US Politics: A small step from going viral to going postal

[larrytheimp]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

So unsurprisingly (I guess) there seems to be a natiowide shortage of ammunition in the US. The sources I have on this aren't the best, but that seems quite believable, no?

https://www.nj.com/news/2020/08/the-country-is-literally-out-of-ammunition-gun-store-owners-scramble-to-meet-unprecedented-demand.html

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/gun-sales-cause-ammo-fly-off-shelves

You'd think this was bad, but apparently shortages are not exactly uncommon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008–2016_United_States_ammunition_shortage

This has been happening after every mass shooting since Sandy Hook and also right before every election.  A couple other times too.

[S John]

It happens all the time. I’ve actually been considering buying stock in firearms manufacturers if Biden wins the election because I guarantee there will be a momentary “they gun’ take r guns” buying panic.

[Rippounet]

7 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

This has been happening after every mass shooting since Sandy Hook and also right before every election. 

And sales dropped after Trump's election (after a spike under Obama).
The correlation between political events and gun culture is something I know of but can never quite keep in mind.

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

 

And that's okay. Let him continue to sink while all you see of Biden is fluff. It's nothing to worry about. What should trouble you though is if Trump loses and still dominates the news cycle after he's left office. 

Well...if we're being honest, and with a little luck...any cycles Trump, his family, and his enablers dominate after a Biden election will be because so many of them are in court and going to jail...

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

There is some literature about the political consequences of France's victory in the 1998 football* world cup. Not that I ever bothered to read any of it, but such work does exist.

Actually, there is research on specifically "football" games here in the US as well.  A review of such research found the relationship to be based on spurious, false positive results and replication (i.e. reliability) to be (obviously) impossible:

Quote

In each case, the evidence suggests that the original finding was a false positive. For example, if college football games indeed influence elections, this effect should be greatest in places where the public is most interested in college football. However, we find the opposite. We conclude with general recommendations for evaluating surprising research findings and avoiding similar false-positive results—particularly for nonexperimental work in the social sciences where independent replication is impossible. [...]

Multiple independent sources of evidence suggest that the original finding was spurious—reflecting bad luck for researchers rather than a shortcoming of American voters. We fail to estimate the same effect when we leverage situations where multiple elections with differing incumbent parties occur in the same county and year. We also find that the purported effect of college football games is stronger in counties where people are less interested in college football, just as strong when the incumbent candidate does not run for reelection, and just as strong in other parts of the state outside the home county of the team. Lastly, we detect no effect of National Football League games on elections, despite their greater popularity. We conclude with recommendations for evaluating surprising research findings and avoiding similar false-positive results.

 

[Rippounet]

In the 1998 case the link is undeniable, but I don't think anyone ever claimed that the case could be generalized.

Edited September 11 by Rippounet

[Tywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

nvm

You French sure know how to tease.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

You French sure know how to tease.

It's even more a tease when you get a notification that's then edited out!

[Tywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's even more a tease when you get a notification that's then edited out!

It's like being with a new lover and noticing their fingers are stealthily moving dangerously close towards your butthole.... 

[DMC]

Anyway, describing research as "spurious, false positive, and impossible to replicate" is pretty much the academic equivalent of saying absolute bullshit.

[Killjoybear]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's like being with a new lover and noticing their fingers are stealthily moving dangerously close towards your butthole.... 

And then they dont?

[Guy Kilmore]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And that's why Trump likely has NPD rather than being a typical narcissist. Otherwise I agree with what you're saying on the macro level, but with Trump specifically, yes, I think it's fair to say that he's just flat out dumb. I've seen no evidence to suggest that he's smart or even of average intelligence.

 

4 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

No, I just think THIS particular narcissist isn't very bright. I could b wrong, and he just plays dumb, but I don't think so.

ETA: It's nice to know that the USA, and possibly a president DT, will have a shiny new nuclear weapons system...

NPD is what I was referring too.  Over my years in mental health I have had dealings with a variety of personality disorders (thankfully never Antisocial Personality Disorder).  He reminds me of some of the more severe ones that I have worked with, he just has the means to support it. The only reason that I quibble on it a little bit, because if he is merely stupid then one could make the argument that he doesn't understand what what he is doing.  I think he does, he just doesn't give a shit, as the payout he goes for is merely whatever makes him feel powerful and "the best."  He is locked into that kind of mind frame.  Calling him stupid could lead to the sense of underestimating him, or well not evaluating correctly the way that he makes decisions.  

This is really a minor thing, it is more, I don't think people realize what they are getting into when they deal with people who have personality disorders and presentation.

[Killjoybear]

He acts like a person who doesn't have to worry about what he does. Who never is responsible for anything. This isn't particularly stupid; it's pretty accurate so far.

[larrytheimp]

Some Wisconsin drama:

 

ETA: and no, it's not THE Michael MacDonald

Edited September 11 by larrytheimp

[Martell Spy]

$2,933 for ‘Girl’s Night’: Medicaid chief’s consulting expenses revealed
Seema Verma, a member of the coronavirus task force, spent more than $3.5 million taxpayer dollars on GOP-aligned consultants, a congressional report found.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/seema-verma-medicaid-expenses-411539

Quote

 

When Seema Verma, the Trump administration's top Medicaid official, went to a reporter's home in November 2018 for a "Girl's Night" thrown in her honor, taxpayers footed the bill to organize the event: $2,933.

When Verma wrote an op-ed on Fox News' website that fall, touting President Donald Trump's changes to Obamacare, taxpayers got charged for one consultant's price to place it: $977.

And when consultants spent months promoting Verma to win awards like Washingtonian magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Washington" and appear on high-profile panels, taxpayers got billed for that too: more than $13,000.

The efforts were steered by Pam Stevens, a Republican communications consultant and former Trump administration official working to raise the brand of Verma, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The prices were the amount a consulting company billed the government for her services, based on her invoices, which were obtained by congressional Democrats.

 

Maybe before pushing work requirements on Medicaid, cut down a little on your own use of government money to hire expensive consultants? If the goal is to save government money and not just to randomly punish Americans.

Edited September 11 by Martell Spy

[Mindwalker]

If NPD means narcissist personality disorder, that is what I was always referring to. I have diagnosed personality disorders irl and while the narcissist types were often quite transparent, they usually were not morons.

I totally agee about the responsibility thing (it's also what his niece describes). And he will never be fully held responsible; I'd bet good money he won't go to jail.

I also believe that he has other mental conditions, so what comes across as dumb may also be related to that.

Edited September 11 by Mindwalker

[Fragile Bird]

Silly question: how many dictators has Trump met at the White House? A quick search lists dictators US presidents have met with over the years, but while there have been meetings they’re not usually at the WH. Obama met Mubaryk at the WH, Nixon threw a state dinner for Suharto. 
 

With all the discussion about the Woodward tapes and about what Trump knew about Covid-19, I kept thinking of that time Trump said he wouldn’t wear a mask because of all the people he met while sitting “behind that beautiful Resolute desk”. The list included kings and great leaders and, he said with relish, dictators.

Just how many dictators have had the privilege of a WH meeting?

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Guy Kilmore said:

 

NPD is what I was referring too.  Over my years in mental health I have had dealings with a variety of personality disorders (thankfully never Antisocial Personality Disorder).  He reminds me of some of the more severe ones that I have worked with, he just has the means to support it. The only reason that I quibble on it a little bit, because if he is merely stupid then one could make the argument that he doesn't understand what what he is doing.  I think he does, he just doesn't give a shit, as the payout he goes for is merely whatever makes him feel powerful and "the best."  He is locked into that kind of mind frame.  Calling him stupid could lead to the sense of underestimating him, or well not evaluating correctly the way that he makes decisions.  

This is really a minor thing, it is more, I don't think people realize what they are getting into when they deal with people who have personality disorders and presentation.

You may possibly be dealing with an individual who displays signs of both personality disorders with a side of sadism. 

I know we're disagreeing in the margins here, but I still have to push back a bit. A hypothetical person with all the worst personality traits we project on to Trump could still avoid a number of his glaring mistakes. And frankly not giving a shit is something an idiot would do. But moreover, when you examine the man's life, it's just a long serious of mistake after mistake, and it's not like they're understandable ones. We all err as humans. Trump's mistakes however are ones that are colossal in nature and are most times ones that a regular person could probably have avoided. He blurts out what he needs to hide. He telegraphs everything. He was told by engineers that his planes were far too heavy to fly and refused to do much about it, bankrupting his company. He fucking went bankrupt with a casino in prime real estate, and it was because he had other casinos there too and they cannibalized one another. These are just some of the many things that highlight that Donald. J Trump is a fucking dumbass, mental illnesses aside. 

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Seeing chatter that Dem voters are scared by Trump's schtick on mail in ballots enough to worry it won't count, plan to vote in person instead, then fail to actually do it.  Sounds not great.

Why would Democratic voters be worse than Republicans at voting in person?  Even if they were, how could we know that already, when in person voting hasn't started?

Sounds like typical Democratic defeatism.

[Guy Kilmore]

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You may possibly be dealing with an individual who displays signs of both personality disorders with a side of sadism. 

I know we're disagreeing in the margins here, but I still have to push back a bit. A hypothetical person with all the worst personality traits we project on to Trump could still avoid a number of his glaring mistakes. And frankly not giving a shit is something an idiot would do. But moreover, when you examine the man's life, it's just a long serious of mistake after mistake, and it's not like they're understandable ones. We all err as humans. Trump's mistakes however are ones that are colossal in nature and are most times ones that a regular person could probably have avoided. He blurts out what he needs to hide. He telegraphs everything. He was told by engineers that his planes were far too heavy to fly and refused to do much about it, bankrupting his company. He fucking went bankrupt with a casino in prime real estate, and it was because he had other casinos there too and they cannibalized one another. These are just some of the many things that highlight that Donald. J Trump is a fucking dumbass, mental illnesses aside. 

Again, if he had severe NPD, you are trying to judge him by comparing him to someone with a full toolbox to solve and adapt to problems, he doesn't have that, he has one tool in that tool box and uses it on everything.  That is all he can do.  His great wealth/social status has shielded him from most of the fallout and he continues on because all his actions and energy are focused on fulfilling the grandiose self image that he has of himself.  He has no room for anything else.