CurlyNight
Footballguy
Anyone watch flake on 60 min with his dem friend (forgot his name). If they find he's lied, no confirmation. But he already has been caught. So the yearbook thing doesn't count? It's the SC we're talking about.Â
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​ 🏛️ ​Official Supreme Court nomination thread - Amy Coney Barrett (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter Sinn Fein
- Start date
shader
Footballguy
 come back to the thread 2 days later and some of you guys are still going on about the yearbook. That’s a nothing story.  The reason Flake said what he said is because the yearbook thing isn’t the kind of lie that will stop him from being confirmed, assuming that it was a lie.  
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
Someone like me has no problem with his yearbook stuff. But then again I would just say it was high school stuff. He lied and made up bs.
shader
Footballguy
You suspect he lied and made up bs. But since you can’t see inside his brain, you can’t really know what he was thinking.  It’s not a verifiable fact that he lied about, it’s him explaining why he wrote something.  Yeah you can call bs on it, and that’s you’re right.  But it’s not going to keep him from getting confirmed.  Which is why Flake said what he said.  Because, again, the yearbook thing is irrelevant.
Stuart Ullman
Footballguy
"I like beer. I like beer, I don't know if you do. Do you like beer senator or not? What do you like to drink?"
Stuart Ullman
Footballguy
 https://twitter.com/ewzucker/status/1046219625690804224
THREAD: You may be wondering why only people on the left are worked up about Kavanaugh’s obvious lies. I mean, do people on the right really believe his (changing) story about what “Renate alumnus” meant?
Of course they don’t. They’re not idiots.
So then why isn’t Kavanaugh hurt by this?
Because, as we (@ohahl @minjaekim22) show in our research, obvious (“common knowledge”) lies can be effective tools for proclaiming deeper truths to those who are primed to hear them.
As with Trump, the deeper truth is that a particular group is treated unfairly by the establishment (recall Kavanaugh’s opening).Â
Then, so long as the obvious lies can be framed as serving that larger truth, the liar can present himself as the group’s “authentic champion.”
It just so happens that our study tested this theory in the context of a simulated college election where the main issue was the imposition of a campus alcohol ban so as to limit sexual assault. Such a ban would threaten campus drinking traditions.
And when people were experimentally manipulated to see themselves in the traditionalist group and were led to believe the establishment was treating them unfairly, they regarded clearly false, misogynistic statements as “authentic” & were more likely to support the candidate.
Perhaps surprisingly, this result occurs for both *women & men* and for both *Trump voters and Hillary voters.*
To clarify: it’s not that these aggrieved traditionalists ignore the lies. They recognize lies as such in our experiments. & in a post-election survey, Trump supporters largely acknowledge that one of his most notorious lies (about the Chinese inventing climate change) was false.
It’s just that they see these lies as a tool for expressing a larger truth.
What’s the larger truth in Kavanaugh’s case?
I’m speculating now but I’d say there are three levels to it.
At the most basic level, it’s simply that it’s unacceptable to hold someone accountable for high school hijinks 35 years later, esp without evidence. And so when he claims there were no hijinks when everyone knows there were, he’s inviting his fellow partisans to help protect him from being held to an unfair standard. They know he’s lying but they collude in the lie for a higher purpose.
Second, the larger truth may be the partisan battle, as evoked by his opening statement. Under this logic, the GOP are invited to collude in his lies bc he will be a reliable champion of the cause. The lies are in service of the larger truth that Democratic power is illegitimate.
Finally, and as suggested by our experiments, he may also be appealing to his fellow traditionalists’ anxiety about threats to their culture. What kind of real American doesn’t like beer, amirite? And what kind of loser doesn’t have too many beers once in a while? The larger truth then is that those high school hijinks were *good* and it’s wrong for these jerks to now cast aspersions on them.
Of course these three logics are complementary. One, two, or three of them could be working for any one person.
Larger implication:Â Exposing lies is insufficient to reach across this kind of partisan divide. We have to look harder for the deeper implicit claims being made & why they resonate with those who seem unable to see the lies. They *can* see the lies but their *focus* is elsewhere.
P.S. A few people have asked what the action implications of our (@minjaekim22 @ohahl)Â research are. Excellent question and our guess is as good as anyone's. Â
I would offer four observations though, fwiw:
First, *everyone* is prone to this behavior, as our experiments attest (even women excuse a misogynist!). And in real life, you can choose various examples on the left. I mention a recent one here: https://twitter.com/ewzucker/status/1040630071239868416
Second, mere partisanship is *insufficient* for a lying demagogue to seem authentically appealing. If there's no "legitimacy crisis" (bc the establishment appears corrupt or to favor an upstart group), partisans don't cotton to the lying demagogue (see https://twitter.com/ewzucker/status/1036666246232768513).
This makes sense bc US political history isn't dominated by lying demagogues (thank goodness). So the real Q is why so many Americans felt so aggrieved going into the 2016 election, & continue to feel that way (on the right, even tho they control executive & legislative!) today.
Third, while the previous two points identify mechanisms that turn this on & off, it's important to recognize that the problem may actually be worse than what we document in our research. Why? Because it's one thing to excuse deviant behavior one time, in private ... but it's quite another to do it repeatedly (think of how many norms Trump has broken since coming on the political scene) in public. This "escalates commitment" like no one's business. Very very hard to reverse. (Yes, this is key to cults; see Kanter's classic study.)
Finally, a personal takeaway is that I don't take seriously anyone who can't find serious faults w their own "side."Â All human beings are flawed and any leader commits major errors, in part bc they always have to balance competing values & in part bc they're fallible.
If you can't recognize this then you are a partisan hack, not a committed citizen of a republic.Â
An example: I was extremely disappointed in 2012 when Romney was vilified on the left for his "binders full of women" line. The implication was that Obama was great for women.
But was he? Definitely not, if you read Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, an excellent treatment of the first two years of the Obama Administration. Ask Christy Romer. Or ask Anne-Marie Slaughter: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/
The point wasn't that Romney was a better candidate than Obama. I personally thought that Obama was the better candidate. The point is that we must recognize *and work hard to overcome* our tendency to excuse faults on our side & howl at faults on the other side.
FIN
THREAD: You may be wondering why only people on the left are worked up about Kavanaugh’s obvious lies. I mean, do people on the right really believe his (changing) story about what “Renate alumnus” meant?
Of course they don’t. They’re not idiots.
So then why isn’t Kavanaugh hurt by this?
Because, as we (@ohahl @minjaekim22) show in our research, obvious (“common knowledge”) lies can be effective tools for proclaiming deeper truths to those who are primed to hear them.
As with Trump, the deeper truth is that a particular group is treated unfairly by the establishment (recall Kavanaugh’s opening).Â
Then, so long as the obvious lies can be framed as serving that larger truth, the liar can present himself as the group’s “authentic champion.”
It just so happens that our study tested this theory in the context of a simulated college election where the main issue was the imposition of a campus alcohol ban so as to limit sexual assault. Such a ban would threaten campus drinking traditions.
And when people were experimentally manipulated to see themselves in the traditionalist group and were led to believe the establishment was treating them unfairly, they regarded clearly false, misogynistic statements as “authentic” & were more likely to support the candidate.
Perhaps surprisingly, this result occurs for both *women & men* and for both *Trump voters and Hillary voters.*
To clarify: it’s not that these aggrieved traditionalists ignore the lies. They recognize lies as such in our experiments. & in a post-election survey, Trump supporters largely acknowledge that one of his most notorious lies (about the Chinese inventing climate change) was false.
It’s just that they see these lies as a tool for expressing a larger truth.
What’s the larger truth in Kavanaugh’s case?
I’m speculating now but I’d say there are three levels to it.
At the most basic level, it’s simply that it’s unacceptable to hold someone accountable for high school hijinks 35 years later, esp without evidence. And so when he claims there were no hijinks when everyone knows there were, he’s inviting his fellow partisans to help protect him from being held to an unfair standard. They know he’s lying but they collude in the lie for a higher purpose.
Second, the larger truth may be the partisan battle, as evoked by his opening statement. Under this logic, the GOP are invited to collude in his lies bc he will be a reliable champion of the cause. The lies are in service of the larger truth that Democratic power is illegitimate.
Finally, and as suggested by our experiments, he may also be appealing to his fellow traditionalists’ anxiety about threats to their culture. What kind of real American doesn’t like beer, amirite? And what kind of loser doesn’t have too many beers once in a while? The larger truth then is that those high school hijinks were *good* and it’s wrong for these jerks to now cast aspersions on them.
Of course these three logics are complementary. One, two, or three of them could be working for any one person.
Larger implication:Â Exposing lies is insufficient to reach across this kind of partisan divide. We have to look harder for the deeper implicit claims being made & why they resonate with those who seem unable to see the lies. They *can* see the lies but their *focus* is elsewhere.
P.S. A few people have asked what the action implications of our (@minjaekim22 @ohahl)Â research are. Excellent question and our guess is as good as anyone's. Â
I would offer four observations though, fwiw:
First, *everyone* is prone to this behavior, as our experiments attest (even women excuse a misogynist!). And in real life, you can choose various examples on the left. I mention a recent one here: https://twitter.com/ewzucker/status/1040630071239868416
Second, mere partisanship is *insufficient* for a lying demagogue to seem authentically appealing. If there's no "legitimacy crisis" (bc the establishment appears corrupt or to favor an upstart group), partisans don't cotton to the lying demagogue (see https://twitter.com/ewzucker/status/1036666246232768513).
This makes sense bc US political history isn't dominated by lying demagogues (thank goodness). So the real Q is why so many Americans felt so aggrieved going into the 2016 election, & continue to feel that way (on the right, even tho they control executive & legislative!) today.
Third, while the previous two points identify mechanisms that turn this on & off, it's important to recognize that the problem may actually be worse than what we document in our research. Why? Because it's one thing to excuse deviant behavior one time, in private ... but it's quite another to do it repeatedly (think of how many norms Trump has broken since coming on the political scene) in public. This "escalates commitment" like no one's business. Very very hard to reverse. (Yes, this is key to cults; see Kanter's classic study.)
Finally, a personal takeaway is that I don't take seriously anyone who can't find serious faults w their own "side."Â All human beings are flawed and any leader commits major errors, in part bc they always have to balance competing values & in part bc they're fallible.
If you can't recognize this then you are a partisan hack, not a committed citizen of a republic.Â
An example: I was extremely disappointed in 2012 when Romney was vilified on the left for his "binders full of women" line. The implication was that Obama was great for women.
But was he? Definitely not, if you read Ron Suskind's Confidence Men, an excellent treatment of the first two years of the Obama Administration. Ask Christy Romer. Or ask Anne-Marie Slaughter: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/
The point wasn't that Romney was a better candidate than Obama. I personally thought that Obama was the better candidate. The point is that we must recognize *and work hard to overcome* our tendency to excuse faults on our side & howl at faults on the other side.
FIN
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They might not be facts but you can get a pretty good idea if he’s lying. Have the FBI ask his friends about it. Sure they could fall into line now that he’s made public statements but chances are some if not all of his claims.
The yearbook lies are important because it shows he’s going to lie when he really doesn’t need to. Just like painting himself as a choirboy and virgin in the Fox interview or anytime he talked about drinking, it doesn’t help him to lie but he still did.
Just be honest, you were the typical jock/frat boy who liked to party and drink a lot. You and your buddies like to talk about your sexual conquests and put your inside jokes in the yearbook. That may make him a d-bag but it doesn’t make him a rapist. But when you lie horribly about these things, it destroys his credibility when it matters. Why would he be honest about rape allegations if he can’t be honest about anything else?
Sabertooth
Footballguy
If she is lying, I’ll accept that.  I try to let the facts dictate my opinions.  If he is lying, I will accept that as well.  I feel the same with Trump and Mueller.  I honestly hope Trump is squeaky clean and this whole investigation turns up nothing on him.Â
Im not one of these clowns who wants to see the country burn just so I can tell strangers “I told you so.” Â
sho nuff
Footballguy
She didn’t fully question him and didn’t do an assessment on him.  How convenient.
BTW we have been using the same standard...as people have said over and over again he isn't on trial.
sho nuff
Footballguy
sho nuff
Footballguy
Yes...people keep coming back to things he almost certainly lied about. Â Imagine that.
I think he gets confirmed. But his righteous indignation does not give me confidence that the best person was selected for this position. Any time I see him on TV or in print, I’ll be reminded of his ridiculous rant last week and won’t be thinking that America has been made great again.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Ford could hold a press conference tomorrow admitting that she made up her story out of whole cloth, and Kavanaugh should still be disqualified from the court for lying under oath. (To be clear, I think Kavanaugh probably assaulted Ford, but that's almost immaterial at this point for me).
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Doesn't matter. Let's say for the sake of argument that this theory is correct, and that Feinstein sat on the allegations at Ford's request. If I did that, I would be disciplined. I wouldn't be fired, but I'd say there's a 50-50 chance that I would lose my administrative position. Failing to act on a reported sexual assault is a really big deal and can fairly be characterized as gross misconduct. (I've mentioned before that this is not hypothetical -- I've had students report sexual misconduct to me. It's not an everyday thing, but it happens every once in a while).
For the record, I don't actually think this is what happened. A good rule of thumb in politics is that if something looks like an orchestrated attack, it probably is. I'm fairly confident that Feinstein deliberately waited to drop this bomb because that's when it has the best chance of preventing Trump from ever filling this seat. This explanation makes Feinstein look a lot better than yours. In this case, she's being a political animal, kind of like any other senator. In your theory, she's an unethical rape-enabler. Â
Sabertooth
Footballguy
If only there were more people like you that look at things this objectively. But alas most people don't care about what's true. Â
fatness
Footballguy
According to what you just said, every woman and man who does not report a rape is a rape enabler. I'm honestly surprised to see you get that extreme in your defense of your initial hasty reaction to Feinstein.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I can understand why an individual victim of sexual assault might choose not to come forward. There's no excuse, however, for people in authority to ignore allegations when they receive them. For example, Feinstein could have shared this allegation -- possibly with the name redacted -- to McConnell and ask him to make sure that Kavanaugh wasn't nominated. That would have been a reasonable, grown-up way of handling a very serious allegation. Instead, she played politics with it. Which is better than ignoring it, but still not good.
Not sure where you're getting "hasty" from. This is a weeks-old story at this point, and I walked people through the rationale for mandatory reporting several days ago.
-OZ-
Footballguy
I don't know, I kind of like a Justice who screams "I like beer" during a Senate hearing.
The Commish
Footballguy
And it's pretty clear most get that now...even Trump supporters as is evident in their constant trying to keep focus on Ford and off his 8th grade temper tantrum and political
 statement.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Sure it does. Society has a very strong interest -- or should have a strong interest anyway -- in making sure that rapists don't become judges. If a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (!) finds out that one of the guys who has been short-listed for the Supreme Court (!) is probably a sex offender, they have an obligation to act on that information.ÂMatthias said:
Well, as I said, I don't think that's actually what Feinstein did. But yes, I do think that ignoring credible allegations of sexual assault would be unethical, and doing so is absolutely one way that we enable rape culture. I'm completely sure that you would agree with both statements if we were talking the Republicans who are dismissing Ford's allegations out of hand as opposed to a Democrat.Matthias said:
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parasaurolophus
Footballguy
Kavanaugh misunderstood when his advisers told him that people liked george w bush and ignored his past indiscretions because he seemed like the kind of guy people would like to have a beer with.Â
Rove!
Footballguy
Is this where we are discussing the discrepancies between the 2018 Urban Dictionary definition of devils triangle and the 1982 Georgetown Prep definition if Devil’s Triangle?
really?
dont worry, if the Ds take  back the House, we can have Congressional committee hearings dedicated to this debate
really?
dont worry, if the Ds take  back the House, we can have Congressional committee hearings dedicated to this debate
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timschochet
Footballguy
The purpose, I think, is obvious: to provide Collins, Murkowski, and Flake a defense they can use after they vote for Brett Kavanaugh.Â
dawgtrails
Footballguy
I'm not sure I buy some of her arguments in that report anyway. Especially the nitpicking on the year/dates of the alleged assault. Seems perfectly logical, when discussing this with a therapist to state "when I was a teenager", or "one high school summer" or some other vague timeframe. In therapy you are trying to talk through these issues, not solve a decades old assault. The therapist or patient don't need to narrow down the incident in order to talk through it.Â
However, once pressed on the year/date, it is reasonable to change the approximation to a narrower window, and if that window changes slightly from the previous generalized date, I see no issue with that.Â
However, once pressed on the year/date, it is reasonable to change the approximation to a narrower window, and if that window changes slightly from the previous generalized date, I see no issue with that.Â
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
This is why it's so nuts that the Republicans didn't call for an FBI investigation right of the bat when Ford's allegation came out. Just as a matter of pure politics, it looks a lot better to lead with an investigation as opposed to being dragged into one. And you have to think that Kavanaugh's testimony would have been strengthened if he knew what the FBI did and didn't confirm about his background.
timschochet
Footballguy
According to sourcing at MSNBC, Don McGahn is severely micromanaging the FBI investigation. Not only did he create the very small list of people allowed to be interviewed, all requests for additional interviews have to go back to him for approval before they can be conducted. Several anonymous FBI agents are complaining about this, stating that these restrictions are “highly unusual”.Â
Excluded from the interview list are any of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates, Julie Swetnick and anyone to do with her claims, and  Professor Ford- with Ford, it’s not a question of leaving her for later- McGahn apparently instructed that she not be interviewed.Â
All of this is based on anonymous sourcing. If any of it is true, we’re going to be right back where we started at the end of the week.Â
Excluded from the interview list are any of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates, Julie Swetnick and anyone to do with her claims, and  Professor Ford- with Ford, it’s not a question of leaving her for later- McGahn apparently instructed that she not be interviewed.Â
All of this is based on anonymous sourcing. If any of it is true, we’re going to be right back where we started at the end of the week.Â
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shader
Footballguy
shader
Footballguy
I doubt this is true, at least the part regarding Ford.  Swetnick is probably true because her accusations aren’t credibleÂ
shader
Footballguy
There are certainly holes in her story, but there would be holes in any story I tried to tell from 20+ years ago.  It’s absurd to think otherwise. It almost seems as if the Republicans are trying to suggest that she originally was talking about someone else and has recently switched it to Kavanaugh.
shader
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
How is that racist? They are saying #### the women if they push this thru -- willing to give up the house for this nomination.
Henry Ford
Footballguy
You would be disciplined because you work in administration for a school which requires reporting of such a thing when a student makes an allegation.  Feinstein doesn’t, the Senate doesn’t require reporting, and Ford is over 50 years old, not a student.  I struggle with whether she has the moral right, let alone the obligation, to put Ford through this against her will.Â
Sand
Footballguy
Henry Ford
Footballguy
But Feinstein isn’t a mandatory reporter. We have specific classes of people who are.  Physicians, school adminstrators, teachers, etc.Â
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Sure, I understand all that. No Title IX officer is going to take Diane Feinstein to task for mishandling an assault allegation. But the underlying logic is the same. Looking the other way at sexual assault is a bad idea. It would be a bad idea for me even if my university had no policy on the issue, and it would have been a bad idea for Feinstein to ignore it.
Doesn't matter. "I'm not a mandatory reporter" doesn't imply "It is okay for me to look the other way at this allegation." Â
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Henry Ford
Footballguy
If someone in your life discloses to you that she was sexually assaulted 30 years ago and doesn’t want to go to the police, she has the right not to. That’s not the same as “looking the other way”. It’s respecting the right of the victim not to be re-victimized as she will be if it comes out. Â
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Yeah. That's the argument I'm making. ÂMatthias said:
I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious that mandatory reporting requirements follow from sexual assault being a big deal, not the other way around. Â
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
That isn't what we're talking about here. Ford came forward to Feinstein specifically for the purpose of making sure that Kavanaugh didn't land on the supreme court. And some here seem to think that it would have been okay for Feinstein just to ignore her.
A better analogy would be a victim going to the police and the police doing nothing.
Jackstraw
Footballguy
And McGahn has a long standing relationship with Kavanaugh. I'm no lawyer but that seems extemely unethical to even participate better yet limit the investigation.Â
squistion
Footballguy
Avenatti on Swetnick speaking to the FBI:
Michael Avenatti‏ @MichaelAvenatti 1h1 hour ago
Be clear:
1. I CANNOT just walk my client into an FBI office. We tried that. They claim they don’t have jurisdiction and they refuse to take a stmt.
2. While we may file a criminal complaint, that will have no bearing on any vote due to timing. We will proceed with other options.
Michael Avenatti‏ @MichaelAvenatti 1h1 hour ago
Be clear:
1. I CANNOT just walk my client into an FBI office. We tried that. They claim they don’t have jurisdiction and they refuse to take a stmt.
2. While we may file a criminal complaint, that will have no bearing on any vote due to timing. We will proceed with other options.
