Does this drive you crazy too? You are watching C-SPAN or the news or something else and you see John Boehner’s rusty mug saying, “The American people do not want higher taxes!” If you’re like me, you scream at the TV machine, “What the fuck would you know about what the American people want?” Okay; you’re not like me; you don’t yell at the TV. But surly you think this (perhaps without the expletive). For one thing, the “American people” is not a monolithic thing. For another, we know what most American people think on this issue because we’ve asked them. They don’t want their taxes increased, but overwhelmingly they think the rich do not pay enough in taxes and would like to see them pay more.

There are two ways to look at these kinds of statements from conservative politicians. It could be that they are just lying. They do combine politician (mendacity) and conservative (willfully ignorant) into one big deception singularity. Or it could be that they actually believe what they are saying. As it turns out, there are data that indicates that this is the case.

Dylan Matthews presented research by two economics graduate students that compares the opinions of legislator’s constituencies to what the legislator thinks they are. You will be shocked by the results, I’m sure! It turns out that Democrats and Republicans alike think that their constituencies are a whole lot more conservative than they actually are. On average, Republicans overestimate how conservative their constituencies are by 20%. What does that mean specifically? It means that the average Republican state legislator thinks his constituency is more conservative than the most conservative district in the United States. Got that? Republicans think the people they represent are more conservative than the most conservative constituency in the country!

What is even worse: Democrats also systematically overestimate how conservative their constituencies are. Depending on the issue, Democrats overstate this by 5% to 10%. In other words: they still overstate this by a lot. And this explains why it is that a popular idea like single payer healthcare is considered a nonstarter by political elites. It is also why Democrats have long thought that gun control was a losing issue for them. It doesn’t make any sense. Everyone could see that regardless of how pro-gun democrats got, they never got credit for it. For various reasons, almost none of which have to do with gun control, gun lovers will always tilt toward the Republican Party. So now Democrats have learned that while the NRA isn’t going to help them get elected, they also aren’t going to hurt them.

I don’t know what we can do about this disconnect between what politicians think and what the people think. But I have some ideas. Obviously, part of the solution is to get money out of politics. Whether they are consciously aware of it or not, most politicians have their ideas about what “the people” want altered by the very clear signals of what corporations want. Another part of the solution is just getting the information out: politicians need to be told that their views are skewed. And as always, the biggest part of the solution is voter turnout. If we just get out and vote, we will get more and more politicians who are more and more liberal.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth!

A lot of interesting people were born on this day. The most important to me is probably Elizabeth Barrett Browning who was born in 1806. I tend to prefer her and other Americans (like Poe) to the British Romantic Period poets. I wish that I had one great poem I could offer you here. The problem is that she didn’t tend to write nice little poems. She wrote a lot of rather long (1000+ line) poems. And she wrote collections of poems—mostly sonnets.

The poem she is best know for, of course, is Sonnet XLIII of Sonnets From the Portuguese. Even if you think you don’t know it, you do. It starts, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” What is remarkable about it is that although that line is tired, the poem is not. Despite that beginning, it is not sentimental—at least not for a Romantic poet.

Here it is; you can skip it if you like, but I urge you to not only read it, but to read it aloud. It is quite beautiful:

I rather like the idea of purity being deaf to praise. It is the one thing that artists most want and yet must ignore. I suspect that this idea was not foreign to her.

Michelangelo was also born on this day in 1475. I find it shocking that he lived to be 88 years old. I still remember when I saw David for the first time in Florence. Up to that time, I had no idea that art could be that powerful. It was only a week or two later that I fell in love with Rodin while in Paris. He was not born on this day.

It is Gabriel Garcia Marquez‘s 86th birthday today. I have never read him (that I know of). I’ve wanted to read One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I associate it too much with my first wife.

David Gilmour is 57 today. I am big fan of his. He is probably my favorite rock guitarist. He has a great sense of melody.

Stephen Schwartz is 65 today. I’m a great fan of musical theater and Schwartz wrote some great ones when I was a kid: Godspell and Pippin. He also wrote Wicked, which I’ve long wanted to see (especially after I learned he had written it).

Ivan Boesky is 66 and Alan Greenspan is 87. I hope that I do not have to note the birthdays next year for these evil men. One is always torn by a great artist who is a horrible human being. I mean: at least they leave us their art. But men like Boesky and Greenspan do nothing but to enrich themselves and their horrible friends. They produce nothing good for society. What is the point of their lives? They could have done something useful like plumbing. If they had, the world would certainly be a far better place.

Afterword

Here is the opening of Pippin. I believe this is from a 1981 filmed version of the Broadway play. That’s 4 years after the play opened and near the end of its run. Ben Vereen came back to play the Lead Player, for which he won the Tony Award for best lead actor in a musical.

I just learned that a new ending was added to the play. The play is about Pippin who is trying to make his life meaningful. At one point he sings, “Don’t you know I want my life to be something more than long.” The Lead Player guides him through various kinds of life experiences: war, power, sex, domesticity. At the end, Pippin has found nothing that is truly fulfilling. The Lead Player then offers up a great use for his life: burn himself alive on stage and provide a great ending to the play. (It is very postmodern in that way.) Pippin is about to go through with it when Catherine and her son show up on the stage and convince him to go back to them. The Lead Player is furious. He removes the sets, the music, the costumes, everything. But Pippin decides that life with Catherine is about the best that life can be, disappointing as that may be. In the end, love conquers all.

The new addition is that the son picks up one of the gloves thrown at Pippin by the players as they went off stage. This calls the players back; they have their new Pippin and so the cycle starts again. I think it is lovely.

And here is David Gilmour doing his thing:

I just caught the tail end of The Ed Show. He had on body language expert Tonya Reiman to discuss Bill O’Reilly’s freak out last night. Let me be clear: I think that “body language” is mostly just a pseudoscience. Sure, there is something to it. But human behavior is fairly individuated. I think there are great limits to it. What’s more, I don’t see how it is ever disproved. Just like in cold reading, some people are good at it and others aren’t. As with other pseudosciences like astrology, it provides some basic notions along with endless caveats.

Ed Schultz made a big deal of the fact that Reiman was “Bill O’Reilly’s body language expert.” He started the segment by showing various instances of her pontificating on O’Reilly’s show. I was very struck by one in which she was looking at a meeting between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By looking at their eyes, she determined that they didn’t like each other.

Once on the show, Ed had her look at Bill O’Reilly’s behavior the night before. She had the shocking insight that O’Reilly was angry. Who could imagine? She repeated several times that Bill was just being Bill—it’s just the way he is. But when Ed asked her if he had an anger problem, she replied, “I’m not a psychologist!”

So let me get this straight. She can tell us the motivations of Obama and Netanyahu based on their eyes. But she cannot tell us the motivations of O’Reilly who commonly loses control of his temper on The Factor. What is it? Is body language a part of psychology when it makes Democrats look bad but not when with it makes unstable conservative loons like O’Reilly look bad? Or is it just that Reiman’s real job is her own self-promotion and she would never do anything to harm O’Reilly, who has been so very helpful in selling her silly self-help books?

Regardless: let’s add Tonya Reiman to the ever growing list of conservative blond automatons.

Afterword

Kevin Drum asks, Who’s On the Left’s Television A-Team? This comes from Paul Krugman’s lackluster performance up against Joe Scarborough on the Charlie Rose Show. Afterwards, even Krugman said it was his Denver debate and, “I was tired, cranky, and unready for the blizzard of misleading factoids and diversionary stuff.” And so Drum (and even more a liberal friend of his who was very disappointed) asked, “Who do we have on the left who’s got the real-world debating skills to take on someone like Scarborough?”

There are a lot of people, of course. Let’s face it: Krugman is not and never has been good on TV or in front of a lectern. Even after a lot of experience, he suffers from stage fright. He just isn’t comfortable up in front of people. There are a lot of people like that: they never get over it. Yet in print, he shows himself to be an incredible rhetorician. But he is well aware of his strengths and weaknesses. This morning he wrote about someone who called him “unimpressive”: “I’ve had the experience of being overlooked by the people who were supposed to meet me at the airport, and eventually being told, ‘We expected you to be taller’.” (I’ve had this same experience with being interviewed by people; they think based upon my writing that I will be dramatic and organized; the fools!)

One thing I don’t think we should try is to be something that we aren’t. As Dean Baker says: the facts are on our side. We have to learn to be as good as possible at explaining our ideas. What we don’t need to be is more charming. I find Arthur Laffer charming as hell. But his arguments can be easily carved up. We liberals may not be fun, but we can be effective. You can’t really learn charm. You can learn right wing canards and effective ways to counter them.

This reminds me of the film Flock of Dodos, about the fight between the scientists and the Intelligent Design folks. The ID people are very charming—they’re just like your grandmother! It looks very bad for the scientists because they aren’t good at talking on TV and the ID people seem so nice: why not let them bring their bullshit into the classrooms? But at the end, it is clear that the scientists are most effective when they they toss aside all the niceties and just say, “This is bullshit. Here is how it works. You want to go off and pray to your God and think that everything was explained 2000 years ago, fine. But that isn’t science and you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

What I’m talking about is authenticity. We need to stick with who we are. Liberals don’t hold their opinions because that’s just what liberals believe. They hold those opinions because they are open to evidence—because they are looking for the best outcomes. And that is our greatest strength. If we start hiring our own Frank Luntzes and packaging talking points to appeal to the masses, we lose. The masses really are smart. They really can be convinced of our wonky ideas. And here’s the best thing of all: they already pretty much agree with us on all the issues. (Except the death penalty.)

So the only thing liberals need to do is get better at being liberals. Oh, and also: keep anxiety prone liberals off TV!

Afterword

Here is 5 minutes of Baker’s lecture when he talks about this:

Today, Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon wrote about, Radical-Right Wing Groups Reach All Time High. It is based upon a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In it, they show that militia and “patriot” groups are at an all time high. According the group, this is due to, “the resurgence on the down economy (hate and radicalism always tick up when things seem desperate), along with the election and reelection of Barack Obama, a push on gun control, and racial tensions over immigration and the declining power of white America.” I’m sure that’s true, but I think there is something else going on here.

Look at the following graph and see if you don’t perceive something a little more cyclical:

I see high levels of these groups when Clinton is president, followed by low levels when Bush is president, and then an explosion under Obama. The details make it look even worse. Note that 9/11 didn’t cause the number of these groups to grow. Instead, there were actually fewer groups in 2002 than there had been in 2001, after one of the worst attacks on American soil in our history. Also, there was no spike at all in 2008; we had to wait until 2009 when you know who was president. Also, as the economy has gotten better, the numbers have only climbed since 2009, which was by far the worst year. Finally: the economy was even worse in the year 2002-2004 than it was 1995-1996, and yet: no spike in these groups during the Bush years.

Even the one trouble spot on the graph proves my point. At the end of Clinton’s presidency, the numbers dove. Part of this had to do with the strong economy. But another part of it can be attributed to the embarrassment of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. And not only that (this gets to my main point): how right wing media covered it. I remember this clearly. No one on the right would admit that they had any culpability in that terrorist attack, but they became less reckless in their rhetoric. No longer did one hear diatribes about the tyranny of the BATF and the heroes of Ruby Ridge.

My point is that these groups are primarily driven by the incendiary rhetoric that people hear especially on conservative talk, but also very much Fox News. As long as a Republican is in the White House, all is calm. The moment a Democrat steps into the White House, no matter how conservative he may be (and the last two have been quite conservative), suddenly the “Tyranny!” rhetoric starts. The president is pushing us toward socialism! The president is destroying the Constitution! The president is drowning adorable kittens!

One thing is for certain: the Southern Poverty Law Center is correct that this is a disturbing trend. What’s more, thanks in large part to the Republican House, it is likely that we won’t see much improvement in the economy for a couple of years. It is possible that the right wing talkers will calm down a bit. But I don’t see these numbers falling by much anytime soon. Last night Bill O’Reilly showed the true believers the way: ignorance and rage. Of course, if something bad does happen, Bill-O will just claim that it had nothing to do with him. How could those people think he was calling for violence?

Afterword

My brief perusal of the conservative press indicates that they are thrilled with O’Reilly’s behavior last night. The liberal press is mostly just ignoring it because it is entirely “dog bites man.” This is a big part of the problem with our media: everyone expects Fox News to be crazy. And the conservatives don’t get embarrassed by the ignorance someone like O’Reilly shows, because they are just as ignorant. “Look! Friend Bill done yelled at a lib’ral!”

The Associated Press reported this morning, Senate Republicans block Caitlin Halligan, Nominee to DC Appeals Court for Second Time. She got enough votes, of course. It is just de rigueur that Republicans filibuster her.

So what was wrong with her? I know: we don’t expect there to have been anything wrong with her other than that a Democratic president nominated her. The truth is that if you asked the Senators who filibustered why they were against her, they would not know. They were just told by their leadership that Halligan was one of them there lib’rals, and so it was a no go.

The official reason for the filibuster was simply that halligan was “too liberal.” And what made her such a liberal firebrand?

This is the usual reason that Republicans are against judges. It has nothing to do with abortion or “judicial activism” (which is what conservative jurists do better today than liberals have ever). It all comes down to corporate profits. If the lobbying organization of gun manufacturers (that is: the NRA) is against her, well, we can’t have that. We can’t have someone on the court who might protect the rights of individuals; that might lead to democracy!

It all makes me think back to the second Reid-McConnell handshake deal. Is Reid happy? Is the deal all that he had hoped for? Is he pleased that Boehner can make political hay out of the fact that he, Harry Reid, wasn’t able to pass a Sequester deal because of another de rigueur filibuster? I really want to know! Because I know the day is coming when Reid will admit, “These two young, fine senators said it was time to change the rules of the Senate, and we didn’t.” I think we should just put it on an infinite loop.

Afterword

Eventually, the Republicans will control the Senate and they will reform if not eliminate the filibuster. Democrats will run around claiming foul. But the new Senate Majority Leader will say something like this, “I thought Harry Reid was an idiot when he didn’t kill the filibuster.” And all the Democrats will sit in private a fume. “Next time, we won’t trust these assholes!” But of course, they will. They’re Democrats.

Old joke that seems appropriate: “When Democratic Party strategists order tanks, they always ask for a model with 5 speeds: 4 in reverse and 1 that goes forward in case they are attacked from behind.”

Update (6 March 2013 2:07 pm)

Greg Sargent notes that one of the reforms that Merkley and Udall wanted was a requirement that those filibustering get 40 votes to continue rather than requiring the majority to get 60 votes to break it. Today, the Republicans would not have been able to sustain the filibuster, because they only got 41 votes due to Reid’s procedural vote; they would only have received 40 otherwise, and Halligan would have gotten her vote. Of course, as Jonathan Bernstein notes, one of the four absent Republicans may have come in if the rules had changed. But that’s part of the point: filibustering doesn’t inconvenience the minority in the least. If none of the Republicans had voted, they still would have gotten to keep their filibuster, because non-votes just mean “Filibuster!”

You all know how I love the word “fucktard.” Yesterday, I came upon this video that shows how to sign it. And it’s fun to do. Enjoy!

I’ve been none too happy with Chris Christie’s approval rating in New Jersey. The truth is that he’s been an awful governor. I can’t believe that the residents of the state have forgotten all about his crony capitalism and grandstanding against the president (Remember the tunnel he killed?!) and are just focusing on how he acted like any other governor during a catastrophe. But I’ve been hoping that it is all temporary—that in an actual campaign, his positives would be moved downward as people were reminded of the kind of governor he’s generally been.

My prayers have been answered to a small extent in Barbara Buono. She is the Democrat who is running against Christie in 2013. She seems like a very seasoned politician for a state legislator. (She makes Rubio look like the child he is!) I feel pretty certain that she will at least run a decent race. And who knows, maybe she can get the state of New Jersey to see that a couple of months of walking in the rain doesn’t make up for three years of bellicose incompetence. Plus: Christie could have a heart attack.

Here is Buono on The Last Word:

Under normal circumstances, I would tell you that 5 March is the date my younger sister was born. And that’s kind of interesting, when you consider what a druid kind of earth mother she is. You see, on this day back in 1938, Lynn Margulis was born. She did some of the most important early work on the Gaia Hypothesis—the idea that the earth itself is a living system. Many years ago, when I was in graduate school, I saw her talk at a very intimate brunch. We were all eating our Eggs Benedict and she was telling us about bacteria. Actually, she was talking about how hard it is to distinguish between plant, animal, bacteria. Personally, I wish I were a plant; people always expect me to move a lot; I’d rather just sit here.

Anyway, Kim and Lynn were born today. And the world is a better place for it. But the world is also a worse place today because Hugo Chavez died. Only plutocrats could think that the man was not good for Venezuela. I understand that the upper classes are mad at him because he cut into their wealth. I understand that the oil companies (and thus the United States government) are mad at him because he nationalized the country’s oil reserves. But why are most of the media (and thus the people) so against him? There is no doubt in my mind that there was more democracy in Venezuela under Chavez than there is in America under Obama.

But I don’t feel up to a whole war about this right now. Let me just reprint what I wrote last October when Chavez shocked the mainstream media by winning re-election:

I suspect that in the obituaries that are coming, Chavez will get a tad more respect than he has. We’ll see things like, “Chavez was very popular among the poor, but many people didn’t like him.” In fact, my colleague at The Reaction, Michael Stickings wrote what I thought was an unfortunately one-sided obit, Hugo Chavez Is Dead. Long Live Something Other Than Hugo Chavez’s Tyranny. I’ve been well aware of Michael’s position on Chavez for a long time. But tyranny? Really?! That’s unfortunate. But you can expect to see a lot more of it. Whitewashing a dead man’s career is something we only do for conservatives.

Update (5 March 2013 8:10 pm)

The argument I’ve tried to make to Michael (Who is very open minded and has a great eye for new talent…) is that a certain level of authoritarianism is to be expected. I think we see more of this from Obama—we just see it in different (very American) ways. One of Chavez’s stated motivations was that the United States government was out to get him. Well, they were. I don’t accept Nicolas Maduro’s claim that the United States poisoned Chavez. But I don’t doubt that they would have if they could have.

Here is former Washington Post foreign editor Scott Wilson talking about United States involvement in the coup against Chavez. It is interesting, as Dan Beeton of CEPR points out, “This information has however never been reported this fully in the pages of the Washington Post itself.”