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My 57th year starts concurrently with the term of President Trump? Should I be worried? Here is some news chum related to the subject:

• The Power of the President. There are some out there worried that Trump may attempt to abuse his power. But what power does the President have, in reality. Just ask President Obama. A Vox article reports that he didn’t realize how limited the Presidency was until he became President. The article notes that, on a great many issues, the president isn’t the policy-wonk-in-chief, he’s the coalition-builder-in-chief. And without a strong enough coalition, he can’t get his way. This is true on issue after issue — from gun control to the cap-and-trade bill to immigration reform. In terms of actually getting things done — and especially in terms of creating large shifts in policy — the path will be slow. Of course, there’s always Twitter, where Trump is a master of creating problems. Just ask Lockheed Martin.
• The Power of the Courts. There’s another roadblock in the way of Trump’s excesses: The court system. The LA Times has an interesting article on how the court system will serve to restrain Trump. Georgetown law professor David Cole, who in January will become the ACLU’s national legal director, said he is “optimistic the courts will stand up against abuses of power” in the Trump era, citing the courts’ moderating impact on “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks. For many executive orders, the courts have limited their application or applicability (even under Obama). Further, the courts tend to preserve constitutional rights once granted, and tend to hold with precedence.
• The Power of the Shul. One thing many people didn’t realize was that no matter who won the election, Clinton or Trump, there would be a Jewish In-Law in the White House. In this case, it is Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump — and the two of them are shul shopping. Once we get past the point that, no, this isn’t shoe shopping :-), there is a serious question. Many Jews supported Clinton; more overall than Trump. Can politics be left at the shul door? This is something I often face — we have many Trump conservatives in our Synagogue’s Men’s Club (in fact, we’ve had a similar political chain: I (a Clinton/Obama Liberal) termed out as MoTAS President, and my replacement is a strongly Conservative (who I think supports Trump). Yet we’re able to set aside politics and be friends. Will this be possible for Jared and Ivanka, and will their new spiritual leader be able to provide any influence to the new administration.
• The Power of 4Chan. On the other side of the potential limiting factors of the above is the rise of “4 Chan Politics”. 4Chan politics, according to TechCrunch, is the rise of the people “emboldened by the seeming anonymity of the Internet and the ability for things that happen there to have real-world consequences – that have hijacked national discourse. They are the hackers who sway elections, who break civil contracts, who leak pictures of us naked. They are the eggs and Tumblr-posters who call each other – and others – the worst of slurs. They are the ones who sit behind their keyboards and rail at the world or, worse, pull the strings to which they have access from their secret places. […] They are people who have been given a megaphone and prefer to burp and curse and shout into it rather than help. They are the ones who yell “Jump” to the man on the bridge because of his implied weakness.” Donald Trump is clearly a 4Chan politician, given his use of Twitter. The article is a really interesting read. It talks about how these folks threaten free speech — for when they are called on their idiocy, they tend to attack the “free speech warriors” with DDOS attacks and such.

Of course, one can ignore it all, stick one’s head in the sand, and wonder all day instead what your testicles do when you are just sitting there. You know you wanted to know.

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This is a rant that has been brewing for a couple of weeks, about some real annoyances, in the political realm, that I’ve been seeing on Facebook. And — before you go there — this isn’t necessarily about specific people.

Annoyance The First: Petitions

How often do you see posts shared along the lines of “Prosecute Trump for Some Egregious Activity — Sign the Petition”? I see them all the time. Well, I have news for people: Petitions — especially online petitions — are meaningless. Although many believe we have a democracy, we don’t. If we did, Hillary would be President, as just like Al Gore before her. We have a representative government. Further, at the Federal level, there are no initiatives, no petitions, nothing that can force the government to do anything. So stop it with the petitions already. They are a waste of effort, and not worth the paper they aren’t printed on.

Do you want to use your voice to effect change with the incoming government. Write a letter. Make a phone call. In particular, if you have a Republican representative, write (you know, with that thing called a pen) or call and let them know they need to push back against the more egregious behavior of the incoming President. There’s no problem with Republican appointments, but they should be the best and brightest Republicans, not Republicans loaded with conflicts of interest working against the interests of the majority of the people. Remind them of the upcoming elections in two years, and let them know that if Trump damages America, they will be blamed for not doing the constitutional job of Congress.

Annoyance the Second: “Bet They Didn’t Expect This”

I’m tired of seeing news articles citing some exaggerated story, and then going “bet they didn’t expect this.” Guess what. They don’t care. They are going to do whatever they think they need to do to get ahead, and the thing they didn’t expect — well, it probably won’t happen.

Don’t waste your time spreading sensationalized news and getting your hopes up. Things are not going to be suddenly overturned, electors are not going to meet and elect Hillary. This mess — which we created through flawed candidates, flawed campaigning, and false hope — isn’t going to be fixed easily. We’re going to be in for a very bumpy ride.

So what do you do about it? See what I said above. Write letters and call your congress and senate critters to insist they hold Trump to the same standards they insisted for Obama and Clinton. No conflicts of interest. No illegal activities. No skirting the law. No appointing unqualified people or shills for a particular position. Our standards should not change because we have a reality TV star as President. Insist that Congress do their job: ensuring the President governs for all the people and not himself, and that he is a shining example of how to do things right, not how to get away with wrong. Do this by sitting down with pen and paper, and especially write to Republican leadership. Emails and online petitions are meaningless.

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Going into this rant, I want to note that I was not, and am not, a Trump supporter. You know this if you read my election posts: I was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton. You should also know that I was on the net in days when we elected Bush 43. I remember the rants on Usenet; I particularly remember the reactions in the 2004 election over on Livejournal. Back then, I used to think it was fun to make fun of President Bush with all of our “village idiot” memes. The good old days, so to speak. Since then, however, I’ve gained a bit more wisdom and perspective.

Then I read Facebook before heading off to work, and got disgusted. So much so, that this rant formed on the drive in and insisted on being written.

I am not saying we should quietly lie on our backs, spread our legs, and get fucked by the new administration (how’s that for graphic). H0wever, I don’t believe that spreading false news stories helps. For example, Trump is only trying to get his son-in-law cleared for briefings, not his entire family. We (that is, progressives like me) complained when the Trump side was spreading false stories and believing anything they read on the net about Hillary. Why are we so quick to do the same about Trump? We need to keep our mantra as “verify, verify, verify”. Many of these stories about Trump are overblown exaggeration, often spread by excessively political media or false news sites. Know which sites are real and which sites are not.

Fellow progressives: spreading false stories on Facebook — or even the funny Biden/Obama memes — does nothing to combat Trump or help those who will be vulnerable when he takes office. Actions speak louder than memes, and we need to be doing, not sharing:

• Physically write, call, and/or email your Congressional representatives, and let them know that nominating unqualified individuals is unacceptable. If those individuals are subject to Congressional approval, they should be turned down. If not, they should be calling on Republican leadership to stress the harm employment such individuals could bring to the country, and to appropriately encourage the President-elect to select someone else.
• As for individuals such as Bannon: Much as I would like to say “Don’t hire him because of his views”, would we want a person’s political views or religious views to prevent them from being hired? If the shoe was on the other foot, probably not. For such individuals, we need to press our Congressional representatives to stress to such nominees that one’s personal views must be set aside when they are in Government service, and they must work in the interest of the Nation, in accordance with the constitution and its values of equality, fairness, and justice for all.  If they cannot do that — if they can’t separate the personal/religious from National responsibilities — they must be pressured to decline the position.
• We need to work to protect those most vulnerable, if we are in a position to do so. We need to let them know we have their backs — and then be there for them. We need to remind anyone harassing or threatening someone that Trump’s election has not changed the laws. Violence against others is not legal, nor is hate-oriented speech (except where constitutionally protected). We need to pressure our public service officials to enforce the law against *any* such speech/actions. We were doing this when we were battling for #BlackLivesMatter, so why should we stop now? Our law enforcement must be neutral in its enforcement: what is wrong is wrong, and having alt-right or equivalent views does not give one a pass, even with Trump’s election.
• We need to push to ensure the election results are correct. This does not mean pushing to have the electoral college follow the popular vote this election — that won’ t happen, and would create an even greater crisis if it did. However… we can press investigations of vote tampering, vote suppression, miscounts, etc. in those states where the election was closes and whose electoral votes are critical – WI, MN, PA, MI, NH, etc. While we can’t get the electors to follow popular vote, if we can discover sufficient fraud for a state to flip, that can make a difference. But there isn’t much time — this needs to be done before electors meet.
• We need to set an example. Protest is one thing. Vandalism during protest is something else. We should not let this turn us into thugs.

In short, instead of sharing false news and silly memes, we need to pressure Congress to do its job, and ensure the President-elect selects qualified advisors who are working in the interest of all the country, not their personal agendas. Given the lack of Government experience in our new leader, this is critical if we are all to survive, let alone succeed, in these times.

P.S.: Here’s a good article on how to really make a difference.

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Everyone is attempting to adjust to the results of this election differently. Those who have been marginalized for whatever reason — sex, color, orientation, etc. — are reacting in fear for what might happen with Trump (even though he is not yet in power, and won’t be in power until January). Those who have crawled out of the shadows and the gutters, emboldened by the man, have taken to harassing and abusing those marginalized (even though the laws have not changed, and likely will not change, making what they are doing illegal). Some, like me, who have been fortunate enough (dare I say privileged, which I do recognize) have been coping by hoping for rationality — believing (perhaps unrealistically) and hoping that the weight of the Presidency will change the campaign demagogue into a reasoned man concerned with his legacy, suitably constrained by our Constitution, the opposition Democrats, and our system.

We all have been taking to the streets and social media. Social media has done its job: amplifying the small fringe voices and actions so that they feel like a national groundswell; amplifying the resulting fears to make everyone more fearful; echoing those who have the same fear while hiding the reasoned voices on both sides. The reasoned people who supported Trump more to blow up the system rather than to support his behavior see only the riots and vandalism in response to his election, not the fear. Those who support Clinton only see the fear and the hate response. And it magnifies, like a mirror looking into a mirror, reflecting on and on forever deeply, even though we’re really only talking about perhaps a quarter-inch of glass.

And those who operate the social media — the Mark Zuckerbergs, the folks behind Twitter, etc. — where are they in all of this? Silent. They are silently allowing the echo chambers they created – and the algorithms they curated — to spread the fake news, to spread the parodies, to spread the words that amplify and isolate. They are not taking responsibility; they are not helping to heal. When we look back at this election, we’ll see much of the ultimate blame belongs with the Internet and Social Media for building up the hate and fear between both sides. For those us on the Clinton side, ask yourself: where would we be if Trump had been unable to tweet, but could only go through the news media, if we weren’t seeing the fear-mongering fake news on FB, if we weren’t seeing the parodies and believing them real. For the Trump supporters, the same question: how might your picture of Clinton differ without FB spreading the stories, and Wikileaks being enabled to spread overly sensationalized innuendo?

Those of us who were there in the founding days of the Internet: What have we wrought?

Shortly before the election, Vox ran an article about how the Internet is harming our democracy. I saved it planning to post and comment upon it the day after the election. The election occurred, and other reactions came first. But the article remained, and deserves to be heard. The article talks about the impact of fake news on the election; about how Facebook considers itself to be a technology company, not part of the media. Quoting from the article:

But that’s wrong. Facebook makes billions of editorial decisions every day. And often they are bad editorial decisions — steering people to sensational, one-sided, or just plain inaccurate stories. The fact that these decisions are being made by algorithms rather than human editors doesn’t make Facebook any less responsible for the harmful effect on its users and the broader society.

Further on, the article notes:

Facebook hasn’t told the public very much about how its algorithm works. But we know that one of the company’s top priorities for the news feed is “engagement.” The company tries to choose posts that people are likely to read, like, and share with their friends. Which, they hope, will induce people to return to the site over and over again.

This would be a reasonable way to do things if Facebook were just a way of finding your friends’ cutest baby pictures. But it’s more troubling as a way of choosing the news stories people read. Essentially, Facebook is using the same criteria as a supermarket tabloid: giving people the most attention-grabbing headlines without worrying about whether articles are fair, accurate, or important.

Post election, this algorithm is showing us the fear and the attacks because that is what our friends are sharing. It isn’t showing us the reasoned voices. It is isolating us, and not allowing us to confront the hate directly online. We’ve defriended the other side long ago. And so it magnifies. The following excerpt from the article points out why things feel so bad now:

This dynamic helps to explain why the 2016 election has taken on such an apocalyptic tone. Partisans on each side have been fed a steady diet of stories about the outrages perpetrated by the other side’s presidential candidate. Some of these stories are accurate. Others are exaggerated or wholly made up. But less sophisticated readers have no good way to tell the difference, and in the aggregate they’ve provided a distorted view of the election, convincing millions of voters on each side that the other candidate represents an existential threat to the Republic.

And now that that existential threat has been elected, look at the reaction. Facebook built that fear, folks. Facebook elected this man, folks. One in five people — that’s 20% — say that they changed their vote because of social media:

In a recent survey of 4,579 Americans, Pew found that most people who are exposed to political content across their social media feeds react negatively to it. Nearly 40 percent of respondents described themselves as “worn out” by political debates on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and 80 percent of respondents said that when they see political posts they disagree with, they usually choose to ignore them. Meanwhile, 40 percent reported blocking or filtering political content and/or fellow users who posted political content on their feeds; the vast majority said it was because they felt the content was “offensive.”

But that doesn’t mean said political content has no measurable effect on Election Day. In Pew’s study, 20 percent of respondents admitted that they had changed their minds about a political issue or candidate after seeing the issue or candidate discussed on social media.

Think now about all how all those stories about Hillary and her email server, about how Hillary was dishonest, changed minds about Hillary. I heard an NPR story last night about how Democrats were voting in large numbers for Trump because they didn’t trust Hillary. It was social media that built that distrust. It is also social media that permitted the White Power groups and other haters to be heard in much larger numbers than they actually are. Combine this with the fact that even a single percentage point difference in each state — one in one hundred shifting from Trump to Clinton — could have given the election to Clinton instead of Trump:

Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida flip back to Clinton, giving her a total of 307 electoral votes. And she’d have won the popular vote by 3 to 4 percentage points, right where the final national polls had the race and in line with Obama’s margin of victory in 2012.

NPR asks: Did Social Media ruin this election? They note:

This is our present political social life: We don’t just create political strife for ourselves; we seem to revel in it.

When we look back on the role that sites like Twitter, Facebook (and Instagram and Snapchat and all the others) have played in our national political discourse this election season, it would be easy to spend most of our time examining Donald Trump’s effect on these media, particularly Twitter. It’s been well-documented; Trump may very well have the most combative online presence of any candidate for president in modern history.

But underneath that glaring and obvious conclusion, there’s a deeper story about how the very DNA of social media platforms and the way people use them has trickled up through our political discourse and affected all of us, almost forcing us to wallow in the divisive waters of our online conversation. And it all may have helped make Election 2016 one of the most unbearable ever.

We need to realize the impact of social media on this election. We need to realize that the hate voices we are hearing are an overly magnified and emboldened fringe. We need to realize that our fear and loathing of the President-elect — and indeed, much of his behavior and excesses — have been magnified through social media. It will continue to magnify, until we make the decision to stop letting it do so.

We need to take action. We need to speak up for the majority, not amplify the fears and behaviors of the minority. Remember the following:

• Gay marriage has overwhelming support nationwide — 55 percent to 37 percent against.
• Legal abortion is favored by 56 percent, with 41 percent opposed.
• The vast majority of the population supports background checks for gun buyers — up to 90 percent in some polls.
• A majority of Americans support some kind of universal health care, 58 percent to 37 percent.
• 64 percent of Americans are worried about global warming. Only 36 percent are not.
• And — get this — Americans overwhelmingly agree that immigration helps the country more than it hurts, by a 59 percent to 33 percent margin.

Get away from the fear. Step away from the keyboard before you share that article about yet another hate attack. Use the amplifying power of Facebook not to share hate, but to share hope. Speak up and say: THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

It is not acceptable, because Trump campaigned so as to amplify hate, to take that hate out on others in society.

It is not acceptable, out of your fear of and in protest of Trump’s election, to vandalize and destroy.

It is not acceptable to lose faith in our American system, to believe that its checks and balances and restrictions will not serve to temper the behavior of our Chief Executive. It limited Obama, and it will limit Trump.

We are the best of America. We need to show it. We must remember the words of Franklin Roosevelt — the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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I’ve been seeing a number of my friends on Social Media seemingly panicking over the election results (not to mention the protests in the streets). Please folks, if President Obama, Secretary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren aren’t panicking, why should you? Please keep the following in mind:

• Mr. Trump does not take office until January. Until then, he is just a private citizen. He still has to testify in his upcoming fraud case, and he is not shielded from his legal problems. He still has to figure out how to address his conflicts of interest.
• All those wild messages you see about proposed cabinet officers and Supreme Court Justices. None of them have been ratified, and they have to get through the Senate, where the Democrats have the power of the filibuster. Sen. McConnell, Majority Leader, has indicated he does not want to get rid of the filibuster. This means that the Democrats have the power to keep unqualified candidates, and those too far to the side ideologically, out of office (just like the Republicans did with them).
• Trump cannot repeal Obamacare wholecloth immediately. He can do a partial repeal, but many regulations will remain in place.
• The Military does not support everything Trump says. In particular, they will follow the Constitution, not unlawful orders.
• Trump will be hamstrung by the nature of the Federal bureaucracy, and the ways the Congress works. He will discover — as Obama did — that the powers of the President are very limited.
• All the existing laws on the books at the Federal, State, and local levels regarding hate crimes have not instantly gone away. His followers who commit hate crimes can still be prosecuted.
• Trump does not have the full support of the Republican establishment. It is likely that in many areas they will not support his proposals, or will join with the Democrats to moderate them.
• Trump will be held to task by those who elected him. What do you think will happen in two years when he hasn’t been able to “blow up Washington” as he promised? Remember, other Presidents have promised the same thing, and have been unable to do so.
• Trump will also be held accountable by Congress. If he commits clear crimes or even somewhat crimes, the spectre of impeachment will be there. Moderate Republicans would be eager to do so, especially to get the more normative Pence into office. Further, Trump likes to win — and at this point, winning means going down in the history books as the greatest President. That won’t happen if he gets impeached or cannot get anything done. There is a high likelihood that the office, combined with the place he will leave in history, will change him.

I didn’t support Trump; I didn’t vote for him. However, he has been elected, and I respect the office of President even if I don’t like the man (a lesson I learned in the Bush years). I remember the transition from Clinton to Bush in 2000, and from Bush to Obama in 2008. It was peaceful, and we survived. Our nation is stronger than Trump, and we can survive at least two years. Now is the time to start finding those Democrats — future-Congresscritters and Senators — and getting them elected into office. Now is the time to elect Democrats to state offices and the Governorships so that when the redistricting happens, we can make fair districts. The pendulum will swing back. It always does. As they sing in Sweeny Todd: “Wait…”.

As for the people most in danger under Trump’s administration: That is the reason not to run away, not to give up. We must stay here and help them, and defend them. What the Government chooses not to do, we can. We can show the power of the people of America.

PS: Gene Spafford also shared this interesting “Don’t Panic” link. Here’s another on why you shouldn’t be worried.

PPS: Here’s an interesting link on how the checks and balances can prevent Trump from becoming a dictator.

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Reading my FB feed over lunch, I saw a post berating the left in various ways. I felt that a number of statements in that post were wrong … and thus, this post.

“In spite of poll after poll suggesting Bernie Sanders would do far better against Donald Trump, the DNC tilted its resources and will toward Hillary Clinton.”

This is an example of a canard I’ve seen time and time again, especially from the Trump camp who believe the DNC rigged it so they would go against Clinton, as opposed to Sanders. What this forgets is the fact that the bulk of the reason that Clinton received the D nomination was that she got more votes. While the strong progressive wing of the party is perhaps the loudest, they are not the only folks voting. There is a large centrist and moderate wing. Some of these folks were strongly Hillary; some were anti-Bernie because they felt his past Socialist connections could be a major problem in the general election. All the manipulations of the DNC were not things that would change the needle for most voters.

“White men overwhelmingly want Donald Trump to be the next president. ”

Not true. Not all white men. The surveys have shown that white college-educated men support Hillary. White non-college educated men tend to support Trump. In other words, those who have not been taught about the complications of politics and the need for critical thinking, and who have been hurt by the affirmative action and the loss of privilege — those are the ones who go for Trump.

“Hillary Clinton should have really, like really pivoted hard left, which means she needed to legitimately change to blow this evil motherfucker out. ”

Again, no. America may like talk of change, but they don’t like change. In particular, they don’t like radical change or change that occurs too fast. Bill Clinton was successful precisely because he played to the middle, and was able to build a coalition of centrist Democrats and Republicans. Hillary is trying to do the same thing — incorporating some ideas from the left, but working to build that coalition that draws in Republicans because that is essentially how you govern a country that embodies all constituencies. What happens when you play to the radical base to get elected, and then win. You get what we’ve had in the Republican party for the last 20 years.

“Left leaning white folks and MSNBC spent the last 8 years bemoaning what the right was doing wrong, instead of reckoning with the what the left failed to do for extremely vulnerable black and brown folk. ”

The United States is like an aircraft carrier. You can get it to change directions, but it is very slow to do so due to loads and loads of inertia and momentum. Many of us want to address the injustices in the world when we view the world through out social values glasses. But when we put on our pragmatist glasses, we know that if we do it too fast or before the bulk of the country is ready, it will be rejected. We’re seeing that in numerous areas. It has taken over 125 years just to start making the equality won in the Civil War a reality, and that still doesn’t address the issue of implicit privilege. Before we can get society to address the injustice, we have to work to get them all aware that the injustice (highlighted by things like #BlackLivesMatter) really exists.

In short, Hillary is far from the perfect candidate. In most other years, her actual lack of experience (a little over one term as Senator, one term as Secretary of State) might prevent her from succeeding against more experienced politicians. Luckily, for her, compared to Trump she has loads of experience. She brings loads of baggage — a small amount real, a large amount imagined into reality. Most Democrats would like someone not connected to the Clinton — it is not as if we don’t have qualified female governors and senators. But we have who we have. Further, as flawed as the Democratic primary process was, the Republican side was even worse for it resulted in the Donald.

Change is wanted — that is clear. But we often forget the big divide that is in this country — and it is not a black/white racial divide, but an urban / rural divide. If you look at how the states break down in their support of R vs D, you’ll see it is clearly rural vs. urban. Urban people are used to fast change, to seeing the racial divide, to pushing for racial justice, and social justice. They are used to the melting pot and do not fear it because they live it. Rural, other the other hand, live in a much more homogenous society. This society values hard work, pulling yourself up by your effort, and fears the stranger — especially the stranger who has not achieved through hard work. That alone should explain the rise of Trump, whose central campaign point has been battling the dangerous unspecified “other” who freeloads.

In the primaries, Presidential candidates can win by playing to the loyal bases. Democrats can focus on change in the cities, because they will outnumber the rural democrats voting. Similarly, Republicans can play to the rural votes and amplify their fear, for they will outnumber of urban Republicans (in many areas). But to win the Presidency, a candidate has to appeal to the entire country.  Sanders could not have done that. Consider all the antisemitism on the Republican side — and now imagine that instead of running against a Methodist, they were running against a New York Jew, who used to be a Socialist. Trump would have loved to run against Sanders.

The Conservatives, over many many years and many many investigations, have built a false picture of the Clintons as crooks and thieves — never mind that they actually didn’t do anything. Similarly, they have convinced the Conservative side that Trump’s wrongdoings were excusable because he was a businessman (and we know that is how businessmen behave), as opposed to a politician (who are supposed to be all sweetness and light and honesty).

By the way, this is why it is important to listen to your Conservative friend: you learn these things. Now that you know, you can counter them.

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When I started blogging/journalling back in 2004, we were in the midst of Kerry vs. Bush. Facebook was still pretty much restricted to college campuses, and the hot place to be was Livejournal. I don’t remember much political discussion online then. Certainly, we didn’t have the explosion of pundit and commentary sites, we didn’t have the heavy satire sites and such. We still got most of our news from less partisan sources (I won’t go so far as to say non-partisan) such as broadcast and print media. But there was still a heavy amount of criticism of George Bush, and all the memes about village idiots and such started circulating. I’m sure you could find all the icons from that era and you would see the large amount making fun of Bush (and I’m sure there were equal ones making fun of Kerry, but I didn’t see those).

By the 2008 election, Livejournal’s star was starting to fade and Facebook’s rise, but I still remember loads of political discussions on LJ. Many of my political icons come from that era — especially during the primaries where it was Obama vs. Clinton. In my admitted progressive circles, there was lots of criticism of John McCain (especially when he chose Sarah Palin). Online news sites and prediction sites were starting up, but I don’t remember the large number of partisan sites and pages.

With the 2012 election, the shift to FB had begun in earnest, and online journalism sites were rampant. This was the battle of Romney vs Obama (and Obama had no serious primary opposition). Memes — as in the stylized photos with the large bordered text — were beginning to circulate. Romney certainly made sufficient gaffes to feed them.

It is now 2016, and social media has become the influencer of elections, not the reporting outlet. Parody news sites are rampant, as are partisan meme generators. In fact, memes have been the source of news for many people, believing any text they see on a meme. It has gotten really really bad folks. People have turned off their critical thinking; they are sheeple, willing to do or think anything the Internet says. This becomes a vicious circle, and the echo chamber that FB is has increased the partisan nature of discourse.

Reading my FB feeds brought this all back to me. I see posts about the situation at Standing Rock, about people should post their location as Standing Rock to confuse the police. I see memes going around expressing political opinions, and loads of sharing from hyper-partisan, non-journalistic sites. As I’m up early due to a headache, seeing this leads me to post the following reminders:

1. Facebook is not the world. Police do not have the time to monitor everyone’s FB feed to determine who is where and who to arrest. Showing your location as someplace in solidarity with an action does not benefit those you are supporting. Similarly, liking or sharing positions pieces is only benefitting the “likes” of someone you don’t know. It is often a trick to entice you.
2. Just because text goes around on top of an image doesn’t make it true. Anyone can claim something is a quote or a statement, pop it on an image, and people will believe it. Don’t keep circulating those, no matter how enticing. Confirm (or double confirm) anything you read, focusing on confirmation from well-known broadcast and print media, and especially international and multiple sources.
3. Recognize satire sites. If it is from The Onion, Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker, or a number of other sites, it is likely not true. Very likely.
4. Recognize partisan sites. Many of the sites that pose as news these days — e.g., Occupy Democrats, Partisan Report, Red State Blue State — spread news in a hyperpartisan manner. Don’t repeat what they say, you only make it worse. This article has a good summary of such sites from the progressive side; On the conservative site, such sites include Breitbart News, Wall Street Journal (oh, how the mighty have fallen), NY Post, and I’m sure there are more. Again, always double or triple confirm what you read.
5. Remember that if you see it on the Internet, there is no guarantee that it is true. People can make up anything and easily make it look real. Confirm everything before you reshare or react.
6. Facts are non-partisan. Do not believe the innuendo regarding the fact checking sites. Snopes, FactCheck.org, and such are not partisan mouthpieces — they call out all sides for incorrect use of facts.

We have just about a week to go in this election. As you see all the mud being slung, ask yourself the following questions:

1. For those that like Trump, if his past and behavior were on the part of any other candidate, would you still support that candidate? For example, if it was a white, male Democrat such as Gary Hart, John Kerry, or Ted Kennedy, would you be calling for them to drop out of the race? Trump is not special; your hatred of Clinton should not blind you to the foibles of the man that disqualify him. Consider Bill Cosby: he’s had a lot of the same accusations and has fallen from grace; Trump has had similar accusations, and yet has grown in support. Double standard, anyone?
2. Similarly, if all the behaviors that make you hate Clinton were attributed to a Republican candidate, would you accept them? Would you be demanding the emails from George Bush, Mitt Romney, or John Cain? Would defunding embassy security have disqualified Bush for a second term? Recognize that the FB echo chamber has made this worse, and that your hatred is inflamed because she is Clinton, or because she is, well, “she”.
3. Are you reacting to manufactured news, or news slated so as to play to your biases and hatreds? If so, just say no. This is true from both sides.

Hopefully, this has given you something to think about, as we start the last week of the campaign.

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As I’m home sick today, I’d like to share some election related thoughts over lunch. In particular, I’d like to share some thoughts as to why Donald Trump’s stated position on abortion, as expressed during the final debate, should be yet another factor that causes you to vote against him and to vote for Secretary Clinton.

Going in, let’s have some stipulations:

Hillary Clinton is not “Pro-Abortion” — that is, she does not support the notion of removing a healthy, viable infant from their healthy, viable mother through anything other than the normal birth process or caesarean section in lieu thereof.

Hillary Clinton does not want you to compromise how you apply your religious beliefs to your body. In other words, if you do not believe in abortions, no one is going to make you have one.

In those stipulations above, however, are the reasons why you should support Clinton in this area and not Trump. In fact, they are the primary reasons why you should join what is called the “Pro-Choice” camp. Let me go over them, perhap in reverse order.

• I can completely understand if your religion tells you that abortion is wrong, and that you shouldn’t do it. How you practice your religion is up to you completely. Where the difficulty comes is when one religion attempts to use Federal law to force its religious values on others. I’m Jewish. There are groups in Judaism that insist on keeping Kosher. Would it be right for that group to insist that everyone in the country keep Kosher? No. In the same way, it is wrong to say that just because your religion thinks abortion is wrong, it needs to be prohibited at the Federal level.
• Further, a central teaching of Judaism and Christianity is that one commandment is not greater than another. It is equally wrong to eat bacon, mix linen and wool, or commit murder. Similarly, in Christianity. So unless you are going to impose complete religious law everywhere (and of course you see the problem with that), there is no point in banning abortion. Understanding this make clear what the real abortion fight is about: those in power (typically men) wanting control over women by dictating what they can do with their bodies. That’s appropriate for a farmer in a stable dealing with a pregnant cow that they own, not a man to a woman.
• There is the belief that if abortion is legal, everyone will be having one. That’s completely wrong. Legal does not mean “everyone do it”. It is legal to own guns, but everyone doesn’t own guns. For some, it is against their beliefs. Similarly, with abortion, people will follow their beliefs, and if their religion or other beliefs dictate to not have abortions, they won’t.
• Just as with guns, the issue is not banning them, but putting in reasonable restrictions. In this situation, there are primarily four, emboded in “healthy, viable infant” and “healthy, viable mother”. First and foremost, the courts have ruled that abortions, in general, can’t happen after a certain point — basically, when the fetus could live on its own outside the womb, independent of its mother. That’s the distinction between fetus and infant/baby, and why abortion is not killing babies. The second distinction is healthy. If giving birth to the child would endanger the life of the mother, abortion is generally permitted. Similarly, if the fetus is not healthy (i.e., exhibits significant abnormality or genetic deformity), abortion is permitted.
• Note that it is the “health” issue that is the “slippery slope”. Where does mental health come into play — a fetus that is the result of a violent rape can have significant mental health problems for the mother. Where does degree of disability of the fetus come into play — is it right to abort a fetus that clearly will have a mental or physical deformity that is not life threatening. The answer here is that it should not be the government’s place to decide this. This is a hard decision, and should be made with in consultation between the mother, her family, clergy (as appropriate), and medical professionals.
• But what, some say, about abortions of convenience. We all know those happen as well. But even in such cases, it is the mother’s decision to make, not the government’s. Such abortions will happen whether they are legal or not — changing the law will not change that. So is it better that they happen with medical supervision in a health-care environment so that both mother and child are not lost.
• Nothing related to permitting abortion makes adoption less emphasized; adoption should always be encouraged as an option if the mother is willing. Similarly, increase availability of birth control can reduce the need for abortions.

During the most recent debate, Donald Trump indicated he wanted the Federal government to not have abortion as a right by overturning Roe v. Wade. This would put the decision back in the hands of the states, and it would be equally wrong for states to impose a religion-based law. It must be legal at the Federal level (which is Hillary Clinton’s position), and left to the individual mother to decide. If you are religiously opposed to abortion, look at how Hillary’s running mate, Tim Kaine, is addressing the issue:

Kaine, a Roman Catholic who worked as a missionary in Honduras reiterated his personal opposition to abortion, but maintained the practice should not be outlawed.

When asked if he’d like to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe the Governor answered, “I don’t think the Supreme Court should.” He continued, “Roe vs. Wade is ultimately about saying that there is a realm of personal liberty for people to make this decision.”

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First and foremost, the most important election reminder: Get out and Vote. This election is critical — not only at the top of the race, but in the down-ticket races, and the measures and propositions in your area. You allow someone else to control your life if you don’t vote. Soldiers and many others have given their lives so that you can exercise the privilege. If you haven’t registered yet or are unsure, and you’re in LA County, visit the County Registration Page. Elsewhere in California? Visit here. Some other state? Visit here.

Are you a Trump supporter? I urge you to reconsider: the man has not the experience or the demeanor. But, you say, Hillary is a crook — just look at all the email issues and Benghazi. Those are just a canard, and reflect misunderstanding about how email work in that part of government. Consider this: If you are considering Trump innocent of all the accusations of sexual improprieties because nothing has been proven in court and there is no conviction, you must apply the same rule to Clinton: she has never been convicted in a court of law, and is thus innocent until proven guilty. If Clinton is guilty, then Trump is a sexual predator, antisemite, and racist. You can’t have it both ways.  Oh, and if you think what Trump did is no worse than Clinton did, think again.

But, you say, abortion. Try again.

But, you say, you don’t understand the concerns of the Trump voters. Actually, I do.

But, you say, I read such and such on social media. Hint: It likely wasn’t true, wasn’t the whole story, or was sensationalized.

But, you say, … I say set aside all the character claims, and on experience, demeanor, understanding of government, and positions, she wins hands down.

But, you say, she shafted Bernie Sanders, and he should have been the candidate. Trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to see that.

Next, if you haven’t seen it, here are the links to my ballot analysis:

• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: Summary (6/5)
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: Reconsidering Two Judge Races
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: L.A. City, County, & District Measures (5/5)
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: Prop. 60 through 67 (4/5)
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: Prop. 51 through 59 (3/5)
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: The Down-Ticket Races (2/5)
• Decision 2016 Ballot Analysis: Top of the Ticket (1/5)

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As the sun goes down today, Yom Kippur comes to an end. Yom Kippur is a day to atone for what you have done wrong in the previous year, and to commit yourself to make an honest attempt to do better next year. If Donald Trump wins, I know I will regret that I didn’t do enough to convince you, so let’s plow through some saved articles about The Donald. In the spirit of the day, these articles explore what might be good for us Jews in this election.

We all know that the Donald has a long long history of sexism and racism and corruption. It is not just isolated incidents (as we have seen from his opponent), but a continual pattern from when he was young to the present day. No indications of repentence, no indications of tshuvah. But what about the Jewish question? Let’s explore that for a bit.

For those of us in Progressive Judaism (i.e., Reform, Reconstructionist, and to some extent Conservative), Donald Trump is anathema to us. He goes against our ideas of social justice, and his solutions for Israel will increase conflict in the region. But for many Orthodox Jews (and a small number of Progressive Jews), Trump is their man. The estimates vary—one Orthodox source consulted for the story just linked says that he expects Trump to win 70 precent of the vote in the Brooklyn orthodox stronghold of Borough Park, while another doubts that the Republican will get more than a third of the Orthodox vote, an estimate roughly in line with the Yeshiva University student poll—but a significant percentage of the Orthodox are still going to vote for him. Why? One rabbi said (according to the story linked) that the Republican candidate is a needed corrective to contemporary liberalism’s vision of “a world without any beauty and any pride and any happiness.” Trump, in his view, is “fighting a battle that we have felt for a long time,” namely the conflict between traditional Jewish life and the spiritual emptiness, and perhaps the inevitable meaninglessness, of the world that he believes the modern-day, Clinton-supporting left envisions. Many support him because of his strong, one-state, pro-Israel stance.

But it’s not a given. An opinion piece in the Forward makes the case that Orthodox Jews should support Hillary. Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Genack notes that, “For the Orthodox community, it comes down to one issue: Israel. And on that issue, during Israel’s most difficult times, Bill and Hillary Clinton were there.” It’s not only Clinton’s personal concern for Israel that makes her the right choice, Genack says, but also her view of America’s place in the world. “What Israel needs more than anything else is a strong America, respected in the world, that protects Israel’s interests — an America engaged in the world. That’s what Hillary represents,” he said. “An isolationist America, which is what Trump advocates — hiding behind a wall, dismantling 70-year-old alliances like NATO — for the Jewish people, that, historically, leads to disaster, just like it did in the 1930s.”

Like the 1930s. What would a Trump win be like for Jews in America? The campaign is giving us a taste — it is awakening millennials to the extent of antisemitism in America. Most millennials have grown up during an unprecedented era of prosperity and assimilation for Jews in America, one in which the struggles endured by an earlier generation is understood as something closer to historical lore than present fact. The early months of 2016 brought in a strange tide of online hate speech aimed largely at Jewish journalists who had published articles critical of Trump or his campaign, with all the old ugly epithets on display. Then in July Trump’s Twitter account posted an image of a six-pointed star next to a picture of Hillary Clinton, with a pile of money in the background. Though he deleted the tweet, afterward Trump walked up to a brightly lit podium and defended the image, bellowing that the Jewish star was not a Jewish star. A dim reality descended on American Jews. Yes: Trump had broadcast the message of a neo-Nazi without apology. In September, the ex-wife of Trump’s campaign manager, Steve Bannon, said that Bannon had kept his daughters out of a school because he there were too many “whiny” Jewish brats there; the candidate’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., retweeted someone described as the neo-Nazis’ “favorite academic”; and a Trump advisor was accused of discriminating against Jewish employees (and denying the Holocaust).

It is unclear if Trump himself is antisemitic. But, as this shows, some of his campaign staff is, and some of his followers certainly are. An opinion piece in Ha-aretz relates what is going on. It is a preimium article, but I found some of it reposted. It noted that attacks from his supports began in earnest early in the year, following the February South Carolina primary, when reporter Bethany Mandel was attacked as a “slimy Jewess” and was told she deserved “the oven” for writing about Trump’s relatively large number of antisemitic supporters. The attacks only grew in intensity, scope, and, if alt-right sites are to be believed, in organization of harassment. In April, prominent feature writer Julia Ioffe published a profile of Melania Trump in GQ. Ioffe, who is Jewish, was barraged with death threats and crank callers, one of whom played recorded speeches of Hitler on her phone line, another who told her that her face would look good on a lampshade.

The problem is that white supremacists and American Neo-Nazis and Klansmen and the technology-borne alt-right hear in Trump’s dog-whistles, in his retweets of their filth, and in his belated, disingenuous, or nonexistent disavowals, the sound of a common cause, and a golden opportunity. “Dog Whistles” are code phrases not heard by most people, but signals to various consitiuencies. Want an example? Look no further than the latest debate, and the repeated mentions of “Sydney Blumenthal” — which is a signal about Jews controlling the administration. Two weeks ago, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a piece titled “In Poland, a preview of what Trump could do to America.” The Breitbart news site – whose on-leave executive chairman is Trump Campaign Chairman Stephen Bannon – then ran an article which said of Applebaum that “hell hath no fury like a Polish, Jewish, American elitist scorned.”  Jew-hating Trump supporters have reserved some of the most toxic of their venom for staunch Republicans and conservatives who happen to be Jewish. They’ve even coined an obscenity just for them: Kikeservatives.

Then again, there is Trump’s relationship with David Duke. In a robocall, the former KKK grand wizard said he and Trump come as a pair in the 2016 elections.

Trump may not be antisemitic. I’m sure that some of his best friends are Jews; his son-in-law certainly is. But he permits and does not denounce antisemitism in his staff and followers. His solution for Israel is not practical, and his solutions for the US will not ensure a strong US is there to defend Israel. Lastly, his plans will not bring the forms of social justice that are a hallmark of Judaism.

ETA: Alas, I must add the following: The day after I posted this, the following appeared on my FB feeds: “Trump just gave an anti-Semitic speech ‘dripping with hatred’ — and the Internet is horrified“. The article, from Raw Story (so I need to confirm), talks about another “dog whistle” from Trump, when in a speech in Palm Beach FL he lashed out at global elites who undermine American sovereignty through “international banks”. He accused Clinton of being “the vessel (of) a corrupt global establishment that’s raiding our country and surrendering the sovereignty of our nation.” The article noted how many Internet readers of the speech felt it had antisemitic undertones. Here’s the transcript of the speech. Here’s one quote: “This election will determine whether we are a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy, but are in fact controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system, and our system is rigged. This is reality, you know it, they know it, I know it, and pretty much the whole world knows it. The establishment and their media enablers will control over this nation through means that are very well known. ” «Global special interests» strikes me as a dog-whistle for the Jewish conspiracy, a common antisemitic trope. Here’s yet another dog-whistle: “Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depths of their immorality is absolutely unlimited.” This plays to the antisemitic trope about Jewish bankers and Jewish control of the media. Yes, he is not explicit about it, but I think the signals are there. Additionally, he’s telling people they can’t trust the media — I’ve written about the problems of that before. He says: “Let’s be clear on one thing, the corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with a total political agenda, and the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves.” Translation: Ignore the media, listen to me and me alone, for only I tell the truth. Think of who else said that, and we should be afraid — and make sure we go out and vote.

P.S.: I’m not saying Trump is all bad. After all, he has done something no one else has been able to do: He has brought the country’s leading Republicans (many of them, at least) and Democrats together, because they have finally found something they can agree upon: They can’t abide Donald Trump. There’s Paul Ryan, of course, and John McCain, and a host of other high-ranking Republicans in Congress. Barack Obama has been anti-Trump from the outset, and is now actively working to persuade Republicans to abandon him. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is on board, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), as is much of the right-wing commentariat, among them Erick Erickson and Glenn Beck. There are Republican lions, like George H.W. Bush and Democratic lions, like Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. In short, though he presumably did not mean to do so, Trump has built a remarkable coalition. The reason for this, of course, is that for all of their disagreements, all of these individuals have much in common. They all respect the rule of law, and appropriate limits on government power. They lament sexual violence against women. They also recognize that part of the social contract on which a democracy is founded is abiding by the outcomes of elections, even if those outcomes are disagreeable. In fact, on Tuesday, numerous Republican leaders told Donald Trump and his acolytes in no uncertain terms to stop their talk of a “rigged” election.

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