Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Trump & Mansplaining

by Jordan Owen
(c)2016

Donald Trump has just secured the electoral college votes necessary to become the next President of the United States.  Those like myself that long for some 11th-hour miracle that will keep Trump from ascending the throne (and at this point that's exactly what it is) are seeing what few hopes we had left teetering on the brink of oblivion.  I would hold out hope for the CIA and the FBI to deliver a devastating revelation that shows Donald Trump to be directly tied to the Russians but even now there's more evidence tying him to that than there was connecting Nixon to Watergate and that still hasn't been enough to unseat the Donald.

Last time I spoke about why Donald Trump won I focused on some broader issues that the left used to alienate middle of the road voters.  Interestingly, my commentary on Trump seems to have opened an avenue of discussion with the left that I didn't previously have. Knowing that we share a common dislike for Donald Trump has given me a sort of bridge to communicate to the left, at least in some small part.  As I've said previously, I don't think that many people come to libertarianism straight on- we come at it from the left and the right, generally out of disillusionment with the side we were "born" into.  In my case, that's the left.  So understand that I'm not trying to convert anybody to the libertarian credo nor am I thinking that I'll reach everybody on the left but for those who want to listen, here's more of what you need to know.

One of the current pariahs to modern liberals is Dilbert creator Scott Adams.  He came out early on claiming that Donald Trump would win the presidency with his cunning use of branding.  For that, Adams was tarred and feathered by the 5th estate of blogosphere news sites.  They attempted to get Dilbert pulled from newspapers and rabidly branded Adams as a closet Alt-Right reactionary. And for what? Simply showing you the exact tools that Donald Trump was going to use to win.  You should have been praising his name for that- you could have seen it coming a mile away and countered Trump effortlessly but no- you refused.  You demanded Scott Adams' head on a stick and relegated him the status of a talking head on minor news outlets when he should have been front and center.

Adams' general observation about Trump's technique was that he knows how to brand people.  And he's right- "Crooked Hillary" is still a trending hashtag after all this time.  He applied lesser brands to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and all of his other opponents and they fell one after another.  Those brands stick in people's minds because they become perceived as axiomatic; that is to say the recipient of the brand can't further speak without appearing to be endemic of the brand that's been put on them.  Jeb Bush is low energy? Actually no, he's not- he's thoughtful, erudite and contemplative- all things that are positive traits in a leader.  Trump actually cannot beat those qualities- he's loud, brash and impulsive in the extreme.  But what he can do is rebrand Jeb Bush so that qualities we should see as positives come off as negatives.  Hence the "Low Energy Jeb" brand.  And forever after, Jeb Bush sounds low energy.  Trump deflated the campaign of a veteran politician with a long track record of winning public office like it was nothing.  Adams was damn right about Trump's skill at branding.

What's amazing is that the left, the academicians of which pride themselves on teaching "media literacy," seem remarkably unaware of what branding is and how to caution their students against it.  If you still doubt the power of branding, consider this question: what do you call the little sticky strip that you put on a cut after disinfecting it?

Seriously- give me the first thing that pops into your head.

You said BAND-AID didn't you? Well guess what- the item in question is actually called an "adhesive bandage." "BAND-AID" is the term used by Johnson & Johnson to market their product and they have branded that term on the public psyche to such a degree that we think of the product itself as being identified by that name.  Here's another one- think of copy machines.  When you use a copier you're "copying" something or "making a copy," right? Okay- think of as many synonyms for that as you possibly can.  I bet "xerox" was among them, right? That's not a verb- but it became one thanks to the Xerox company. Originally founded in 1906 as the Haloid Photographic Company, Xerox achieved its workplace ubiquity when it introduced the xerographic duplication process that was instantly and obviously more efficient than other methods and as such duplicating documents became known as "xeroxing" them. That is the power of branding.

So what does the left need to know about this? Well, mainly that they've been using it themselves without realizing it.  Few examples of leftist cultural branding have been as insidious and damaging as the concept of "mansplaining." That is branding, just like "Low Energy Jeb" or "Crooked Hillary." Ostensibly, "mainsplaining" refers to behavior wherein arrogant, chauvinistic men condescend and talk down to women and presume that they are right and the woman is wrong simply by virtue of their gender.  So foul and odious is this notion in modern society that any man accused of "mansplaining" can only shut up and fall in line lest he become branded as a "mansplainer."

And that's just how the left has operated for eight years- it has refused to engage in serious discussion of the ideas and has, instead, focused on controlling perception. Perhaps I'm wrong- perhaps the academics do know how branding works and they're teaching kids how to use it.  Sorry, but you were only supposed to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, not turning Gryffindor into Slytherin.

In the past I've had the accusation of mansplaining levied at me.  I recall a couple of years ago I offered my thoughts on the concept of mansplaining in video form and I a group of left leaning bloggers convened on a round table podcast discussion to talk about how my video on mansplaining was itself mansplaining.  Well, in truth it wasn't- and there's no such thing as mansplaining. I'm simply sitting here offering my opinion which you make take or leave at your discretion.  I've said nothing that suggests I view my opinion as inherently valid simply because of my gender nor is my intended audience a specific gender.  But to identify me here as a "mansplainer" shuts down actual consideration of my ideas.

That is what Donald Trump did to his political betters and it is what the left has done and continues to do.  I bring all this up because MTV- that once great cultural juggernaut that has now been reduced to asinine morality lessons- just put up a video request for white people in 2017.  Among the many requests they made to white people was to stop mansplaining.  To the dwindling contingent of MTV viewers who buy into this sermonizing, understand that you are not reaching anybody, only pushing them away.  And you pushed them right into the arms of Donald Trump.

So stop it.  Stop using branding as a weapon.  Call it out when you hear it rather than trying to cast a more devastating curse on your right wing wizarding adversaries.

I'm not opposed to branding.  When used properly, branding is a tool of intellectual codification by which larger concepts are brought into focus and encapsulated, creating easier and more productive dialogue. Branding helps us move forward as a species.  You know, humanity. That thing we were branded as so long ago.  So start using branding for good.  Use it to be insightful and uplifting, not bitchy and catty.

If the left wants to make good on it's late 1960's promise to be an atmosphere of inclusive compassion and deep spiritual love- sort of like Christianity with drugged out sex orgies- then it needs to let go of weaponized branding.  That's #weaponizedbranding, btw.  Retweet it.

The left has got to realize that it's time for a reformation.  The conservatives figured it out- boy howdy did they ever.  After 8 long years of the dumpster fire that was George W. Bush and getting stomped on twice by the Obama administration, the right finally figured out that it was time to stop alienating people who were 95% in agreement with them already by catering to bugged out loonies on the distant fringe.  You'll notice that former GOP mainstays like evangelical church goers along with homophobia and pro-life agenda items have all taken a quiet back seat this time around.  The Donald touched on them in passing when he did at all and he even commended pro-gay conservatives time and again.  Hell- he'd probably have said nothing at all about abortion if the more left-minded in the media hadn't kept prodding him on it.  The left needs the same reformation.  Realize that someone who thinks abortion is murder but doesn't try to force their views on you is your friend, not your enemy.  Realize that someone who believes that homosexuality is morally wrong but that their own moral imperative to be kind, compassionate people is infinitely more important is your ally in the larger goal of human love, not your enemy.  Realize that rejecting long held institutions of religion doesn't make you immune to the kind of dogmatic thinking that pushed you away from those institutions in the first place.

But above all, follow the Bill & Ted maxim: "Be excellent to each other."

That's #Beexcellenttoeachother, btw.  Retweet it.

Kind regards and Happy Holidays,
-Jordan

Please support my work at http://www.patreon.com/jordanowen42

Please also visit: Jordan Owen on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/jordanowen42
Jordan Owen on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jordanowen42
Jordan Owen on DeviantArt: http://jordanowen.deviantart.com
Jordan Owen on Blogspot: http://www.jordanowen42.blogspot.com
Jordan Owen's novel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eros-Empire-Jordan-Owen/dp/1593933762
Jordan Owen on soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/Jordanowen42
The band: http://www.reverbnation.com/leavingbabylon

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Electoral Boogaloo

Electoral Boogaloo

  By Jordan Owen

©2016

 The electoral college has been a topic of mass discussion as of late, considering that the American people have had to come face to face with the reality that the candidate who did not get the most votes is now our president-elect.  I myself have called the institution into question in recent days and, like so many, I have received a number of unintentionally condescending responses from well meaning commenters who seem to think I don’t know how the electoral college works.  Actually, no- I’m quite aware of how it works or, more precisely, how it doesn’t.  It’s an outdated system written to accommodate voters who arrived at polling locations via horse drawn cart.


 Here’s a few of the more common defenses I’ve heard of the electoral college:


 The electoral college reflects the views of the majority of Americans because if it wasn’t in place the candidates would campaign differently and still affect the same outcome. 


 You have absolutely no way of knowing what the outcome would be if the candidates campaigned differently.


 The electoral college is important because it gives the smaller states a voice!


 No it doesn’t. If you wanted all the states to be represented equally then every state plus the district of Columbia should have ONE electoral vote.  Fifty-one votes means no chance of a tie and no battleground states.


 The popular vote doesn't matter because three million illegal votes were cast!


 You have absolutely no evidence for that except a tweet by Donald Trump. If that's all he needs to convince you then he's going to have a breeze of a time setting up Muslim extermination camps. Also, three million illegal votes would necessitate a reevaluation of the electoral vote as well.


 If the electoral college wasn’t in place the candidates would just campaign in high-population areas and ignore the smaller outlying areas.


 This is bunk for two reasons- one, the candidates ALREADY only focus on heavily populated areas.  I don’t remember Trump or Clinton doing any rallies in Monowi, Nebraska. Second, let me remind you that our electoral process no longer caters to the needs of people who are likely to die of dysentery on the way to the polls.  We have this magical thing called the internet that through some sort of highfalutin’ city boy witchcraft is able to carry information from all over the earth into our living rooms.  And possibly other rooms if your provider isn’t Comcast.  I did not attend a single political rally in the entire 2016 election cycle and I was still able to figure out who I wanted to vote for.  Yet somehow I’m still treated like a centuries old hillbilly with an adam’s apple that matches his nose who has hobbled up to the voting booth barefoot and reeking of the methane of multiple species.  


 The electoral college was established to protect us from the tyranny of the majority!


 Okay, this argument actually has some legs. The libertarian in me would agree that we have to have certain government institutions in place to protect the rights of the individuals from being ganged up on by the majority.  But what purpose does kneecapping the majority vote in the presidential election actually serve?  Why is it more noble for the minority to be able to gang up on the majority than vice-a-versa?  What’s the point of having the election in the first place if the candidate with the most votes is blocked from winning out of principle?


 This country is called the United States of America, not “America.” We have to respect states rights!


 Ah yes- state's’ rights.  The two words bandied about 150 years ago by those pretentious enough to think that they could put an intellectual veneer on their defense of owning people as property.  If that’s really how you feel, why are these states united at all? Let’s just dissolve the union and remodel this portion of the continent as a series of tiny nations a’la Europe- you know, the thing that conservatives purport to be protecting the US from becoming.  And that’s where I have one of many, many bones to pick with modern conservatism. Conservatives want us to be safe from the federal government- it’s much better when the government denying us our rights is a smaller, more manageable state level tyranny.  Trust me, as a Georgia resident it’s nice to have an entity that can overrule the decisions of the low-watt bulbs that make up our local legislature.  


 Bill Maher is right to say that “states rights” is code for taking away rights. A state is an abstract concept based on population distributions and has no rights in any kind of human sense of the word.  Proper conservatives, like Margaret Thatcher, for example, are spot on in saying that societies do not have rights and do not exist- only individuals exist and can have rights. If you doubt the axiomatic truth of that concept then try having a society without individuals- it cannot be done. Without individuals to convene in agreement on a set of principles you cannot have a society- only wilderness.  The person who tells you that we must respect states’ rights cannot claim  to support the rights of the minority in the face of the majority and it is this contradiction that derails the already poorly maintained train of thought espoused by the amorphous glob of inanity that is contemporary conservatism.   Support for states rights amounts to saying “I am going to protect your individual rights from the collective will of hundreds of millions of people by allowing your individual rights to be overruled and violated by the collective will of tens of millions of people. See how much better that is?  And if you don’t like it you can go to another state because, after all, you’re just a poor field hand who can pack his belongings into a single hobo sack and hit the old dusty trail with a song in his heart, a thumb in the air, a wheat strand in his teeth and a wistful gleam in his eye.  It’s not like you’re a modern day resident of an affluent first world community that actually has family, friends and a career he’d rather not leave behind.  Hit the road you vagabond prince of American optimism- you’ll reach Califor-ny-yay and be playing your harmonica under the cool shade of orange groves before you know it.”


 Here’s another problem with that whole states rights thing- what if the only option is to go to another state but the other states- themselves protected by the maxim of states rights- have decided not to let in any outsiders?  Suddenly a lavish border wall designed by a pompous prick with a ballgina micropenis doesn’t seem like such a romantic thought after all.  


 But there is one practical use for the electoral college.  The founders of this country- themselves mostly secular, liberty minded members of the Hellfire Club- looked out across the vast expanse of drooling nitwits that made up the majority of voters and realized that it was entirely possible these impressionable souls- many of whom couldn’t find their asshole with both hands- would elect the very sort of tyrannical dictator they had just fought a bloody war to escape from.  As such the electoral college could deliberate and decide that the president-elect was unfit to hold office and vote accordingly.  I’m sure all of you electoral college enthusiasts will join me in hoping they vote for Clinton.


 Now if you’ll excuse me, my prize heffer has just given birth and I intend to give the calf to old mayor Jebidiah Conshohocken.  I’m hoping he’ll let me put my seed in his daughter the school marm as soon as I know how.


 Kind regards,

-Jordan


  Please support my work at http://www.patreon.com/jordanowen42


  Please also visit: Jordan Owen on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/jordanowen42

Jordan Owen on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jordanowen42
Jordan Owen on DeviantArt: http://jordanowen.deviantart.com
Jordan Owen on Blogspot: http://www.jordanowen42.blogspot.com
Jordan Owen's novel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eros-Empire-Jordan-Owen/dp/1593933762 
Jordan Owen on soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/Jordanowen42

  The band: http://www.reverbnation.com/leavingbabylon