JFrazer
2935
Oh, Comcast and AT&T have been selling your information for years now. The only part that was safe was internet traffic, which is now included in the list of sellable communications information.
If you want to get angry, look up CPNI. They tried to make it harder for companies to sell your communication info in 2007, but that didn’t quite stick they way they intended. Right now, you are automatically considered opt’d in to the CPNI program. Unless you contact your phone company and expressively request to be removed, they are free to sell all of your communications. They claim in their statements that they will require your express opt-in to sell the data…but that’s only when it comes to PCI data; PCI data can only be shared if specifically authorized. But there is a ton of information about you that isn’t PCI. Who you call, how long you talked to them, where they are located, where you were located when you placed the call, etc. All of it is fair game. It’s the level of information that would normally take a warrant, but they are allowed to sell it to 3rd parties as long as they are considered “communications”.
You have a marketing campaign that you want to target to people who have ordered pizza in the last 3 months? They’ll sell that to you. It’s fracking sleazy.
Oh, and you think you’re opt’d out already? Make sure you check. Each communication division in the telecom companies has its own CPNI opt out list. You have to opt out ALL your devices, one by one. You have a landline and 2 cell phones? They each have their own opt-out list.
CPNI is a big money maker for telecom companies. To think that they won’t leap at the chance to start selling your internet information is just silly. Sure they won’t sell your bank account number or your account balances, but they will sell the fact that you use Bank of America.
Clay
2936
I hadn’t heard this before.
Writing fake news is hard work, people.
An infographic that plots Trump’s Gallup approval change for various groups since the inauguration:
This is a nice supplement to all the stories saying, “Trump’s approval remains above 90% with conservative Republicans.” Yes … but it’s falling. And falling pretty fast. If Trump’s approval continues to droop at the rate it has, it will dip below 50% even for conservative Republicans just in time for the 2018 elections.
Clay
2939
Oh man, reading this requires alcohol.
Nothing prepared us? He told us for 18 months* what he was going to be like. I’m surprised it’s not worse.
*Actually, more like 30 years, but anyway.
Nesrie
2942
The problem isn’t Trump; it’s the people who voted for him, the people who still think that blowing it all up is in their best interest. Those people are essentially pyromaniacs and don’t even understand that. You can’t really convince adults suffering from pyromania that watching something burn isn’t that cool.
The system doesn’t work for me so burn it down does not leave much to discuss.
I guess it’s going to be an uphill road for Trump to get the LA Times endorsement for 2020, much less repealing the 22nd amendment so he can run for a 3rd.
This article by a Venezuelan economist and the similarities between Chavez supporters and Trump supporters is one the best things I’ve read about Trump this year.
The crux of his argument is in this increasingly complex world filled with way too much information, people want a simpler world. They want a world where there are easy explanations similar to religion.
"The reason bad things happen to these people is they sinned’,“NAFTA and Mexican destroyed jobs in the US.” "Yanqui imperialist ruined Venezuela. "
Trump and Chavez provided a simple answer to the question “why am I suffering.” People are hungry for this. They have faith, shaking that faith is going to be difficult.
Nesrie
2945
What the author of this article calls simplified, i call a sham and a lie. It’s made up. In most scenarios, if someone doesn’t like the reality they live in so they create an alternate reality to live in instead, we’d call them insane and potentially lock them up if, you know, we actually had worthwhile mental facilities in this country.
I saw a video recently that says life is 10% of what you make it and 90% of how you take it, basically how you respond to what is around you vs. manipulating your reality. I’m not getting what I think I deserve, so screw anyone that isn’t in my immediate sphere of caring isn’t about faith or hope; it’s just destructive and mean spirited and in many of these counter productive to their interest.
Yes, I understand Venezuelans were shown to mourn someone who really screwed them over as if he didn’t screw them over, but the answer can’t be to cater to their reality. As for the media mourning the loss of a fact based world, well you screw them, they did their best to make sure our country got there so they could get their clicks and ratings. They abandoned what journalistic integrity they had so we could watch agent orange tell the world whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, as if the industry was just a big PR machine for him.
I don’t think he was suggesting that we cater to their fantasy, just understand the appeal.
I think the religious analogy is really apt. For all the stuff that appear as BS to those of who are agnostic or atheist at the core religion teach things that are beneficial to society. Don’t steal, don’t kill, respect your partners, treat other wells. Following these teaching is good for society. Now obviously there have been religious cults (including a big chunk of Islam and Christianity in the past) that have been extraordinarily destructive. Trumpism and especially it’s Xenophophic component falls into this group.
Convincing people to give up their religion by appealing to them with logic, science etc has seldom been effective.
While belittling the people for their stupidity, and attacking the religion is almost always counterproductive.
You have to offer an alternative and sadly the alternative has to be easily understood and satisfy the underlying needs to explain why they are suffering. So while I really want to tell these people, the reason you are suffering is because you made bad life choices (dropping out of high school, and taking Oxy). You need to get off oxy, learn a trade, and move to some place where there is a job, I don’t think that message is going to work.
Nesrie
2947
While I don’t disagree entirely with what you’re saying, in-fact I’ve said/implied something similar in the endless circle that is the pro-gun and anti-gun debate, the problem with this approach is mixed in this Trump religion are the Nazis, the sexists, the racists and the xenophobes. Those people should be, verbally, attacked for their archaic and dangerous beliefs. If there are other Trump worshippers scattered within these hate groups, they should distance themselves and maybe then we can do something that might be productive.
I do not negotiate with Nazis regardless of who they claim to worship.
Tim_N
2948
[quote=“Strollen, post:2946, topic:126885, full:true”]
You have to offer an alternative and sadly the alternative has to be easily understood and satisfy the underlying needs to explain why they are suffering.[/quote]
As much of a point as you and the economist author has it’s too simplified (haha).
Sanders offered these voters a view of the world that was just as simple: the rich are responsible. It had the virtue of being much closer to the truth than Trump’s simple explanation, and it also fits their religion very well if they actually gave it any thought as the NT is full of condemnations of the rich.
The reason why Sanders only had very limited success with poor whites who usually vote Republican is that these voters have already been conditioned over decades by the rich to turn their brain off (assuming it was on in the first place) when they hear an argument that isn’t from the far-right.
So, I don’t think all of the Trump blame falls on reality-rejection, but also the way that money works in American society and the way that rising inequality has simultaneously punished and enthralled the disenfranchised. The ultimate irony (I hope I am using that word right) in this republican primary is that the moneyed candidate (Jebbie) failed spectacularly and Trump relied mostly on free media to secure a win.
Just need to make sure he doesn’t get any new believers- win an election, and once you win , marginalize the hell out of those folks. I’d even support a maximum voting age if necessary.
BTW Sanders did great with poor Dem whites. That was his main base of support. We never really got to see how it would apply in a general, but plenty of Trump supporters (and vice versa) had Bernie as their 2nd choice.
I have no idea why any Dem would want to appeal to Trump voters. Dem’s need to reach the persuadables - primarily people who don’t vote. Redhats are going to stick with tRump regardless of what he does. (Look at propaganda films from Germany circa early '30s, or North Korea today, then compare those to tRump rallies - the vacuous stares of adoration are indiscernible.)
Anyway.
Exhibit A:
Moreno was sitting at a table with his boss, Rocky Payton, the factory’s general manager, and Amy Saum, the human resources manager. All said they had voted for Trump, and all were bewildered that he wanted to cut funds that channel people into good manufacturing jobs.
“There’s a lot of wasteful spending, so cut other places,” Moreno said.
Payton suggested that if the government wants to cut budgets, it should target “Obama phones” provided to low-income Americans. (In fact, the program predates President Barack Obama and is financed by telecom companies rather than by taxpayers.)
Exhibit B:
Conclusion:
Perhaps socialism never took hold in the United States is because workers believe themselves to be “temporarily embarrassed millionaires,” as a popular saying goes. There is certainly evidence of this. But another explanation is that, throughout history, divides within the working class have been more salient than divides between the working class and the rich. Race, gender, immigration status, and religious status have served as such wedges.
Right-wing movements are rising in places with radically different economic systems. From the laissez-faire United States, to the more government-dominated France, to England and the Nordic social democracies. The former Soviet Bloc members that were once seen as evidence of the power of the mixed-economy, such as Hungary and Poland, have seen a rise in right-wing parties. It doesn’t matter whether the middle class is shrinking or growing: India, the poster child for globalization, has also seen rising populist authoritarianism.
ShivaX
2952
Everything is great now that nothing has really changed.
Tim_N
2953
That graph is hilarious, and shows how prone human brains are to biases and brainwashing.
It is interesting, though, that the trend between 2011-2016 was the same for both Republicans and Democrats, which gives me some faith that not all of the people who identify with that party are lost causes. The drop from 70-34 between 2007-08 is also perfectly understandable.
It’s the 34 to 10 percent drop between 08-09 and the 31-61 increase in 16-17 which is most depressing.
While we all know why the red line dipped and then jumped, I find it fascinating that the blue line didn’t fall in 2017. Could if be Democrats are more likely to have faith in the infrastructure and resilience of society or perhaps less likely to believe that government leadership makes that big of a difference to the economy?
