christine Blasey said to Bart O’Kavanaugh, but I think there must have been something about her—her intelligence, perhaps, or maybe that same streak of independence that gave her the courage to testify—that threatened him.

Sadly, this display was not confined to Kavanaugh.  There was enough simian chest thumping going on to keep Jane Goodall busy for three life times.  Once Lindsey Graham had his tantrum, the rest of the pack practically fell over each other in their race to heap their scorn on the Democrats.  The nerve of the Democrats, demanding an investigation by the FBI!  How dare they expect the committee to take these allegations seriously?  How outrageous to keep putting up roadblocks to Kavanaugh’s rightful ascension to the Supreme Court—as if the name “Merrick Garland” were utterly alien to them.

Orrin Hatch, in particular, was terribly affronted by the notion that Kavanaugh be held accountable for something that allegedly took place thirty-six years ago.  He pointed out, in an increasingly high-pitched squeak that soon would be heard only by the bats in his belfry, that Kavanaugh had been a “teenager” and an “immature high schooler” at the time.  It struck me that his outrage was not that the accusations were so old, but that they were not so serious.  Boys will be boys, after all, Hatch was implying. Hey! Who hasn’t tried to rip a girl’s clothes off while grinding your genitals into her groin?  I’m surprised that the old codger didn’t say that she should have just relaxed and enjoyed it.

While a certain amount of this anger might have been staged for the benefit of Faux News, I honestly believe that on the whole it was sincere.  Indeed, it might have been the only sincere part of the Republican response to Dr. Ford’s allegations.  And Kavanaugh was right there with them:  his anger fueled by a sense of a privilege denied and a right thwarted.  Now, it is hardly shocking to say that wealthy white men have been well-represented on the Supreme Court since its inception.  What is shocking is the virulence that any encroachment on that privilege engenders. Like any spoiled brat whose toys are taken away, the Senate Republicans are kicking their legs and holding their breath until their faces turn blue, hoping we’ll give in.  Well, fuck that.  I say that we should give them a time out and elect adults in their stead.

3. The GOP Has NO Interest in Finding the Truth

So this whole hearing, dragging Dr. Ford in, was intended to give her an opportunity to “tell her story.”  What the Committee would do with that story was pretty vague.  I mean, they didn’t outright say that they would ignore it, but on the other hand, they allowed as how it wouldn’t keep them from “plowing through” with Kavanaugh’s confirmation.  The one thing that was clear, however, was that it would not provoke a heroic quest for the truth on the part of the Committee.

This fact might come as a surprise to anyone taking Kavanaugh’s opening statement at face value.  After all, he asserts that he wanted to have a hearing right away to clear this nonsense right up.  But, as was painfully clear, neither Kavanaugh nor the GOP committee members had any intention of turning this hearing into anything like a fact-finding tribunal.  Every step of the way, Gramps Grassley squelched all of Dr. Ford’s requests for an FBI investigation.  Essential witnesses were not called, and subsequent allegations were shunted off to the side.  Indeed, active measures seemed to be taken to avoid any additional evidence from coming in.  And for a man so concerned with clearing his name, Kavanaugh seemed curiously lax about pursuing the avenues that might exonerate him. For example, Mark Judge, the named witness to the assault (and blotto drinking companion of the youthful Kavanaugh) was not only not subpoenaed to testify, but he was conveniently holed up in a DelMarVa beach house, nowhere near the hearing room. Strange behavior, indeed, from a man whose testimony could entirely absolve his old chum. Similarly, Kavanaugh opined that an FBI investigation would be a worthless waste of time because the investigators would render no conclusions—all the time harping on the fact that he had had multiple FBI background checks in the past, as if those investigations, unlike the one requested by Dr. Ford, were somehow magically probative. Nor did he offer himself up to a polygraph.  Hmmm.

Indeed, it is very telling that Lindsey Graham decided to snap his tether when he did.  At one point, Rachel Mitchell, the GOP’s official Female Assistant, had asked Kavanaugh some interesting questions about the calendar entries for July 1, 1982.  There seems to have been a party that evening, attended by the very people that Dr. Ford said were at the house that fateful evening.  For some reason (maybe she remembered who was paying her fee), she backed away from this tantalizing line of questioning, but apparently not soon enough for Graham.  Instead of ceding his time to her, South Carolina’s finest questioned Kavanaugh himself, and worked himself into a state of high dudgeon about the Democrats’ behavior.  Ms. Mitchell was then sent to Republican purdah, never to be heard of again. Ditto for the calendar. Curiouser and curiouser.

Of course, hiding the truth is nothing new to this confirmation process.  There are lots of examples of a distressing lack of candor on the part of Kavanaugh’s Senatorial champions: The hundreds of thousands of documents withheld.  The decision to allow another buddy of Kavanaugh to vet which documents may and may not be released, instead of the National Archives.  The deliberately non-responsive non-answers to the most basic of questions.  All of these add up to a man who seems to have something to hide.  That alone should be disqualifying.  A Supreme Court Justice must be willing to have his or her history open to inspection.  Elena Kagan, when she was confirmed, willingly handed over piles upon piles of documents.  Kavanaugh’s reluctance to do likewise must be taken as evidence that he has an underlying conflict—be it financial, ideological, or even criminal—that precludes him from faithfully carrying out his duties. After all, despite Kavanaugh’s assumptions to the contrary, no one has a right to sit on the Supreme Court.  You have to earn that particular privilege.

©2018 D.R. Miller

Begging His Pardon

As you are doubtlessly aware by now, I am planning to write a Critical Thinking textbook, using Trump’s rhetoric as examples of how not to conduct reasoned debate.  However, thanks to the recent hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, I will have to broaden the parameters of my textbook.  Watching Kavanaugh’s testify, I must admit that I was impressed with his linguistic legerdemain.  When asked a direct question, Brett was able to parse it into oblivion.  Look at this example, when Senator Kamela Harris of California asked Kavanaugh a question that, to my ears at least, demanded a “yes” or “no” answer: did Kavanaugh discuss the Mueller investigation with anyone at Marc Kasowitz’s law firm?  Watch Kavanaugh prove me wrong.  Don’t worry—I’ll wait for you while you watch.

Impressive, huh?  Not only does he avoid the question (“Kasowitz? Kasowitz?  Do I know a Kasowitz?”), but he also sparks a parliamentary debate that gives him enough time to add a new doodle to his collection.  Harris, a former US attorney who is so scarily serious that she makes Robert Mueller look positively whimsical, has to admit defeat:  this particular greased piggy simply will not be caught.

Watching this performance, the following thought entered my Critical Thinking Teacher’s mind:  I bet that some one is going to say Kavanaugh’s performance “begged the question.”  And they would be wrong.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that a question is begged when it goes unanswered.  Unlike most logical mistakes, confusing the act of begging a question with avoiding a question is very easy to understand and even forgive.  When a question is asked, but is then ignored, one can imagine that it is shocked and humiliated not to have been answered.  “What’s wrong with me?” the question asks.  “I’m begging you to answer me!”  So, I don’t blame the person making the mistake:  I blame the idiot who gave the fallacy such a stupid, misleading name.  Sheesh.

If “begging the question” isn’t the same as avoiding it, then what the hell is it, you might ask.  Well, aren’t you lucky I’m here to explain it to you?

“Begging the question” occurs when the conclusion you want to make is included in the premise you state in support of your conclusion.  It’s a form of circular reasoning, and it ain’t good.  And, for the record, I have no idea why it’s called “begging the question.”  It is, however, abundant.  Here.  Let me give you an example:

Premise:  I believe that God wrote the Bible

Conclusion:  Everything in the Bible is true because God wrote it.

The conclusion (that everything in the Bible is true) depends upon the truth of the premise that God wrote the Bible.  However, the gruesome violence, blatant contradictions, and obvious multiple biases present in the Good Book make it highly debatable that a divinity worthy of the name wrote it.  Nope.  It is far more likely that it was penned by generations of flawed, frequently mad, doubtlessly inspired human beings.

Here’s an example that’s more up-to-date:

Premise:  The President of the United States is far too busy to deal with minutiae such as subpoenas from special prosecutors.

Conclusion:  The President of the United States should not be subject to subpoenas from special prosecutors because he is too busy to deal with them.

Now, one can only wonder what James Madison and Alexander Hamilton would make of that.  I suppose that they would be worried that a deceitful, underhanded grifter of a demagogue would take that logic and think he was above the law. Whew!  Thank goodness that’s only a hypothetical!

See how begging the question works?  It’s really quite simple, once you get past the difficulties arising from its misleading name.  A better label is “circular reasoning,” and I think that Critical Thinking Teachers the world over should universally adopt it in favor of “begging the question.”  I’ll suggest it at our next meeting.

And as for my hunch that some poor devil would mistakenly label something as “begging the question”? Well, sure enough, the next day, while sipping coffee and eavesdropping on the more interesting conversations of the other people at my local café, I heard the hipster at the table next to me cry out, “He’s just begging the question! We still don’t know if he talked to anyone about Mueller!”

I think you really should be proud at me at this point, because I’ll have you know that I did not turn around and correct the young man.  All I did was register a barely audible “tsk.”  I know.  I am a Christian martyr.

©2018 D. R. Miller