The weak of stomach dare not read this grotesque tale of horror! Witness the astonishing true story of an implausible politician and his diabolical shadow
Each of us receives signals from what’s out there, processes these signals with the current state of our mental “machinery”, draws conclusions, and either pushes back on what’s out there or not. The base level “information” that our brain/minds work with is the same whether or not it has come directly from signals in physical reality [1] or from entities in social reality, like this Substack post of yours.
What is the truth about the actual physical reality: Donald J. Trump? How would we know? I’m guessing, but let’s say that on average a quarter of a million new words (in our world’s various languages) about Mr. Trump are placed in social reality every day. The bulk of these words are the result of at least third-hand observations. That is, at best they are words that were placed in social reality by individuals that directly interacted with Mr. Trump, but most of these words are placed in social reality by individuals who are interpreting the statements made by individuals who have not directly interacted with Mr. Trump. Thus, we are all in a fun house of mirrors. Most of what we see are distorted reflections of distorted reflections, etc., of first-order reflections. Prior to this post most US denizens just viewed either blue tinted mirrors or red tinted mirrors so as not to be emotionally disturbed by conflicting views. Now we have another view that disturbs everyone.
In the case of Mr. Trump, there are, on average, a few hundred words and many images, that are actually real, that is, the words were spoken or written by Mr. Trump himself. While second-hand, third-hand, …, nth-hand words about Mr. Trump can be helpful in corralling the truth about Mr. Trump, in my opinion it would be better if more of us focused more on Mr. Trump’s own worlds and direct recordings of his actions.
I wonder what any of our current LLMs would report if they could be exposed just to the totality of all of Mr. Trump’s words and images presently available in social reality.
With empathy for all,
Frank
Note:
[1] For definitions of subjective and objective (social and physical) reality see the Archive section of the Citizen Philosophers Substack.
The 'fun house of mirrors' you mention here is absolutely one of the key problems we have today - such that despite an abundance of shared assertions, I'm not sure that we have a clearer perspective on current events than a Medieval peasant, who had almost nothing to go on but word-of-mouth.
Also interesting to propose an LLM as a means of cutting through the noise: the nature of the technique makes them bad tools for psychological assessment (the source texts in psychology don't provide enough of a viable 'landscape' for this to work), but I suspect a properly primed neural network would at the very least detect the theatrical showmanship behind his evident grandiosity.
Truly appreciated this comment, Frank - many thanks!
Thanks Asa! I had too many friends and associates who were blurring what was happening with what might happen, which struck me as intriguing. So I (reluctantly) decided to go ahead with a little bit of philosophical fictionism to help unravel the situation, even though I'd prefer not to write about Trump. Still, I'm pleased with how this piece came out... although I've decided not to share it on Twitter. I'm not sure my followers there can take it!
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
PS: I'd earmarked your metaphysics of gardening piece for the last Bazaar, along with a couple of other pieces from other folks that missed the boat as I ended up going out on a rescue mission that day at last minute. Bottom line: still loving Dovetails! ❤️
In answer to your assertion about a virtuous hero (for there are none of those in US politics), you seem to forget that in a democracy, the voters collectively have to be the virtuous heroes.
"What is most astonishing about Demon Trump are the people who believe in him. They include a great many university-educated professionals with otherwise grounded views of existence." Apparently you have not spoken with some University educated Evangelical Christians who will explain the Universe is 6,000 years old and then explain dinosaurs disappeared in the great flood which for them occurred 4,500 years ago. As you better than anyone knows, a University education does not guarantee that a person will be rational.
“If the FBI had not raided Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s political career would have been over and Demon Trump would have faded into obscurity.” That is an improbable assumption based on Trumps overall persona and base of support. Why should Trump have been given a political pass on his illegal acts. The real tragedy was the political act of cowardice by Merrick Garland in not immediately starting a prosecution of Donald Trump for January 6th. Trump is the master of playing the legal system which he did to his own advantage,
Somehow you don’t understand the felony for which Donald Trump was convicted. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records where the felony was the motive to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Your what aboutism of the Biden administration is wildly misplaced as is your conclusion in the role of all your assertions in why Trump won. They are however consistent with your general attitude toward government in expressing “…coming to terms with the appalling government that inadvertently empowered Trump’s return to the White House.”
The fact is the “narrow sliver of disillusioned voters” were in fact calculating their own self interest. Hopefully they will wake up to the fact that in fact their calculations didn’t add up.
As always, I greatly appreciate you wading in on this topic - which of course is highly contentious!
"In answer to your assertion about a virtuous hero (for there are none of those in US politics), you seem to forget that in a democracy, the voters collectively have to be the virtuous heroes."
Aye, if only they were up to this challenge! But it becomes extremely difficult when so many of those trying to lead the discussion are being purposefully evasive or deceptive. And this accusation applies to all sides, sadly.
"Apparently you have not spoken with some University educated Evangelical Christians who will explain the Universe is 6,000 years old and then explain dinosaurs disappeared in the great flood which for them occurred 4,500 years ago. As you better than anyone knows, a University education does guarantee that a person will be rational."
Sure, although I'm not sure the Young Earth Creationists are entirely relevant here. They are, as far as I can tell, about 8% of the US population, and I assume radically less than that among graduates. Yes, there are universities that teach it. But it might not even be the strangest thing taught in universities these days... Surely a tangent, though!
"Why should Trump have been given a political pass on his illegal acts."
Which illegal acts are you speaking of? Given that Biden was also caught with formerly classified documents in his garage, it rather looks like double standards here. I do not believe that FBI raid was reasonable or justified in this raid, not least because allegedly they were given permission to use deadly force. This is not the behaviour I expect from law enforcement in a civilised nation.
Re: the January 6th riots, which you mention in passing, I'm far from convinced anything Trump did was illegal in this context either. Indeed, given that no attempt to prosecute him occurred, I suspect the legal theories involved in condemning him in this regard were not strong enough to bring to court. There are also a lot of questions about what happened in that instance that remain suspicious. I doubt we will see a fair and balanced investigation, but I would like to see one conducted. We are certainly not in possession of all the relevant facts at this time.
"Somehow you don’t understand the felony for which Donald Trump was convicted. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records where the felony was the motive to influence the outcome of the 2016 election."
I'm not sure that I don't understand it, so much as I cannot believe the chutzpah entailed in trying to convict him of a felony on such torturous pretzel logic. The hush money in question was not illegal, so suggesting that it was electoral interference to pay it requires a very broad imagination, of the kind required to posit gremlins as an explanation for mechanical malfunctions.
There is certainly room for difference of interpretation here, but from what I followed of this court case, it reminded me of Banana republic justice rather too much. I am also rather horrified that New York State law allows the actual charges to be introduced as late as the closing arguments, which in New York end with the prosecution (unusually), creating an absolutely absurd circumstances. I'm glad you think his felonious activities here make perfect sense. It's kind of comforting to think anyone does. For myself, I believe every US politician could be convicted of a felony under the unique and fanciful legal theory deployed in this case.
However, for the purpose of this point, I think it relevant that regarding undecided voters, this court case did not weaken support for Donald Trump. In fact, as I say in this piece, it largely cleared him of all wrongdoing in the eyes of those who were not already inclined to believe in Trump's guilt, because they aligned with me in seeing this as an immense absurdity and not as a reasonable verdict.
"Your whataboutism of the Biden administration is wildly misplaced as is your conclusion in the role of all your assertions in why Trump won."
This is the second time in a week that an intelligent, well-educated, worthy fellow has accused me of 'whataboutism'. I find this fascinating! 'Whataboutism' (which is a horrible term I personally don't use) is a fallacy that occurs when instead of answering a question, someone deflects by bringing in something completely different. But this is *my reflection*, and its topic is precisely the relationship between Demon Trump (the imaginary dark shadow of Trump created by talking about what he might do) and the Biden administration. So I cannot be guilty of 'whataboutism' in making this connection - this is precisely my purpose in writing this piece!
I'd like to coin another ugly term: 'notaboutism', which is what it seems to me that both you and Kantian scholar Allen W. Wood have done by refusing to address concerns about the behaviour of the Biden administration and accusing me of changing the subject. It is the subject here. I cannot change it in presenting it! But you can deploy 'notaboutism' to deflect engagement on this topic. I don't really have a problem with this, I mean, it doesn't strike me as despicable so much as it is bizarre. But we are all human, and we are all frequently quite bizarre. It is, in fact, one of the things I love about our species.
I begin to suspect that a permission structure has been created around 'whataboutism' to encourage its use in this fashion i.e. as a means of protecting certain parties from criticism. I have no idea how I would prove this hypothesis, but I find it an interesting proposition all the same.
"The fact is the 'narrow sliver of disillusioned voters' were in fact calculating their own self interest. Hopefully they will wake up to the fact that in fact their calculations didn’t add up."
I don't think this correct, but in this regard we both have to accept that these kind of generalisations about voting blocs are doomed from the outset. We like to believe we can abstract in this way, but we are always out on a limb when we do so. Again, I don't have a problem with this - it's a perfectly normal way to converse about topics beyond accurate generalisations.
I'm open to the idea that the disillusioned voters were calculating their own self-interest, though. If they, as I suggest, became aware of the Biden administration's excesses and deceptions through its crusade against Demon Trump, it would certainly seem to be in their self-interest to vote against the successor government.
Just once, though, I'd love for there to be a US presidential election that was decided on the issues and not via the battle of popular hysteria.
Many thanks for your pushback. Even where we staunchly disagree, I still greatly appreciate reading your defence of the conventional narrative. Frankly, I consider it an enormous achievement that we are able to have this discussion at all! While open discourse is still possible, there is still hope for democracy.
The Biden and Pence inadvertent possession of classified documents among their papers was followed by their voluntary return. Trump did not return the documents.
An FBI search is always done with armed agents and standard rules of engagement. In this case the FBI proceeded in carrying out the Court’s Search warrant when Trump was absent.
Trump could have returned the documents as required by law and avoided all that folloed
This is a fascinating way of putting distance between these two cases. One way of putting it is the way you have: the Biden documents were returned voluntarily. But no FBI raid, of course. Trump could not return the documents he had voluntarily as the FBI confiscated them!
Likewise, you are correct that authorisation for deadly force is FBI 'standard rules of engagement'. Raiding the residence of a former president, even under 'standard rules of engagement', though, is a long way from 'standard rules of engagement'. It is, as I intimated before, more the behaviour I expect from a Banana republic than the United States. It is salient, however (as you mention), that the FBI were not expressly given scurrilous orders beyond initiating the raid itself. On this point, I thank you for your correction.
Still, I see these incidents as chalk and cheese in terms of the behaviour of federal agencies, but again, I'm glad that there's anyone who can see that FBI raid as reasonable. I'm pretty confident that if Trump had ordered such a thing against more-or-less anyone it would have been 'the end of the world'. As it was, it's enough for me that this ill-conceived raid backfired as greatly as it did. I hope this discourages future (and current!) presidencies from doing anything so foolish ever again.
Also, while a very small point, I would sooner take testimony from Rodong Sinmun than trust an entry in Wikipedia as a reliable witness. At least the bias injected into the North Korean state newspaper would be easy to subtract! Honestly, I really miss the cultivation of knowledge via encyclopaedias, but sadly Wikipedia is nothing of the kind. It might even be a keystone in the current epistemic crisis we're all suffering from.
---
Regardless of our disagreements, thanks for adding some further details here. Personally, I still see two different standards being applied, but there is certainly room for interpretation and I respect your disagreements with me in this regard.
I would, however, like to stop this conversation, as I don't think we're going to convince each other of anything, and I really detest having to defend Donald Trump. There are much more important problems to address, and it's bad enough that I used a week of Stranger Worlds to talk about Trump, without the conversation dragging on. This is in no way a slur against you, it is just that playing devil's advocate for Trump is rather low down my list of things I'd like to be doing.
Okay, I will stop, but note you present a chronicle of twisted facts in making your arguments about the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and the timeline of events
Hi Chris,
Thanks for this alternative view of Donald Trump.
Each of us receives signals from what’s out there, processes these signals with the current state of our mental “machinery”, draws conclusions, and either pushes back on what’s out there or not. The base level “information” that our brain/minds work with is the same whether or not it has come directly from signals in physical reality [1] or from entities in social reality, like this Substack post of yours.
What is the truth about the actual physical reality: Donald J. Trump? How would we know? I’m guessing, but let’s say that on average a quarter of a million new words (in our world’s various languages) about Mr. Trump are placed in social reality every day. The bulk of these words are the result of at least third-hand observations. That is, at best they are words that were placed in social reality by individuals that directly interacted with Mr. Trump, but most of these words are placed in social reality by individuals who are interpreting the statements made by individuals who have not directly interacted with Mr. Trump. Thus, we are all in a fun house of mirrors. Most of what we see are distorted reflections of distorted reflections, etc., of first-order reflections. Prior to this post most US denizens just viewed either blue tinted mirrors or red tinted mirrors so as not to be emotionally disturbed by conflicting views. Now we have another view that disturbs everyone.
In the case of Mr. Trump, there are, on average, a few hundred words and many images, that are actually real, that is, the words were spoken or written by Mr. Trump himself. While second-hand, third-hand, …, nth-hand words about Mr. Trump can be helpful in corralling the truth about Mr. Trump, in my opinion it would be better if more of us focused more on Mr. Trump’s own worlds and direct recordings of his actions.
I wonder what any of our current LLMs would report if they could be exposed just to the totality of all of Mr. Trump’s words and images presently available in social reality.
With empathy for all,
Frank
Note:
[1] For definitions of subjective and objective (social and physical) reality see the Archive section of the Citizen Philosophers Substack.
Greatly appreciate these measured remarks, Frank!
The 'fun house of mirrors' you mention here is absolutely one of the key problems we have today - such that despite an abundance of shared assertions, I'm not sure that we have a clearer perspective on current events than a Medieval peasant, who had almost nothing to go on but word-of-mouth.
Also interesting to propose an LLM as a means of cutting through the noise: the nature of the technique makes them bad tools for psychological assessment (the source texts in psychology don't provide enough of a viable 'landscape' for this to work), but I suspect a properly primed neural network would at the very least detect the theatrical showmanship behind his evident grandiosity.
Truly appreciated this comment, Frank - many thanks!
Chris.
Nice work here, Chris! Perceptive.
Thanks Asa! I had too many friends and associates who were blurring what was happening with what might happen, which struck me as intriguing. So I (reluctantly) decided to go ahead with a little bit of philosophical fictionism to help unravel the situation, even though I'd prefer not to write about Trump. Still, I'm pleased with how this piece came out... although I've decided not to share it on Twitter. I'm not sure my followers there can take it!
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
PS: I'd earmarked your metaphysics of gardening piece for the last Bazaar, along with a couple of other pieces from other folks that missed the boat as I ended up going out on a rescue mission that day at last minute. Bottom line: still loving Dovetails! ❤️
In answer to your assertion about a virtuous hero (for there are none of those in US politics), you seem to forget that in a democracy, the voters collectively have to be the virtuous heroes.
"What is most astonishing about Demon Trump are the people who believe in him. They include a great many university-educated professionals with otherwise grounded views of existence." Apparently you have not spoken with some University educated Evangelical Christians who will explain the Universe is 6,000 years old and then explain dinosaurs disappeared in the great flood which for them occurred 4,500 years ago. As you better than anyone knows, a University education does not guarantee that a person will be rational.
“If the FBI had not raided Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s political career would have been over and Demon Trump would have faded into obscurity.” That is an improbable assumption based on Trumps overall persona and base of support. Why should Trump have been given a political pass on his illegal acts. The real tragedy was the political act of cowardice by Merrick Garland in not immediately starting a prosecution of Donald Trump for January 6th. Trump is the master of playing the legal system which he did to his own advantage,
Somehow you don’t understand the felony for which Donald Trump was convicted. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records where the felony was the motive to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Your what aboutism of the Biden administration is wildly misplaced as is your conclusion in the role of all your assertions in why Trump won. They are however consistent with your general attitude toward government in expressing “…coming to terms with the appalling government that inadvertently empowered Trump’s return to the White House.”
The fact is the “narrow sliver of disillusioned voters” were in fact calculating their own self interest. Hopefully they will wake up to the fact that in fact their calculations didn’t add up.
Dear Bob,
As always, I greatly appreciate you wading in on this topic - which of course is highly contentious!
"In answer to your assertion about a virtuous hero (for there are none of those in US politics), you seem to forget that in a democracy, the voters collectively have to be the virtuous heroes."
Aye, if only they were up to this challenge! But it becomes extremely difficult when so many of those trying to lead the discussion are being purposefully evasive or deceptive. And this accusation applies to all sides, sadly.
"Apparently you have not spoken with some University educated Evangelical Christians who will explain the Universe is 6,000 years old and then explain dinosaurs disappeared in the great flood which for them occurred 4,500 years ago. As you better than anyone knows, a University education does guarantee that a person will be rational."
Sure, although I'm not sure the Young Earth Creationists are entirely relevant here. They are, as far as I can tell, about 8% of the US population, and I assume radically less than that among graduates. Yes, there are universities that teach it. But it might not even be the strangest thing taught in universities these days... Surely a tangent, though!
"Why should Trump have been given a political pass on his illegal acts."
Which illegal acts are you speaking of? Given that Biden was also caught with formerly classified documents in his garage, it rather looks like double standards here. I do not believe that FBI raid was reasonable or justified in this raid, not least because allegedly they were given permission to use deadly force. This is not the behaviour I expect from law enforcement in a civilised nation.
Re: the January 6th riots, which you mention in passing, I'm far from convinced anything Trump did was illegal in this context either. Indeed, given that no attempt to prosecute him occurred, I suspect the legal theories involved in condemning him in this regard were not strong enough to bring to court. There are also a lot of questions about what happened in that instance that remain suspicious. I doubt we will see a fair and balanced investigation, but I would like to see one conducted. We are certainly not in possession of all the relevant facts at this time.
"Somehow you don’t understand the felony for which Donald Trump was convicted. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records where the felony was the motive to influence the outcome of the 2016 election."
I'm not sure that I don't understand it, so much as I cannot believe the chutzpah entailed in trying to convict him of a felony on such torturous pretzel logic. The hush money in question was not illegal, so suggesting that it was electoral interference to pay it requires a very broad imagination, of the kind required to posit gremlins as an explanation for mechanical malfunctions.
There is certainly room for difference of interpretation here, but from what I followed of this court case, it reminded me of Banana republic justice rather too much. I am also rather horrified that New York State law allows the actual charges to be introduced as late as the closing arguments, which in New York end with the prosecution (unusually), creating an absolutely absurd circumstances. I'm glad you think his felonious activities here make perfect sense. It's kind of comforting to think anyone does. For myself, I believe every US politician could be convicted of a felony under the unique and fanciful legal theory deployed in this case.
However, for the purpose of this point, I think it relevant that regarding undecided voters, this court case did not weaken support for Donald Trump. In fact, as I say in this piece, it largely cleared him of all wrongdoing in the eyes of those who were not already inclined to believe in Trump's guilt, because they aligned with me in seeing this as an immense absurdity and not as a reasonable verdict.
"Your whataboutism of the Biden administration is wildly misplaced as is your conclusion in the role of all your assertions in why Trump won."
This is the second time in a week that an intelligent, well-educated, worthy fellow has accused me of 'whataboutism'. I find this fascinating! 'Whataboutism' (which is a horrible term I personally don't use) is a fallacy that occurs when instead of answering a question, someone deflects by bringing in something completely different. But this is *my reflection*, and its topic is precisely the relationship between Demon Trump (the imaginary dark shadow of Trump created by talking about what he might do) and the Biden administration. So I cannot be guilty of 'whataboutism' in making this connection - this is precisely my purpose in writing this piece!
I'd like to coin another ugly term: 'notaboutism', which is what it seems to me that both you and Kantian scholar Allen W. Wood have done by refusing to address concerns about the behaviour of the Biden administration and accusing me of changing the subject. It is the subject here. I cannot change it in presenting it! But you can deploy 'notaboutism' to deflect engagement on this topic. I don't really have a problem with this, I mean, it doesn't strike me as despicable so much as it is bizarre. But we are all human, and we are all frequently quite bizarre. It is, in fact, one of the things I love about our species.
I begin to suspect that a permission structure has been created around 'whataboutism' to encourage its use in this fashion i.e. as a means of protecting certain parties from criticism. I have no idea how I would prove this hypothesis, but I find it an interesting proposition all the same.
"The fact is the 'narrow sliver of disillusioned voters' were in fact calculating their own self interest. Hopefully they will wake up to the fact that in fact their calculations didn’t add up."
I don't think this correct, but in this regard we both have to accept that these kind of generalisations about voting blocs are doomed from the outset. We like to believe we can abstract in this way, but we are always out on a limb when we do so. Again, I don't have a problem with this - it's a perfectly normal way to converse about topics beyond accurate generalisations.
I'm open to the idea that the disillusioned voters were calculating their own self-interest, though. If they, as I suggest, became aware of the Biden administration's excesses and deceptions through its crusade against Demon Trump, it would certainly seem to be in their self-interest to vote against the successor government.
Just once, though, I'd love for there to be a US presidential election that was decided on the issues and not via the battle of popular hysteria.
Many thanks for your pushback. Even where we staunchly disagree, I still greatly appreciate reading your defence of the conventional narrative. Frankly, I consider it an enormous achievement that we are able to have this discussion at all! While open discourse is still possible, there is still hope for democracy.
With unlimited love,
Chris.
The Biden and Pence inadvertent possession of classified documents among their papers was followed by their voluntary return. Trump did not return the documents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_(classified_documents_case)?wprov=sfti1
An FBI search is always done with armed agents and standard rules of engagement. In this case the FBI proceeded in carrying out the Court’s Search warrant when Trump was absent.
Trump could have returned the documents as required by law and avoided all that folloed
Dear Bob,
This is a fascinating way of putting distance between these two cases. One way of putting it is the way you have: the Biden documents were returned voluntarily. But no FBI raid, of course. Trump could not return the documents he had voluntarily as the FBI confiscated them!
Likewise, you are correct that authorisation for deadly force is FBI 'standard rules of engagement'. Raiding the residence of a former president, even under 'standard rules of engagement', though, is a long way from 'standard rules of engagement'. It is, as I intimated before, more the behaviour I expect from a Banana republic than the United States. It is salient, however (as you mention), that the FBI were not expressly given scurrilous orders beyond initiating the raid itself. On this point, I thank you for your correction.
Still, I see these incidents as chalk and cheese in terms of the behaviour of federal agencies, but again, I'm glad that there's anyone who can see that FBI raid as reasonable. I'm pretty confident that if Trump had ordered such a thing against more-or-less anyone it would have been 'the end of the world'. As it was, it's enough for me that this ill-conceived raid backfired as greatly as it did. I hope this discourages future (and current!) presidencies from doing anything so foolish ever again.
Also, while a very small point, I would sooner take testimony from Rodong Sinmun than trust an entry in Wikipedia as a reliable witness. At least the bias injected into the North Korean state newspaper would be easy to subtract! Honestly, I really miss the cultivation of knowledge via encyclopaedias, but sadly Wikipedia is nothing of the kind. It might even be a keystone in the current epistemic crisis we're all suffering from.
---
Regardless of our disagreements, thanks for adding some further details here. Personally, I still see two different standards being applied, but there is certainly room for interpretation and I respect your disagreements with me in this regard.
I would, however, like to stop this conversation, as I don't think we're going to convince each other of anything, and I really detest having to defend Donald Trump. There are much more important problems to address, and it's bad enough that I used a week of Stranger Worlds to talk about Trump, without the conversation dragging on. This is in no way a slur against you, it is just that playing devil's advocate for Trump is rather low down my list of things I'd like to be doing.
Many thanks for the discussion, all the same!
Chris.
Okay, I will stop, but note you present a chronicle of twisted facts in making your arguments about the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and the timeline of events
Perhaps review https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-classified-documents-investigation-timeline-rcna88620