The Big Swing

Here's an interesting statistic for you: 

When pollsters asked Republicans in April whether someone convicted of a felony should be allowed to be president, just 17% said yes. But when the same pollsters asked Republicans the same question this month, 58% said yes.

That’s a 41-point swing, from fringe idea to majority opinion, in mere weeks. I wonder what happened in the time between the question being asked again. Yeah, that’s a stumper.

I also wonder how anyone can say with a straight face that Republicans are a serious political party with ironclad principles. Maybe next you’ll tell me that they are not in a cult.

In any case, I will be offline next week, but I will resume posting the following week. Until then, make sure that nothing interesting happens because I don’t want to miss it.

Thanks

Felonious

What more can we say?

We have the first ex-president to be convicted of a felony (or 34 of them, as the case may be).

We have the first convicted criminal to run for president under the banner of a major political party.

We have that political party, which long championed “law and order,” now saying law and order is no big thing, or more likely, doesn’t apply to them.

We have religious conservatives, who want us all to worship Jesus or have our citizenship stripped, lining up to proclaim the holiness of a man who paid a porn star to keep quiet about his infidelity to his third wife.

We have half of Congress insisting that Americans can no longer trust the courts, the electoral process, or any political institution that doesn’t align with the whims of their jabbering, addled messiah.

We have conservatives who told us that “This should be decided at the ballot box” then when the voters decided, changed it to “If he broke any laws, let a jury decide,” then after a jury decided, changed it to “This should be decided at the ballot box” in a circle of mesmerizing gaslighting.

We have people who don’t even know what the charges were screaming that he is innocent of whatever they charged him with, while conservatives who know the law perfectly well proclaim that the law is not what it actually is.

We have a man who “has spent decades on the edge of legal trouble,” whose life goals consist of delaying legal problems for as long as possible in the assumption that he could ride it out, who has finally been judged a criminal.

And we have pollsters telling us that this, like every development under the sun, will inevitably be bad news for Democrats.

We have all this and more.

And we have nine undecided voters in swing states who have actually changed their minds.

Hey, it’s something.

Brave New Blog

My first novel, which has never been published, began with the following line:

This was by far the worst he had ever cut himself.

From there, the novel went on for about 200,000 words, mostly about how tortured I was in my twenties and how I felt feelings and had thoughts that none of you mere mortals could possibly understand.

Did I mention that this work has never been published?

Now, there is some good stuff in this ancient manuscript of mine, and I’ve pillaged some of the better sections for other novels and short stories over the years. Plus, I learned a lot about writing from this years-long exercise, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. 

And I still think that was a pretty good opening line. Hey, you know who agrees with me on that point? Artificial intelligence.

Yes, we have all seen articles and think pieces about how AI will foster creativity and allow artists to produce their best work faster, if only humans would get out of the way.

As a writer who has been known to dabble in creating web content, I have been inundated with emails from start-ups that promise their AI product will write my blog for me, redesign my website, and cook a four-course dinner for my wife and me.

These companies are basically saying, “Why write a post that expresses your thoughts on a topic, when you can have AI crank out derivative content in flat prose in mere seconds?”

Why indeed? You’ve got me there, tech bros!

To be clear, I am no Luddite. I’m intrigued with AI, especially its potential to eliminate repetitive tasks and speed up breakthroughsin science.

But I’m mystified why anyone would want a machine to write for you. Aren’t those your ideas? Why would you plaster your name on something that, by its very nature, is a hodgepodge compilation of other writers’ work?

Yes, I have posted the occasional AI-generated picture.

But I am always honest about the source of these images, and while I agree they can be cool, they are mere ornaments. I wouldn’t use one for, say, the cover of my next book (which is coming out later this year). For some things, you need the human touch.

Of course, maybe I am being narrow-minded, and I should buy into the hype that collaborating with AI is the next stage for writers.

So in the spirit of innovation, I asked an AI site for its reaction to the first sentence of my discarded novel. Here is the exchange:

Me — What is your reaction to the following sentence: "This was by far the worst he had ever cut himself"

AI — The sentence "This was by far the worst he had ever cut himself" effectively conveys the severity of an injury by comparing it to previous instances. It suggests that the person has a history of cutting themselves, but this particular incident is significantly more serious than any before. The use of "by far" emphasizes the magnitude of the injury, indicating that it is substantially worse. The sentence is concise and clear, immediately informing the reader about the gravity of the situation.

OK, that is very… analytical. It completely kills the vibe of the story, but it’s insightful. 

So I then asked AI to actively collaborate. Here is that exchange:

Me — Write the next sentence of a story that starts with this line: “This was by far the worst he had ever cut himself.”

AI — “The blood oozed between his fingers as he clutched his arm, the sharp pain a stark reminder of his vulnerability in the vast, unforgiving wilderness.”

I gotta admit, that ain’t bad. It’s a bit adjective-heavy, and my novel took place in New York City, while according to AI, my character should have been lost in the vast, unforgiving wilderness. But maybe there’s some way to reconcile the setting. Perhaps the main character gets lost in Central Park.

In any case, I still don’t see how AI will help me write this blog. No machine can access my combination of Gen X, Latino, Midwestern upbringing, SoCal living, progressive, classic-rock and horror-movie aficionado. Then it would have to filter those influences and churn out a viewpoint that could pass for my sincerely held belief. It just can’t be done.

At least not yet.

Smile Like You Mean It

I’ll be honest. I had forgotten all about that smug frat-boy entrepreneur whose main claim to fame is dropping out of the GOP primary so that his idol Trump could coast to a nomination. This tech bro made some idiotic pronouncements, tried in vain to own the libs, then got kicked to the curb.

In any case, he recently resurfaced to interview a raging racist who was a big deal back in the 1990s, when GOP men thought she was still hot and mainstream media inexplicably labeled her a serious thinker.

Normally, I wouldn’t even notice what a couple of right-wing lunatics say to one another. But one exchange got my attention. That was when the woman said she would never vote for the frat boy because he is not white.

The guy sat there, stunned and stone-faced, as she merrily went on about America’s core identity, which in her view is strictly white, Anglo-Saxon protestant. By the way, this woman used to offer vague denials of her bigotry, but as her popularity dimmed, she dropped all pretense and more or less yelled, “white power” every chance she got.

So how did the failed presidential candidate react? He stammered through the rest of the interview, then later went on social media to thank her for being “honest.”

Now, there are few things sadder than a person who gets slurred to his face, refuses to stand up for himself, and thanks the person for insulting him.

Among those few sadder things is an ethnic minority who has sold out his principles and bent over backward to gain the approval of white supremacists, who then discovers that they will never (as in never never never) consider him equal. 

Progressives were not surprised at this exchange. We’ve known all along that the hard right is synonymous with racism, and we’ve stated many times that any ethnic minority who votes for Republicans is setting himself up for rejection. A few liberals even said they felt sorry for the frat boy, which is on brand for a bunch of bleeding hearts, right?

Conservatives more or less ignored the racism (they have a lot of practice doing that) and praised the frat boy for not lashing out at the woman. 

Please note that conservatives are big advocates for turning the other cheek, having a sense of humor, or not being hypersensitive when it comes to their right to insult minorities. They are not so fond of those concepts if you, say, criticize organized religion or say trans people are human. Then it’s game on, bitches.

Conservatives believe that progressives must follow the lead of Dr. Martin Luther King, which is to refrain from violence. But they conflate this peaceful tactic with timidity. After all, King never screamed or fought with bigots, but he didn’t smile and say thank you to them either.

In any case, conservatives drop all that peace and love shit if they feel insulted. Then they can issue death threats and punch people out all they want.

As for the frat boy, I’m sure he will wander around the fringes of the GOP for a while, maybe pick up a few fans here and there, and gradually fade away as Republicans move on to another ethnic minority they can hide behind. And when the guy is dismissed and ostracized for the last time, and the Republicans shut the door in his face, he will smile and thank them one more time.

One More Thing

Don’t you hate when you hit “publish” on your post, and then 4.9 seconds later, you think of another point you wanted to make on the topic, but now you will wait a week to write that insight down, and the subsequent article will become sort of a delayed sequel to the first, because not only would editing the post seem odd to subscribers (thanks for subscribing), but you’re still on deadline for the latest draft of your book (shout out to my publishers), and you don’t have time to redo the post, and you have mild OCD that prevents you from screwing up your weekly writing schedule, even though it gets screwed up plenty due to the vagaries of life and haphazard technological issues and the black rage that overtakes you from time to time, so you just wait another week to offer your point in a new article.

We’ve all been there, right?

Yes, I wrote about the campus protests last week, but there is one more insight I want to present on the subject.

Middle-aged conservatives just love calling protesters snowflakes. They send out mocking missives over social media, deliver fiery speeches, and write lengthy op-eds in mainstream publications about those darn kids today.

Yes, right-wing fiftysomethings feel pretty smug in their mental toughness and steely machismo, especially when compared to those granola-chomping Gen Z liberal-arts majors who expect participation trophies.

But here’s the thing. The college students are enduring discomfort, risking expulsion, facing financial penalties, and occasionally getting beaten up. And they will receive no personal benefit from their actions. They are fighting for their principles—well, the vast majority of them are, excluding the vile antisemites, of course.

Meanwhile, their self-righteous critics are risking nothing more damaging than the occasional accusation of Islamophobia, which as we know, is not frowned upon in American culture and can actually be a source of honor in conservative circles.

More importantly, for all the talk about liberal kids being wimps, it is the old conservatives who are passing laws to prevent hurt feelings. Seriously, one of their proudest moments in recent history is when they banned teaching honest and accurate history because it might cause emotional discomfort to their children (who I suppose aren’t as tough as their steel-skinned parents).

The hypocrisy is glaring. It is so blinding, in fact, that I take no credit for pointing it out, because it should be perfectly obvious to anyone who thinks about the scenario for more than two minutes.

And yet, the old men have gotten away with it again. Once more, they have adopted the mantle of manly, strong dude, when they are exactly the opposite: scared, fearful and insecure.

You think we would have caught on to this fakery by now.