Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Your Brain on Trump: Who ARE those supporters behind him at the rallies?

I have wondered about all those people behind Trump at his boost-the-ego "rallies" who rousingly cheer him with flag-waving "patriotic" gusto. What are they thinking?  What do they see in him that I don't see?  Why are they so eagerly willing to follow this diabolical Pied Piper into the hell realms of hatred, bigotry and war?  The following essay makes some thoughtful non-judgmental points about these Trump true believers. 

This Is Your Brain On Trump


  
by Marty Kaplan | August 30, 2017 

Do you ever find yourself wondering what the story is with those thrilled faces behind Donald Trump at his rallies?

Unlike us, they're not spies in a house of horrors.

That sea of Make America Great Again hats doesn't give them the creeps. When Trump cues them, as he did in Phoenix on Aug. 22, to jeer John McCain, no ambivalence about belittling a war hero battling brain cancer tempers their contempt. When Trump whines and whinges about the coverage his Charlottesville rant got, they realize, and don't care, that he's rewriting what he said — they heard him confer moral equivalence on neo-Nazis and anti-Nazis. But his act entertains them, and their complicity in his edits adds a perverse pleasure to the press hatred he rouses in them.

Who are these people?

They can't all be the 9% of Americans who believe that holding white supremacist or neo-Nazi views is acceptable.

But there's a decent chance they're among the 62 percent of Trump voters who think millions of illegal votes won Hillary Clinton the popular vote; the 54 percent of his voters who say the most oppressed religious group in America is Christian; the 52 percent who believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya; the 46 percent who believe Clinton ran a satanic child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor; the 45 percent who say the racial group facing the most discrimination in America is white people; and the 40 percent whose main source of news is Fox News.

I get that Trump's base feels marginalized, left behind by a minimum-wage economy, powerless to control their futures, dissed by urban elites. I know why they're fed up with partisan gridlock (I am, too); I see why they'd favor a business brand over a political name as president. They're disgusted by the corruption in Washington (ditto); no wonder they're drawn to a bull who'd break some china and a bully who'd break some heads.

But after seven months of lying, sleaziness, impulsiveness, laziness, vengeance, arrogance, ineptness, ignorance, nepotism, self-love and Putin love, how can three out of four Republican voters still be sticking with him? How come those faces I see on TV don't see the nightmare I see? (I don't mean that bizarre "Blacks for Trump" guy; I mean the rest of them.)

That's what I'm wrestling with. Here's what I got:

It's not because they're stupid. It's because they're human. It's not because they're so different from me. It's because they're so much like me.

But here's what makes that hard to swallow: I can't muster the humility to believe we're both wrong, and I can't summon the relativism to believe we're both right. But believing that I'm right and they're wrong, as I do, gets me laughably crosswise with everything I know about human cognition.

Homo sapiens have refined a method of study and understanding — science — that's reaped powerful knowledge about the world. But the more we've used science to study ourselves, to probe the neurobiology of how we think and what we feel, the more inescapable it's become that "rational" is too flattering a term to describe what makes humans tick, even when we're at our best.

It's not pretty to admit, but no matter how practiced we are at critical thinking, how hip we are to the social construction of reality, how savvy we are about manipulation and framing, we still conflate what we want to be true with what actually is true. Our minds unconsciously invent retroactive rationales — we reverse-engineer justifications — for what our bodies already have made us think, say and do. What we call reason turns out to be a byproduct of our addiction to feel-good chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.

Human cognition is a captive of confirmation bias: We seek out and believe information that reinforces what people like us already believe. Confronted by evidence that contradicts what we think, we double down; confronted by chance, we confect necessity. Instead of changing our minds, we tell ourselves stories and cling fast to our tribal identities. A universe that's run by luck is terrifying, but a good narrative imposes causality on randomness, finds patterns in chaos and purpose in lives. Our hunger for knowledge isn't as strong as our yearning to belong, to defeat fear and loneliness with affiliation and family. We may call the baskets into which we sort facts "true" and "false," but at bottom they're euphemisms for "us" and "other."

And yet my awareness of the limitations of logic, my appreciation for the ways human hardwiring privileges feelings over facts — they don't inoculate me from maintaining that Trump is objectively unfit for office. I can't let neuroscience discount my claim to truth-value: I don't think calling Trump a liar illustrates confirmation bias at work. The reason the people I see at Trump rallies on my TV screen believe the psychopath at the podium is telling the truth may well be their membership in Tribe Trump. That explanation may nudge my empathy for them upward, but it doesn't dampen my conviction that I'm right and they're wrong, and it doesn't make their belief in the falsehoods he spews any less scary.

Science may be humbling, but humility doesn't make me feel like a dope when I call out dopiness when I see it.

This is a crosspost of my column in the Jewish Journal, where you can reach me if you'd like at martyk@jewishjournal.com.
_______

ABOUT AUTHORMartin Kaplan, research professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, holds the Norman Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media and Society. He has been a White House speechwriter; a Washington journalist; a deputy presidential campaign manager; a Disney studio executive; a motion picture and television producer and screenwriter; and a radio host.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A treat for today: A Simple Song of Freedom

Beautiful song written by Bobby Darin -- so very applicable to today's crazy world of Trump and Kim Jong Un.  In the movie "Beyond the Sea" about Darrin's life, Kevin Spacey played Darrin and sang all the songs himself. I think his voice is every bit as good as Darrin's. Kevin Spacey could have been a singer without ever acting at all, but he is a great actor as well as being able to belt out a song in a voice that touches the heart.  See what you think when you listen to both singers.  I've included the lyrics for you to sing along with. We all need to be singing songs like this and marching in the streets to let all governments across the world know -- We the people here, don't want a war!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pYwEKww5qw   Kevin Spacey singing Simple Song of Freedom (scene from movie)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1ohsissjE          Bobby Darin singing Simple Song of Freedom

Lyrics

Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war.
Hey, there, mister black man, can you hear me? 
I don't want your diamonds or your game
I just want to be someone known to you as me
And I will bet my life you want the same.
Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war. 
Seven hundred million are ya list'nin'?
Most of what you read is made of lies
But, speakin' one to one ain't it everybody's sun
To wake to in the mornin' when we rise?
Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war. 
Brother Solzhenitsyn, are you busy?
If not, won't you drop this friend a line
Tell me if the man who is plowin' up your land
Has got the war machine upon his mind?
Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before 
Let it fill the air
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war. 
Now, no doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle
Like presidents, prime ministers and kings
So, let's all build them shelves 
Where they can fight among themselves
Leave the people be who love to sing.
Come and sing a simple song of freedom
Sing it like you've never sung before
Let it fill the air 
Tell the people everywhere
We, the people here, don't want a war. 
I say … let it fill the air … 
Tellin' people everywhere … 
We, the people here, don't want a war.


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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Important news: "Unacknowledged" film is now on Netflix WORLDWIDE !


 I would advise everyone to see this film...it could change the way you see Everything.  It can be helpful to know more about the world and how it really works. When there are lights that can be turned on, it's best not to remain in the dark, don't you think?

'UNACKNOWLEDGED ' ON NETFLIX WORLDWIDE !   Tell everyone !



"Unacknowledged" is now available on Netflix worldwide!
 
STAR- Unacknowledged, LLC is thrilled to announce this historic deal with Netflix which reaches over 108 million subscribers thru the streaming service. Dr. Greer and The Orchard worked closely with Netflix to bring Unacknowledged to a wider audience and disclose the shocking issues around UFO secrecy. If you're a subscriber on Netflix you can now access the film in all countries with subtitles.
 
In celebration of the Netflix release, we're also revealing a new sneak peek from the movie!

From
From "Unacknowledged" - NOW on NETFLIX worldwide !
 
"Unacknowledged" focuses on the historic files of the Disclosure Project and how UFO secrecy has been ruthlessly enforced-and why. The best evidence for extraterrestrial contact, dating back decades, is presented with direct top-secret witness testimony, documents and UFO footage, 80% of which has never been revealed anywhere else. The behind-the-scenes research and high-level meetings convened by Dr. Steven Greer will expose the degree of illegal, covert operations at the core of UFO secrecy. From briefings with the CIA Director, top Pentagon Generals and Admirals, to the briefing of President Obama via senior advisor John Podesta, chairman of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, we take the viewer behind the veil of secrecy and into the corridors of real power where the UFO secrets reside. The viewer will learn that a silent coup d'état has occurred dating back to the 1950s and that the Congress, the President and other world leaders have been sidelined by criminal elements within the military-industrial-financial complex.
 


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Monday, August 21, 2017

Trump stares into solar eclipse without glasses, despite pleading warnings from aides

Well, of course he did. Nobody's gonna' tell him what he can and cannot do!  The idiot may soon be physically blind as well as mentally.  How will he read the Twitter feed and watch Fox for his news from now on? 

'Finally setting up a blind trust': Internet loses it after Trump stares directly into the eclipse

President Donald Trump on Monday disobeyed pleas from his aides and stared directly into a solar eclipse without wearing any protective glasses.
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Secret Service at "end of their rope" from being treated like servants by Trump

This is not unexpected. It is the way Trump treats everyone.

Secret Service 'at the end of their rope' after being 'treated like servants by Trump': report

President Donald Trump's lavish travel habits are putting a major financial strain on the Secret Service — and Center for Public Integrity reporter Christina Wilkie says that the president himself is a major source of stress as well.
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Sunday, August 20, 2017

I hope this will work. (~.~) Dear God, give us a sign if you want us to impeach Trump...

Maybe if we pray hard enough, we could make it happen tomorrow...

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