The General US Politics Thread

It's an ethical conundrum. There's a reason only a few psychologists would respond in said article.

And what's with trying to make this personal?

Besides, as for Biden, one issue with trying to analyze him based on his gaffes is that he has a speech impediment. So trying to claim he has dementia or something based on that is ableist.

Edited by M84 on Jul 12th 2020 at 9:50:56 PM

You're missing my point, that exactly why you shouldn't let psychologists analyze Trump from a distance.

Trump has somewhat of a speech impediment as well, and is an old man, but I don't see anyone defend him on the grounds of ableism or ageism.

And I'm making it personal to demonstrate my point, that it would not be fair to be psychoanalyzed from a distance, and you would not find that acceptable.

Edited by Redmess on Jul 12th 2020 at 4:01:08 PM

I wouldn’t call it a “conundrum”, ethical or otherwise. There’s nothing that we gain with diagnosing Trump, and it’s just plain unethical to do so.

I think that’s because they’re not analyzing gaffes. They’re analyzing core personality traits from a pattern of public behaviour demonstrated across decades. Not just online posts or TV appearances - there’s huge amounts of documentation of his presidency, how he thinks and makes decisions and treats other people.

I agree that it’s not ideal to make diagnoses of public figures.

Edited by Galadriel on Jul 12th 2020 at 10:04:25 AM

Conundrum means "a confusing and difficult problem or question". So yeah, it's an ethical conundrum.

Smokey, I appreciate you so much.

All of this. Just... just all of this.

Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I apologize for making things uncomfortable.

I didn’t mean to stigmatize mental illness, but I can see that the discussion could have that effect.

You didn't.

And I think my point has been made. All this delicacy over a health issue simply because it's mental? That's a stigma, right there.

It's health. Being a narcissist should be no more delicate or embarressing than having a food intolerance.

Except we treat it as this major ethical dilemma.

This is circular.

To top it off, I don't think Trump's issue is mental health at all. He isn't a bad president because of mental health issues, he is a bad president because of the priorities he sets and the choices he makes. He is not "incapable" in the legal sense. He can be held responsible for his own actions.

Trump's psychological issues are relevant because they affect his behavior and performance as President. If he were operating a car wash, being a narcissist wouldn't be as much of a problem. As President, it's a big problem because he refuses to listen to any information that contradicts his world view or makes him look bad.

Whether he is clinically diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, however, is beside the point. What matters is that expecting him to behave in rational ways or to display enlightened self-interest is futile. Being able to predict his likely reaction to any particular event or stimulus is valuable, and we can't blind ourselves to the reality in front of us because it's "not polite".

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 12th 2020 at 11:02:00 AM

Unity Task Force policy recommendations "goes beyond a status quo and goes beyond where Biden had campaigned in the primary," says Faiz Shakir, Sanders's presidential campaign manager. The pandemic, economic crisis, and racial justice protests have led Biden to decide that bolder reforms are needed immediately. The Sanders' half of the task force were pleasantly surprised to find almost all their contributions were taken seriously.

"Build Back Better." Biden's economic platform is divided into four categories: 1) Buy American and create manufacturing jobs. 2) Building infrastructure and clean energy. 3) Advancing racial equity. 4) Modernizing the "caring" economy such as child-care and elder-care workers and domestic aides. Biden credited Warren with helping shape his economic plan.

"Buy American and create manufacturing jobs"

Grr, we're still on this. There's nothing magical about manufacturing stuff in the United States. If U.S. manufacturers can't figure out how to be competitive without government help, we're creating market distortions that will bite us in other areas.

Anyway, manufacturing is fine in the U.S. It's doing great. It's just more automated, meaning fewer jobs per unit output. "Manufacturing jobs" is the red meat of economic populism, but it's a fundamentally flawed argument. I guess we need something for the steak-and-potatoes base.

I'm waiting for Biden and Sanders' team to start going on about the trade deficit or the federal debt.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 12th 2020 at 11:20:43 AM

I’m not sure paying workers a decent wage should be considered a “market distortion”, but I agree that automation is the main issue and there’s no going backwards on that one.

What we need isn’t to brung back manufacturing jobs. It’s to institute living wages and good working conditions for the service-industry jobs that have replaced manufacturing.

In the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing jobs were hellish, dangerous, low-paying, with long hours and exploitative employers. They became the good middle-class jobs of the 1950s because unions and governments forced corporations to pay and treat their workers decently.

Now we need to do the same with retail sales, restaurant work, and other low-paying services - but right-wing governments have sabotaged that by destroying the union movement.

(And I’m not sure restaurants could break even if they paid their workers enough to live on in NYC and SF.)

EDIT: A focus on improving wages and working conditions in the sales and service industries would also be good for gender equality. Manufacturing is very heavily male, so focusing on it doesn’t help working-class women.

Edited by Galadriel on Jul 12th 2020 at 11:39:07 AM

We should pay our workers well; this is not in dispute. Manufacturing, especially durable goods manufacturing, tends to be more highly unionized than the average in the U.S. and wages correspondingly higher. I was not aware that this was a major concern compared to other issues. [1]

By "market distortions" I mean tariffs, subsidies, and other macroeconomic remedies that affect our trade balance without improving the quality or competitiveness of the underlying goods. Those don't actually change the overall picture that much.

You re absolutely right that retail and service labor is where the real wage problems are and where we desperately need minimum wage supports, unionization, or both.

Edit: Where market incentives can work wonders, though, is on the climate change end of things. We need a carbon tax and other means to push manufacturers and energy companies to switch over to renewables and zero-emission technologies as rapidly as possible.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 12th 2020 at 11:58:13 AM

Indeed, of course not, psychoanalysis is a particular method based on theories of the unconscious mind that is entirely impossible without interaction.

Now, if someone who's been close-ish to me for years writes a book that describes my public and private behaviour, then yes, I imagine that professionals would be able to make likely judgements on what any symptoms describe. It's a lot of what they would be able to work out in person anyway. This is doubly compounded by the fact that said niece is also a psychologist herself.

Edited by RainehDaze on Jul 12th 2020 at 5:05:07 PM

Ah, that last part was lost in the discussion, I think. That does lend a little more credibility to it.

I'm a bit surprised Biden went with "buy American". It sounds a bit America First-y to me, but maybe his base sees that differently.

Is the Netherlands bereft of people advertising how their products are locally sourced or something? I know it's common enough in the UK, especially with food or small businesses, where local provenance is a selling point.

Most countries are going "Buy local" lately because of the strain Covid put on the economy.

The idea of Buying American is very popular.

Only local in the sense of from within the region, not specifically Dutch products. And it is always in the context of buying green, not of some national idea of buying from within the country. If "local" means from Germany or Belgium because you live close to there, that would be fine too.

I know the national version of the sentiment is very strong in France, though. I guess there are some cultural differences involved.

Edited by Redmess on Jul 12th 2020 at 6:38:49 PM

The USA is very big, remember. "From the USA" is as local as it's going to get.

Which demonstrates that this is a nationalistic slogan, rather than an ecological one. If it were ecological, you'd expect something more along the lines of "shop within your state".

Switzerland is big on buying Swiss, especially with food and drink.

Although they tend to slap "Swiss" on, say, perch that's been imported into Switzerland to be cooked in Switzerland in traditional styles.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jul 12th 2020 at 5:44:26 PM

I just think it's complete nonsense to equate encouragement of buying things from within the same country straight to nationalism.

There is kind of a sentiment of "American-made products are better because they're American-made" going around, so it's not as if the two are completely separate.