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Gerard Saucier
@gsaucier.bsky.social
Scientific voyageur, professor (UOregon). Cultural and moral (and political/ideological) personology. Personality in high dimensionality & cross-cultural perspective. Big-picture seeker.
77 followers101 following50 posts
GSgsaucier.bsky.social

At least the NYT could have amended it to "fascination with outmoded, discredited, unscientific ideas about genetics." If not brave enough to apply the R word that rhymes with Base-ism (another word that might apply).

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

This also is straight-up Machiavellianism...

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

As Dan Abrams happened to put it today, Vance was "effective but dishonest". Not sure Abrams saw that as a criticism. But it straight-up Machiavellianism. Trump does that too, but with a different style.

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

Professionally, a silver-tongued devil.

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

The 'known quantity' of Trump as 45 may not match the quantity of Trump as 47 where the quantity of retaliation and violence looks to be higher. Guardrails gone?

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

Underestimating Harris: perhaps because direction of polling error tracks disparities between candidates in voter enthusiasm (and in '16 and '20 Trump had more). This could also be a cause of underestimating Trump, though this seems less likely this cycle (tho cycle not yet complete)

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

Promising but not definitive. Small sample of 19 cases, wide confidence intervals on either side of that line...

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GSgsaucier.bsky.social

Trump evinces a 'Big Man' theory of most everything. "Trust me the Big Man, ladies". Also, trust the Big Man Putin (or Xi or Kim or Orban) at the expense of democratic alliances that balance many smallish power-sources. Also, Big Man theory of econ/business. But also, an ethnonationalist extremist.

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Reposted by Gerard Saucier

Lilliana Mason makes a great point that one of the lasting effects of Trumpism is the erasure of shame as a tool that can rein in really hateful, violent speech. (Via @onthemedia.bsky.social)

Lilliana Mason: There's the norms against crass rhetoric. For that one, I think of George Allen, who was running for Senate in Virginia. He famously called someone "Macaca" and that was it. He lost the election. People turned away from him immediately. He clearly knew that he had done something wrong. That was, "Yes, you mess up and you're finished." Everyone thought that would be the case with Trump, for example, with the Access Hollywood tape. He basically just said, "No, I'm not embarrassed. I'm not ashamed."

It's really important to remember that shame can be very bad, but it's a really powerful emotion precisely because it's the only way that our norms are enforced. We enforce laws with law enforcement. We enforce norms with people and feeling shame and feeling like, "Oh, I went too far. I did something wrong." That's how we police ourselves in our language and each other and what we consider to be normal. When our leaders are providing us an example of shamelessness, then it ope
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GS
Gerard Saucier
@gsaucier.bsky.social
Scientific voyageur, professor (UOregon). Cultural and moral (and political/ideological) personology. Personality in high dimensionality & cross-cultural perspective. Big-picture seeker.
77 followers101 following50 posts