Manipulating public thinking

In the early 1990s, arguably *the* quintessential American store, based in Arkansas was humming along with its tag line that everything they sold was made in America!

They were proud of that fact, and ran ad campaigns touting it. And the patriots who like to wrap themselves up in the flag ate it up. Murica and all.

Then came an economic downturn and an interest in a more global economy. So Wal-Mart made a business decision, and started sourcing products from China. And they re-tagged themselves with the new moniker "always the low prices."

There's a book that came out in 2006 called "the Wal-Mart effect" which talks about the nature of the company, and decisions that they made at the time to evolve into the new brand with low prices. Surely some of it was good and some of it wasn't, but it's interesting reading.

Anyway, back to the story. So they made this fundamental shift. Not made in America, but rather low prices.

And their fans, the ones who were all about American made, simply changed their thinking. Wal-Mart was masterful at marketing themselves and telling people how they could save them money.

The sheeple had very subtly had their thinking changed. Wal-Mart was still the American store. But it turns out it really didn't matter that products were American made.

It's amazing that they managed to make this happen through tv and print ads, and in store, without social media.

...and here's where this comes back to today. You could view the social media campaigns to laud or denigrate any thing the same way. Whether it's an elected official or a store, people can be easily manipulated by playing to their base thinking. Specifically "make America great again" was designed to get the same ensconce-yourself-in-the-flag folks to have a response at a base level. One they will cling to .. it seems like always.

By the way, Wal-Mart is trying to shift back to made in America but they're finding that harder. Costs are higher and it turns out people really do want to pay less.

Sacrifice.

January 20, 1961. John F Kennedy is sworn in as president. He gives his inaugural address and closes with:

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country."

"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

That is a call to civic action. To betterment of our country. To really and truly making America great by being a part of something. Of sacrificing. 

And flash forward to 2016. The nincompotus starts selling a bill of goods of making America great and protecting "our way of life".  It's in no way the same. In fact it's the opposite. 

We've become soft in many ways, watch too much reality tv, and aren't really asked to sacrifice *that* much.

It's easy to "support our troops" or wrap ourselves in the flag. Hold guns and say Murica! Or chant "USA"

There's no real sacrifice there. Send our troops somewhere and mourn those that are killed and talk about the enemy and how we'll get them!

When there's a killing spree domestically, it's a tragedy and we send those "thoughts and prayers" but don't take action because that somehow would impact our way of life.

So here we are faced with an unseen virus and we're asking for actual sacrifice. Stay home. Wear a mask. That undercuts everything that the MAGA movement stands for. We can't wrap ourselves in the flag. So the enemy becomes anyone who tries to enforce those rules.

And you hear Patrick Henry bandied about. They're willing to take a risk and take actual death (that could be avoided) for the sake of "liberty"

Because they were sold the idea that we can overcome anything through superior fire power and a belief in god.

If we had an actual leader, maybe s/he could help make the message clearer. But this guy just fans the flames for sadistic fun - and profit. 

Oh how I miss Obama, or jfk who tried to make the world a little better. Heck I even miss W, who led through a difficult period in the best way he could. The key is that he tried to lead. 

Watch jfks speech. It's inspiring even today.

Short. Sweet. To the point. That's the beauty Dave's iPhone.

Disney and the pandemic.

The idiot-in-Chief bungled his way through this crisis. I mean, he showed his true colors, as only caring about himself. 100k dead. Whatever, "I take no responsibility."

Look I could sit here and talk about that all day. But, on a deeper level, he created downstream issues that don't get enough press.

I'm a fan of Disney world. I enjoy going there as a way to escape reality for a few hours. It's "the bubble" and it's easy to put your troubles behind you.

When the virus first arrived, we knew it would affect travel and the theme parks. But the question was how much. They did what was reasonable, but looked for guidance from the state (or states, because Disneyland should be mentioned too) and from the federal government.

The feds could have, and *should* have been trying to understand the way this was spreading, using whatever tools other countries were using and building on that. The feds should have stepped out in front to try and actually deal with the pandemic threat rather than throwing up their hands, and passing along responsibility.

Supposing they had started screening at airports, cruise terminals, and directing states for how to test at large gatherings.

Disney surely would have followed and maybe we would have a better ideas for what to do - and, more importantly, maybe we would have innovated and found more efficient means to quickly test in gathering spots.

So disney world closed and it wasn't clear if this was going to be for a week or a month.

It's been 2. And the feds still don't have a plan. There's no thought for how to proceed and keep people safe. It's more of a "hey just reopen. What's the worst that can happen?"

And so private organizations, foundations, and companies are going to need to step into this void and try and lead and innovate in some way.

How can disney world reopen and keep guests safe? Short answer: right now they can't. So we have to wait until they figure it out, or maybe until another one of those organizations steps up and innovates. Or until a new president steps in, in January, and we get some actual leadership and direction.

Someone "admonished me" on Twitter for being more political and less about the escape of Disney.

I don't see how at this point you can separate the two. Politics (and abject stupidity) has led us here. Disneys magic is lost for now among a sea of jobless claims and a string of deaths that have nothing to do with them directly. Even if they found a way to open, who knows how many travel there? And what would the experience be like? And would those people follow the rules?

But because there's no real path for them to reopen safely, no guidance on what to do, this is ultimately on the feds and their inaction.

So, yeah, I can't talk about Disney without talking about politics. Sorry random stupid person (psych! I’m not sorry)

100,000 dead and...yawn.

I had this random thought. Back in 2001, there was this moment that we rallied around. On 9/11 planes were flown into the World Trade Center buildings, taking them down.

It's a (mostly) unexpected terror attack.
We show empathy for New York, and we
unite as a country.

I distinctly remember one ad campaign. "They thought they could divide us, they were wrong."

We had an enemy who we could identify (they were essentially boiled down to "Muslims who wanted to change our way of life") and it wasn't clear where, when, or if they might strike again.

But here's the thing. We allowed some of our constitutional rights to be subverted. We allowed big brother to watch us. New banking rules. New security rules. Hell we were okay with a version of a strip searches at airports.

Sure it was probably (mostly) warranted. And arguably necessary.

But on that day 6,000 people died. Not to use their memory in a bad way - this was indeed a tragedy - but put that in perspective with what's happening today.

100,000 have died because of a virus. That's nearly 20x the number that died on 9/11.

Again New York suffers the most, but in this case we hear people deriding New York. It's too..whatever and we can't be bothered to care or help them.

And instead of uniting, we're fighting with each other. There's no enemy per se. We buy toilet paper and carry guns into legislative buildings to protest....Something.

We tell people to stay at home. To wear a mask. To social distance to stop the spread. And what we hear is "No you're infringing!"

Dear leader is inept and clueless. He wants this to just be over and wish it away. He blames everyone he can think of. He starts talking up the military because that's going to protect us against a virus I assume?

And people want to just back to "life as we knew it" and I don't think we will be able to. There's another evolutionary step we'll take. More security. More screenings. More things that change "our way of life."

And I think I finally understand why this is a problem. When there's a world issue we release our military on it. We chant "USA" and "support our troops"...there's an enemy. And we have to protect our way of life. That idea of American exceptionalism or the ideal.

And in this case, our military can't be utilized. It's an unseen enemy. There is no exceptionalism in play. And what we're asking a nation to do is *actually* sacrifice for the way of life. And that MAGA ideal that the "incompetent, sociopathic, impeached president" has been touting may be lost, especially the "great."

That's simple unacceptable. We need to just go back to living the way we living and supporting our troops and deriding immigrants.

And the sacrifice becomes more about just letting the virus run through us. Better to embody (stupidly) Patrick Henry's immortal words "give me liberty or give me death" quite literally - than to find ways to fight it.

Sports in bizarro world

I woke up this morning and turned on a broadcast of the only live sports currently on: Korean baseball.

It's bizarre for so many reasons....it's sports like, and it's baseball, but it's in Korea so you can't read players names (not that you would know them anyway). There are no fans in the stands. Its quiet. Umps are wearing masks, as are any non-players. It's 6am. The announcers aren't at the game - they're in their own houses, so there are oddities in the way they interact with each other and the game itself.

How they handle it (being a country that in the whole takes the virus seriously): they check temperatures regularly, and test whenever there are symptoms reported or observed or if temperatures are high.

And yes, boog (at one point he was a marlins broadcaster) is one of the announcers, and he made a marlins joke about teams playing in front of empty stands.

Snoop Dogg listening to “Let it Go”

This makes me oddly happy. 

Wartime presidents

The term "wartime president" didn't really come up until WWII, when FDR rallied a nation, set about fighting an actual war, with an actual enemy, to produce ships, planes, equipment, and more. He acted in a way that would support the growing war effort.

So there is no clear definition for the term. However, it's been applied at times to presidents who rallied a nation to fight a common enemy. 

Each had the courage to take personal responsibility for their actions – and, equally courageous, for their inaction. The courage to admit error and learn from it.  

As I noted earlier the term was coined under FDR, and somewhat became a thing because of what Winston Churchill did in England in 1940. In short, he saw Germany as an aggressor and boosted production of aircraft, taking a risk in rallying a nation. He said of this: "To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour."

Roosevelt a short time later, likewise rallied our nation to achieve greater things. And this is how he became the war time president. He harnessed the power and prestige of the federal government to mobilize the national effort.

First he saw the threat. 

And the second thing he did was financial. He managed to get appropriations to support the effort.  

After that, he directed companies to produce ships, equipment, aircraft, and equipment.

And he did this *before* Germany invaded France, because he saw the threat mounting and acted decisively to counter it.  

FDR was well aware of the risks. And he proceeded in spite of them. He didn't shrink, rather he got bolder. There were many who preferred that America ignore foreign conflicts. Amusingly one was called "the America First Committee" which sounds like something trump might have made a slogan. 

Roosevelt said of them:  "Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead—danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot escape danger, or the fear of it, by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads."

And I should note that the other president who you could say presided over a war in that sense was Lincoln.

It might very well be the most apt parallel to today. The nation was divided over something that seems almost silly. And as it happened, the Union sustained a long string of battlefield defeats in the first years of the Civil War. But Lincoln did not blame these losses on the generals, the Union governors or anyone else. Instead he made the hard and unpopular decision to pursue the war – fully expecting that it would cost him his reelection. 

Because it was in the best interests of ultimately uniting a nation. 

So trump thinks this will help him with re-election, even though he has done exactly the opposite of what FDR or Lincoln did. 

Trump punted on responsibility for preparation and said early on that "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China" and later doubled down saying "It's going to disappear. One day—it's like a miracle—it will disappear."

And then when it did spread here, he had the audacity to say, "I don't take responsibility at all."

And as for the decisions Roosevelt made in gearing up production, trump didn’t and then said this  "We're a backup. We're not an ordering clerk. We're a backup." Trump essentially told states to procure materials on their own, saying the federal government is "not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we're not a shipping clerk."

If you look at what it takes to be successful, it's four things. Let’s look at those and see how trump did. (1) accountability. He gave us the middle finger. (2) financial. He never asked for funds to do anything. (3) working at defeating an enemy.  There isn't one. If you say it's the virus then what is he doing to try and defeat it? And (4) Gearing up production for a greater good. He didn't rally us to do anything. In fact if there’s an opposite, he’s doing that. 

So for comparison, let's look through history and see presidents who were in office during a war, let's see how they did in their re-election bids.

War of 1812 - James Madison. Won re-election, though the war wasn't a huge factor. 

Civil war - Lincoln, won re-election but died in office. Andrew johnson served afterward, as the war ended, and was not re-elected. . 

World war 1 - Woodrow Wilson. Won re-election as the war was ongoing. 

The depression - not so much a war but it was another big moment. Herbert Hoover was president.  Lost his bid for re-election 

WWII - FDR, won re-election several times. But he also took over and led us in rebounding from the depression; he may have been our nations greatest leader. 

Korea - Harry Truman Lost his bid for re-election 

Vietnam - this one swallowed up many presidents including Eisenhower (not re-elected), Kennedy (died in office), Johnson (He was re-elected but the kennedy assassination was a driving factor more than the war), and to a point Nixon (left office).  Ford took over and led us to the end of the war but also wasn’t re-elected 

Cold War - this was fairly complicated and spanned for many years. You could argue that that Reagan won re-election based at least in part because of his efforts in the Cold War.

Iraq - elder bush was not re-elected. 

9/11 - again not so much a war, but W won re-election 

So as you can see, the bump that trump perceives as a benefit for his re-election isn't necessarily that. When the nation is in peril, the eyes turn to the leader. If they are good at their job and lead us through it, they get to remain in office. And if not, then the person behind the deli counter is saying "next!"

Trump is pretty much failing us on all fronts and should (hopefully) be relegated to the dust bin of history. The "Ineffective and incompetent presidents" wing of the museum.