So in my last post, I explained why I think Hillary Clinton being the nominee, not any aspect of the Democratic platform, was one of the main reasons she lost the election. In this post, I will explain another catastrophic failure of strategy--a decision that seemingly every media figure made continuously from when Trump announced he was running for president until the day before Election Tuesday. This decision is what I am referencing in the title of this post, because it is reminiscent of the expression of "barking up the wrong tree"-which means that you are trying to do something other than what you should actually do.
What was this decision? To attack Trump as being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and every other form of bigotry in the dictionary, instead of as a loose cannon who has no idea what he's talking about and, therefore, shouldn't be trusted with the power of the presidency. Calling someone racist/sexist/etc. (especially racist), especially if that someone is not in the same political party as you, doesn't do anything except further divide the two parties, and their constituent voters, from each other. Also, it encourages those who you are accusing of supporting a racist to be pissed off at you, thereby making the odds that they will vote for your candidate even lower than they were before. It also serves up a golden opportunity to them on a silver platter: namely, the opportunity to argue that, because liberals can't address any of Trump's policy proposals, they must instead resort to engaging in ad hominem attacks. This also provides a lush, nutrient-rich environment in which the GOP's infectious agents--hatred of political correctness and the mainstream media--can flourish and grow faster than they ever would if, say, you just ignored Trump instead of giving him $2 billion in free media.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Election Dissection, Part I: Kill the Messenger
This will be the first in a series of posts looking at why Democrats lost last year's presidential election--an election that many had assumed they were inevitably going to win.
The reason the Democrats lost the election was that Hillary Clinton won the nomination. This, in turn, meant that she did worse than Obama, which was all Trump needed to win. In 87% of counties, she got fewer votes than Obama did four years ago, and she did particularly worse than Obama in heavily Democratic counties. Ultimately, however, the main reason for her defeat was that she did significantly worse than Obama did in Republican-leaning counties, getting only 84% as many votes as Obama did there in 2012. Why did this cost the Democrats this election? I think there are two main, and very broad, reasons.
Before I explain those reasons, however, I should make it clear that the messenger, not the message, was what went wrong here, so long as by "message" you mean defining policy proposals rather than what some members of the party may have said on occasion about Republicans. Some people have been arguing that the Democratic message is too cultural-centric and not focused enough on what people in the heart of America care about, but I don't buy that. There's little doubt that multiple Democratic proposals, especially expanding Obamacare, reducing income inequality, and raising the minimum wage, are plenty appealing to members of the heartland, especially working-class people.
First, people hate Clinton and perceive her as corrupt, dishonest, and untrustworthy. There are many reasons for this, including the "vast right wing conspiracy" that has tried to portray her as all these things and more for more than two decades. This means people have been throwing as many scandals at her as possible for this entire time in the desperate hope that at least one will stick. Her emails have, of course, been the stickiest of these scandals, as there is little question that 1) she didn't handle her emails right while she was secretary of state and 2) she didn't tell the truth about everything she did in regards to her private email server. Even before everyone started focusing on the conclusions that she violated protocols in using a private server, there was a lot of mainstream media coverage of her emails in mid-2015, some of it inaccurately claiming she was the subject of a criminal investigation. This seems to have been a major reason her popularity abruptly dropped that summer. Of course, she was not indicted for any of this, but the two points I just made are still enough to convince us that she cannot be trusted, and of course her not telling anyone about her having pneumonia didn't help. Another major reason is that people believe her to be untrustworthy is that she is the epitome of the political establishment, which carries with it lots of dubious links to large corporations, especially Wall Street banks. Given that many Americans don't like the excessive influence such businesses have over American politics, this leads to her being perceived as merely doing the bidding of the huge corporations that financially supported her campaign. This image is only reinforced by the fact that she seems to rely on aides and focus groups to decide everything she ever does or says.
Second, throughout her campaign, she seemed to be "more of the same", a continuation of the default, and she never really explained how her presidency would not just be "four more years of Obama". This led to people often comparing her to boring things, like vanilla ice cream and Wonder Bread. This, too, was reinforced by her lack of an exciting message (or Trump's abundant charisma) and a focus on the boring, difficult aspects of being President. Her being part of the establishment also meant that when the mainstream media tried to explain why the scandals surrounding her were bogus, non-Clinton supporters ignored this message, believing it to be the work of the same corrupt government/business establishment in which Clinton was so entrenched. Ditto her lack of a crazy temperament problem like Trump's. This, in turn, led to a huge enthusiasm gap that the Clinton campaign and her supporters desperately tried to close by having famous celebrities perform at rallies and idealizing her as an awesome, rebellious feminist hero.
The reason the Democrats lost the election was that Hillary Clinton won the nomination. This, in turn, meant that she did worse than Obama, which was all Trump needed to win. In 87% of counties, she got fewer votes than Obama did four years ago, and she did particularly worse than Obama in heavily Democratic counties. Ultimately, however, the main reason for her defeat was that she did significantly worse than Obama did in Republican-leaning counties, getting only 84% as many votes as Obama did there in 2012. Why did this cost the Democrats this election? I think there are two main, and very broad, reasons.
Before I explain those reasons, however, I should make it clear that the messenger, not the message, was what went wrong here, so long as by "message" you mean defining policy proposals rather than what some members of the party may have said on occasion about Republicans. Some people have been arguing that the Democratic message is too cultural-centric and not focused enough on what people in the heart of America care about, but I don't buy that. There's little doubt that multiple Democratic proposals, especially expanding Obamacare, reducing income inequality, and raising the minimum wage, are plenty appealing to members of the heartland, especially working-class people.
First, people hate Clinton and perceive her as corrupt, dishonest, and untrustworthy. There are many reasons for this, including the "vast right wing conspiracy" that has tried to portray her as all these things and more for more than two decades. This means people have been throwing as many scandals at her as possible for this entire time in the desperate hope that at least one will stick. Her emails have, of course, been the stickiest of these scandals, as there is little question that 1) she didn't handle her emails right while she was secretary of state and 2) she didn't tell the truth about everything she did in regards to her private email server. Even before everyone started focusing on the conclusions that she violated protocols in using a private server, there was a lot of mainstream media coverage of her emails in mid-2015, some of it inaccurately claiming she was the subject of a criminal investigation. This seems to have been a major reason her popularity abruptly dropped that summer. Of course, she was not indicted for any of this, but the two points I just made are still enough to convince us that she cannot be trusted, and of course her not telling anyone about her having pneumonia didn't help. Another major reason is that people believe her to be untrustworthy is that she is the epitome of the political establishment, which carries with it lots of dubious links to large corporations, especially Wall Street banks. Given that many Americans don't like the excessive influence such businesses have over American politics, this leads to her being perceived as merely doing the bidding of the huge corporations that financially supported her campaign. This image is only reinforced by the fact that she seems to rely on aides and focus groups to decide everything she ever does or says.
Second, throughout her campaign, she seemed to be "more of the same", a continuation of the default, and she never really explained how her presidency would not just be "four more years of Obama". This led to people often comparing her to boring things, like vanilla ice cream and Wonder Bread. This, too, was reinforced by her lack of an exciting message (or Trump's abundant charisma) and a focus on the boring, difficult aspects of being President. Her being part of the establishment also meant that when the mainstream media tried to explain why the scandals surrounding her were bogus, non-Clinton supporters ignored this message, believing it to be the work of the same corrupt government/business establishment in which Clinton was so entrenched. Ditto her lack of a crazy temperament problem like Trump's. This, in turn, led to a huge enthusiasm gap that the Clinton campaign and her supporters desperately tried to close by having famous celebrities perform at rallies and idealizing her as an awesome, rebellious feminist hero.
Friday, December 23, 2016
No True Scotsman
So this is a more opinionated post, but I feel this topic should be addressed, and that those who have already done so have not done it in the best way it should/could be. The topic is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, and the issue of police brutality in America (or, if you prefer, the non-issue thereof). I will discuss how the "No True Scotsman" argument--that no "true" member of a group, as opposed to a traitor to the group, would do a bad thing that a claimed member of the group recently did--can be applied to these issues.
Certainly the name BLM seems pretty uncontroversial. But of course, the fact that they are casting a critical eye on the police and calling some actions taken by multiple individual officers into question, as well as arguing that their practices may be racially biased, is the real root source of controversy here. We have already seen the cycle occur multiple times:
1. Police officer shoots unarmed black man. This shooting can be fatal, but this is not absolutely necessary for the cycle to proceed.
2. BLM protest the shooting and, more generally, police brutality and racism in America.
3. Someone, sometimes (as in Dallas this July) motivated by these protests and criticism of police, decides to murder a (or multiple) cop(s).
4. Conservative critics of BLM pounce on step #3 as proof that BLM "hates cops" and wants them all (or at least the white ones) to be murdered. They then call on these leaders to, at least, renounce violence (as Sargon of Akkad recently did, which partly motivated me to write this post). If they are particularly radical, like Heather Mac Donald, they may demand that BLM and other "anti-cop" individuals and movements stop "demonizing police" by creating a "stream of falsehoods", and allege that these entities' statements have led to "an appalling increase in shootings and murders in many cities across America."
5. BLM and other advocates for police reform respond that theirs is a nonviolent movement.
So I'm gonna talk about the fact that BLM is a movement, not an organization, and how for this reason, anyone can identify with this movement, even if their goals or plans (e.g. murdering cops) are out of line with those that BLM was founded to pursue.
This is where the "No True Scotsman" argument comes in: if someone kills a cop, even if that person says that police brutality and BLM were their motivations to do so (as was the case in Dallas), that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is a "true" member of BLM.
Now, you could also flip this argument around and apply it to cops, which would look something like this: if a police officer does something they definitely shouldn't have done, then they must not be a "true" police officer, but instead someone who did something contrary to what policing is really about.
So is one of these arguments more valid than the other? Yes, in my opinion: the one about BLM. I am saying this because BLM is a loosely organized movement, meaning that there is no vetting process or authority who decides who "gets in" to this movement. In stark contrast, not just anyone can be a police officer; you must first graduate from high school, pass an entrance exam, and then, among other things, undergo about 600 hours of training (though the exact amount varies from state to state). So this is why it matters more when a police officer does something he/she shouldn't do than it does when a BLM member does something he/she shouldn't do.
I will close by adding a link to an excellent blog post I recently found about this subject.
Certainly the name BLM seems pretty uncontroversial. But of course, the fact that they are casting a critical eye on the police and calling some actions taken by multiple individual officers into question, as well as arguing that their practices may be racially biased, is the real root source of controversy here. We have already seen the cycle occur multiple times:
1. Police officer shoots unarmed black man. This shooting can be fatal, but this is not absolutely necessary for the cycle to proceed.
2. BLM protest the shooting and, more generally, police brutality and racism in America.
3. Someone, sometimes (as in Dallas this July) motivated by these protests and criticism of police, decides to murder a (or multiple) cop(s).
4. Conservative critics of BLM pounce on step #3 as proof that BLM "hates cops" and wants them all (or at least the white ones) to be murdered. They then call on these leaders to, at least, renounce violence (as Sargon of Akkad recently did, which partly motivated me to write this post). If they are particularly radical, like Heather Mac Donald, they may demand that BLM and other "anti-cop" individuals and movements stop "demonizing police" by creating a "stream of falsehoods", and allege that these entities' statements have led to "an appalling increase in shootings and murders in many cities across America."
5. BLM and other advocates for police reform respond that theirs is a nonviolent movement.
So I'm gonna talk about the fact that BLM is a movement, not an organization, and how for this reason, anyone can identify with this movement, even if their goals or plans (e.g. murdering cops) are out of line with those that BLM was founded to pursue.
This is where the "No True Scotsman" argument comes in: if someone kills a cop, even if that person says that police brutality and BLM were their motivations to do so (as was the case in Dallas), that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is a "true" member of BLM.
Now, you could also flip this argument around and apply it to cops, which would look something like this: if a police officer does something they definitely shouldn't have done, then they must not be a "true" police officer, but instead someone who did something contrary to what policing is really about.
So is one of these arguments more valid than the other? Yes, in my opinion: the one about BLM. I am saying this because BLM is a loosely organized movement, meaning that there is no vetting process or authority who decides who "gets in" to this movement. In stark contrast, not just anyone can be a police officer; you must first graduate from high school, pass an entrance exam, and then, among other things, undergo about 600 hours of training (though the exact amount varies from state to state). So this is why it matters more when a police officer does something he/she shouldn't do than it does when a BLM member does something he/she shouldn't do.
I will close by adding a link to an excellent blog post I recently found about this subject.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Where does "eight spiders" really come from?
For the past few weeks I have been, on and off, searching for the origin of the myth that the average person swallows 8 spiders per year in their sleep. (Note: Lemmino already did the exact same thing as me in a very well made and carefully researched video he uploaded this October, which you can watch here.) First, I should note that there is little doubt that this is a myth, and that it is not true. As Scientific American (and Lemmino in his aforementioned video) have noted, this claim "flies in the face of both spider and human biology, which makes it highly unlikely that a spider would ever end up in your mouth." So I'm not gonna focus on that. Instead I will try to find out where this myth originated. Lemmino and fellow YouTuber CGPGrey have already done that, and I think their videos, Lemmino's especially, are pretty clear proof that the source long cited by Snopes (Lisa Holst's purported "article" in "PC Professional" magazine) doesn't exist and was made up by Snopes' webmasters. So I will try to tackle a different question than either Lemmino or CGPGrey did: where did this myth come from?
So I searched a bunch of online databases, including Highbeam and the Google Books archive, to find the oldest books/articles I could regarding this claim. My searches have identified the probable origin of this myth as a 1990 article in the magazine Cornell Engineer, published by the Cornell University School of Engineering. (That said, I recognize that this may have originated earlier, but I don't think there's much of a chance.)
Here are some things that have since become even clearer than the origin of this myth as a result of these searches:
1. This claim has many variations: it seems to have originated, for example, as a claim about the # of spiders swallowed in one's lifetime. This is true not only of the original 1990 article, but also of multiple other articles repeating the myth from 1999, 1999 again, and 2002, among others. That said, there are others claiming it is "eight per year", but there is also at least one source claiming that the average person swallows 8 spiders every day. Granted, it's a fiction book, but still, I would expect published authors to be a little more careful. BTW, one of the 1999 articles cited above cites this webpage listing "useless facts" as the source for the claim, so we know this page was publicizing the claim since at least 1999.
There are also different versions of the myth with different #s of spiders other than 8. For example, alternative numbers of spiders cited include 7, 4, and 10.
2. Many articles and books cite the claim as though it were fact. (E.g. 1, 2) Others cite it more skeptically, like a 1997 Chicago Sun-Times article where a journalist actually called an entomologist at the Field Museum to ask him whether this was true or not. Also, in 2001, the LA Times reported that "The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, which investigates urban folk tales, says it is not true that "the average person swallows eight spiders a year." Someone made up the stat as a joke, and it quickly became gospel on the Internet." Still others cite it but make it clear that it's an internet legend and/or they just read it in an email, so it might not be true: 1, 2, 3.
So I searched a bunch of online databases, including Highbeam and the Google Books archive, to find the oldest books/articles I could regarding this claim. My searches have identified the probable origin of this myth as a 1990 article in the magazine Cornell Engineer, published by the Cornell University School of Engineering. (That said, I recognize that this may have originated earlier, but I don't think there's much of a chance.)
Here are some things that have since become even clearer than the origin of this myth as a result of these searches:
1. This claim has many variations: it seems to have originated, for example, as a claim about the # of spiders swallowed in one's lifetime. This is true not only of the original 1990 article, but also of multiple other articles repeating the myth from 1999, 1999 again, and 2002, among others. That said, there are others claiming it is "eight per year", but there is also at least one source claiming that the average person swallows 8 spiders every day. Granted, it's a fiction book, but still, I would expect published authors to be a little more careful. BTW, one of the 1999 articles cited above cites this webpage listing "useless facts" as the source for the claim, so we know this page was publicizing the claim since at least 1999.
There are also different versions of the myth with different #s of spiders other than 8. For example, alternative numbers of spiders cited include 7, 4, and 10.
2. Many articles and books cite the claim as though it were fact. (E.g. 1, 2) Others cite it more skeptically, like a 1997 Chicago Sun-Times article where a journalist actually called an entomologist at the Field Museum to ask him whether this was true or not. Also, in 2001, the LA Times reported that "The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, which investigates urban folk tales, says it is not true that "the average person swallows eight spiders a year." Someone made up the stat as a joke, and it quickly became gospel on the Internet." Still others cite it but make it clear that it's an internet legend and/or they just read it in an email, so it might not be true: 1, 2, 3.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?
In light of the recent and almost completely unexpected presidential election results, I've decided to see whether third party candidates were responsible for this outcome by stealing votes from Clinton.
First, I will list the margin of victory for Trump (in %) in key swing states, according to CNN (i.e. %Trump-%Clinton):
Florida= 1.3
Pennsylvania= 1.2
Ohio= 8.6
Michigan =0.3 (weird stuff is going on here, with an appeals court recently rejecting an already-underway recount initiated at Jill Stein's behest.)
Wisconsin=1
Georgia=4.7
North Carolina=3.8
Now let's compare that with the % of people who voted for Johnson (J) and Stein (S) in each of these states (in GA and NC, Stein was not on the ballot):
FL: J=2.2, S=0.7 J+S=2.9
PA: J=2.4, S=0.8 J+S=3.2
OH: J=3.2, S=0.8 J+S=4
MI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
WI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
GA: J=3.1
NC: J=2.8
Suppose we then divide the margin of victory in each state by the % of voters who voted for J+S combined. (Bear in mind that if the number we get is >1, there's no way third party voters could have cost Clinton the election in that state.) Then this is what we get (results rounded to 2 decimal places):
FL: .45
PA: .38
OH: 2.2
MI: 0.06
WI: 0.21
GA: 1.52
NC: 1.36
Now we can rule out OH, GA, and NC because there's clearly no way Johnson and Stein could have cost Clinton those states. So what about the four remaining states--FL, PA, MI, and WI? Well, if Clinton had won all of them, she would have gotten 75 more electoral votes than she actually did, for a total of 307, which is not only enough to win, but also even more than Trump actually got (albeit by only one).
Exit polling data give us a good idea of how third-party voters would have voted if the race was only between Clinton and Trump. According to CBS, 25% of Johnson voters said they would have voted for Clinton otherwise (C), 15% said Trump (T), and 55% said they would otherwise not have voted (O). Similarly, about 25% of Stein voters said C, 14% said T, and 61% O. So let's multiply the % of each third-party candidates' voters in each of these 4 states.
FL: J: 2.2*.25=.55% more votes for Clinton, 2.2*.15=.33% more for Trump
S: .7*.25=.18% more for Clinton, .7*.14=.1% more for Trump
FL total: .73% more for C, .43% more for Trump
So C would have been .3% closer to winning FL without J and S. But this is not enough, because she would still have been 1% behind Trump there.
PA: J: 2.4*.25=.6% more for C, 2.5*.15=.38% more for Trump
S: 0.8*.25=.2% more for C, 0.8*.14=.11% more for Trump
PA total: .8% more for C, .49% more for Trump
Again, in PA, C would have been about .3% closer to winning without J and S. But this is still not close enough, as she lost the state by 1.2%.
MI: J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14=.15% more for T
MI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning MI than she actually was. Because she lost the state by only .03%, she would have won MI without J and S.
WI (all the same as in MI, weirdly enough): J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14-/15% more for T
WI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning WI than she actually was. But this would not have been enough, because she lost the state by 1%.
So it looks like Clinton would only have won the ridiculously close Michigan race without Johnson and Stein. So she'd have gotten 248 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 290. But Trump would still have won because you only need 270 electoral votes to win.
So the answer to the question "Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?" seems to be "No."
I should note that Vox looked at this same subject already and concluded that the answer to the title of this post is no. The Washington Post, in contrast, concluded that without Johnson & Stein, "Clinton might have won, based upon these data, but only by winning both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump held onto even one, he would have kept an electoral college majority." The WaPo also noted that in this hypothetical 2-candidate scenario, "In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Clinton and Trump would have tied at 48 percent apiece."
First, I will list the margin of victory for Trump (in %) in key swing states, according to CNN (i.e. %Trump-%Clinton):
Florida= 1.3
Pennsylvania= 1.2
Ohio= 8.6
Michigan =0.3 (weird stuff is going on here, with an appeals court recently rejecting an already-underway recount initiated at Jill Stein's behest.)
Wisconsin=1
Georgia=4.7
North Carolina=3.8
Now let's compare that with the % of people who voted for Johnson (J) and Stein (S) in each of these states (in GA and NC, Stein was not on the ballot):
FL: J=2.2, S=0.7 J+S=2.9
PA: J=2.4, S=0.8 J+S=3.2
OH: J=3.2, S=0.8 J+S=4
MI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
WI: J=3.6, S=1.1 J+S=4.7
GA: J=3.1
NC: J=2.8
Suppose we then divide the margin of victory in each state by the % of voters who voted for J+S combined. (Bear in mind that if the number we get is >1, there's no way third party voters could have cost Clinton the election in that state.) Then this is what we get (results rounded to 2 decimal places):
FL: .45
PA: .38
OH: 2.2
MI: 0.06
WI: 0.21
GA: 1.52
NC: 1.36
Now we can rule out OH, GA, and NC because there's clearly no way Johnson and Stein could have cost Clinton those states. So what about the four remaining states--FL, PA, MI, and WI? Well, if Clinton had won all of them, she would have gotten 75 more electoral votes than she actually did, for a total of 307, which is not only enough to win, but also even more than Trump actually got (albeit by only one).
Exit polling data give us a good idea of how third-party voters would have voted if the race was only between Clinton and Trump. According to CBS, 25% of Johnson voters said they would have voted for Clinton otherwise (C), 15% said Trump (T), and 55% said they would otherwise not have voted (O). Similarly, about 25% of Stein voters said C, 14% said T, and 61% O. So let's multiply the % of each third-party candidates' voters in each of these 4 states.
FL: J: 2.2*.25=.55% more votes for Clinton, 2.2*.15=.33% more for Trump
S: .7*.25=.18% more for Clinton, .7*.14=.1% more for Trump
FL total: .73% more for C, .43% more for Trump
So C would have been .3% closer to winning FL without J and S. But this is not enough, because she would still have been 1% behind Trump there.
PA: J: 2.4*.25=.6% more for C, 2.5*.15=.38% more for Trump
S: 0.8*.25=.2% more for C, 0.8*.14=.11% more for Trump
PA total: .8% more for C, .49% more for Trump
Again, in PA, C would have been about .3% closer to winning without J and S. But this is still not close enough, as she lost the state by 1.2%.
MI: J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14=.15% more for T
MI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning MI than she actually was. Because she lost the state by only .03%, she would have won MI without J and S.
WI (all the same as in MI, weirdly enough): J: 3.6*.25=.9% more for C, 3.6*.15=.54% more for T
S: 1.1*.25=.28% more for C, 1.1*.14-/15% more for T
WI total: 1.18% more for C, .69% more for T
Without J and S, C would have been .49% closer to winning WI than she actually was. But this would not have been enough, because she lost the state by 1%.
So it looks like Clinton would only have won the ridiculously close Michigan race without Johnson and Stein. So she'd have gotten 248 electoral votes, compared to Trump's 290. But Trump would still have won because you only need 270 electoral votes to win.
So the answer to the question "Did Johnson & Stein cost Clinton the election?" seems to be "No."
I should note that Vox looked at this same subject already and concluded that the answer to the title of this post is no. The Washington Post, in contrast, concluded that without Johnson & Stein, "Clinton might have won, based upon these data, but only by winning both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If Trump held onto even one, he would have kept an electoral college majority." The WaPo also noted that in this hypothetical 2-candidate scenario, "In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Clinton and Trump would have tied at 48 percent apiece."
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Why Samantha Bee is right about Catholic hospitals
In a recent episode of her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee lambasted Catholic hospitals that refused to perform abortions and related procedures because it conflicted with their religious beliefs. Naturally, anti-abortion conservatives, realizing that the tide of public opinion is turning against them, are not happy; among the anti-choicers to "debunk" Bee's claims is the National Review's Alexandra Descantis, who recently wrote an article for the National Review Online attacking Bee's segment as "dishonest". Now pretty much everything on the NRO's website is bullshit, but I randomly decided to dismantle this particular article because I only recently saw the (brand-new) segment. So let's go through Descantis's claims one by one:
• She claims that Bee ignores the storied, centuries-old tradition of Catholic teachings on abortion being evil and/or murder. Specifically, Descantis writes that instead of acknowledging this history and tradition, "she [Bee] portrays the Catholic guidelines for hospitals as a set of random proscriptions cobbled together by a group of old men (bishops) trying to control and harm women." Later, in response to Bee's claim about Catholic Church officials giving advice regarding reproductive health, she says, "Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."
Response: This is irrelevant to the question of whether these hospitals are acting in the best interest of their patients, as they should be, as opposed to imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, even when they endanger the patients' lives. It is not essential that, in order to be right about these issues, someone comprehensively summarize the traditions whereby Catholic abortion dogma was passed down over hundreds of years. However, those who seek to defend traditions dating back that far must acknowledge how much better healthcare is now because such barbaric practices are no longer followed in the name of religious dogma. Also, re that last sentence: no it isn't, at least not in terms of the authorities deciding what the dogma is (the Pope and other archbishops) or its consequences (serious medical conditions).
Descantis then moves on to the case of Jennafer Norris, who was refused a tubal ligation while having an emergency C-section at a Catholic hospital. She also acknowledges that Rupa Natarajan was not allowed to perform abortions while working at a Catholic hospital as an OBGYN. She responds by arguing that both these women could have gone to other hospitals, and then acknowledges that Bee responds by saying that it's hard to divert an ambulance's path to drive to a non-Catholic hospital, and that even if you could, you might run out of gas on the way. Her response to this response is laughably pathetic: "No woman has to grab the wheel of an ambulance while in the midst of miscarrying; she just has to call an ambulance from a non-Catholic hospital. Though it sometimes might be inconvenient for a woman to travel to a non-Catholic hospital, the inconvenience surely does not outweigh the importance of conscience rights, which demand that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide procedures that Catholicism deems morally wrong."
Response: How is there a difference between abruptly diverting one's path to go to hospital B instead of A, or going to hospital A and then to hospital B? Sure, it's easier to call an ambulance at a hospital than to frantically divert one's path en route, but it's also slower, which can be a serious problem in these types of emergency scenarios. The argument about it being more important for Catholic hospitals to impose their dogma on unwilling women than for these women to not suffer serious medical consequences as a result is indefensibly and unambiguously wrong.
Here's Descantis's response to Bee's claim about women possibly dying if doctors don't terminate their pregnancies: "a direct abortion (in which a doctor intentionally kills a child) is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life." (emphasis in original)
Response: Wrong. Watch the episode for the case that led to the excommunication of Margaret McBride (starting at about the 2:30 mark), which clearly involves a woman who only lived because the doctors aborted her child.
Lastly, Descantis deals with the case of Mindy Swank, who wanted staff at a Catholic hospital to terminate her pregnancy so she wouldn't be at risk of an infection, uterine loss, and possibly even death, and because the child had birth defects. The hospital refused, and sent Mindy to a non-Catholic hospital. (See the episode for more details.) Descantis's response is as follows: "While the Catholic hospital certainly would “treat” Mindy, she falsely asserts that her life was in danger because she was refused an abortion. In fact, delivering a child with birth defects poses no health risks to the mother, other than those commonly associated with giving birth."
Response: Irrelevant, because, as I noted above, Mindy had to worry about other concerns than just giving birth to the child, like an infection or possible death. These concerns could have been dealt with by aborting the child, but weren't.
• She claims that Bee ignores the storied, centuries-old tradition of Catholic teachings on abortion being evil and/or murder. Specifically, Descantis writes that instead of acknowledging this history and tradition, "she [Bee] portrays the Catholic guidelines for hospitals as a set of random proscriptions cobbled together by a group of old men (bishops) trying to control and harm women." Later, in response to Bee's claim about Catholic Church officials giving advice regarding reproductive health, she says, "Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."
Response: This is irrelevant to the question of whether these hospitals are acting in the best interest of their patients, as they should be, as opposed to imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, even when they endanger the patients' lives. It is not essential that, in order to be right about these issues, someone comprehensively summarize the traditions whereby Catholic abortion dogma was passed down over hundreds of years. However, those who seek to defend traditions dating back that far must acknowledge how much better healthcare is now because such barbaric practices are no longer followed in the name of religious dogma. Also, re that last sentence: no it isn't, at least not in terms of the authorities deciding what the dogma is (the Pope and other archbishops) or its consequences (serious medical conditions).
Descantis then moves on to the case of Jennafer Norris, who was refused a tubal ligation while having an emergency C-section at a Catholic hospital. She also acknowledges that Rupa Natarajan was not allowed to perform abortions while working at a Catholic hospital as an OBGYN. She responds by arguing that both these women could have gone to other hospitals, and then acknowledges that Bee responds by saying that it's hard to divert an ambulance's path to drive to a non-Catholic hospital, and that even if you could, you might run out of gas on the way. Her response to this response is laughably pathetic: "No woman has to grab the wheel of an ambulance while in the midst of miscarrying; she just has to call an ambulance from a non-Catholic hospital. Though it sometimes might be inconvenient for a woman to travel to a non-Catholic hospital, the inconvenience surely does not outweigh the importance of conscience rights, which demand that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide procedures that Catholicism deems morally wrong."
Response: How is there a difference between abruptly diverting one's path to go to hospital B instead of A, or going to hospital A and then to hospital B? Sure, it's easier to call an ambulance at a hospital than to frantically divert one's path en route, but it's also slower, which can be a serious problem in these types of emergency scenarios. The argument about it being more important for Catholic hospitals to impose their dogma on unwilling women than for these women to not suffer serious medical consequences as a result is indefensibly and unambiguously wrong.
Here's Descantis's response to Bee's claim about women possibly dying if doctors don't terminate their pregnancies: "a direct abortion (in which a doctor intentionally kills a child) is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life." (emphasis in original)
Response: Wrong. Watch the episode for the case that led to the excommunication of Margaret McBride (starting at about the 2:30 mark), which clearly involves a woman who only lived because the doctors aborted her child.
Lastly, Descantis deals with the case of Mindy Swank, who wanted staff at a Catholic hospital to terminate her pregnancy so she wouldn't be at risk of an infection, uterine loss, and possibly even death, and because the child had birth defects. The hospital refused, and sent Mindy to a non-Catholic hospital. (See the episode for more details.) Descantis's response is as follows: "While the Catholic hospital certainly would “treat” Mindy, she falsely asserts that her life was in danger because she was refused an abortion. In fact, delivering a child with birth defects poses no health risks to the mother, other than those commonly associated with giving birth."
Response: Irrelevant, because, as I noted above, Mindy had to worry about other concerns than just giving birth to the child, like an infection or possible death. These concerns could have been dealt with by aborting the child, but weren't.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Is there any credible argument for Texas's abortion law?
On July 18, 2013, the then-governor of Texas, Rick Perry, signed House Bill 2 (abbreviated HB2), an omnibus anti-abortion bill into law. The "omnibus" refers to the fact that the bill contains 4 different provisions, all of which have long been promoted by the pro-life movement. The provisions of the law are as follows:
1. Abortion after 20 weeks is now illegal.
2. Abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), even if they do not provide surgical abortions.
3. Doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic where they perform them.
Now it's clearly medically unnecessary to make abortions illegal after 20 weeks, so the only reason for this would be to "protect the lives of the unborn" rather than the health of women. But regarding the second two provisions, some argument, superficial though it may be, can be and has been made for how these laws benefit/protect women's health.
First, let's look at the ASC issue. What is an ASC? According to NPR, "Such facilities are mini-hospitals, with wide corridors, large operating rooms and advanced HVAC systems, among other requirements." On the surface it seems fair to make abortion clinics conform to higher safety standards, especially when you read on right-wing websites that such standards "ensure that these facilities have a sterile environment and proper sanitation; an adequate number of trained and qualified staffers; and the ability to address medical emergencies, emergency access, and basic fire prevention and safety." Similarly, Texas Solicitor General Ken Paxton has claimed that these laws are necessary for "ensuring that EMTs can have access to the facilities" and that "there's not a maze of hallways." However, the fact remains that abortion is exceptionally safe already: with a mortality rate of <1/100,000 abortions, it's safer than almost any other medical procedure, including plastic surgery. Also, as the AMA and ACOG pointed out in their amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court, "Abortion procedures do not require the full operating theater or external sterility precautions that are mandated by H.B. 2," (page 11) and the ACOG has noted that this law sets a higher standard than for other procedures with higher risk, like colonoscopy. Similarly, the AMA/ACOG brief noted that "no law requires colonoscopies or liposuction to be performed in an ASC or hospital setting, despite the fact that the mortality rate for both procedures is higher than for abortion," which undermines the argument made by proponents of the law that it requires abortion clinics to meet "the same minimum cleanliness and safety standards as other outpatient surgery facilities." (page 15)
So now that it's been established that this law is unnecessary and won't provide any benefits, we must then ask what, if any, the downsides of it are or will be. The most obvious comes from the closure of clinics that will be caused by these laws, as well as, of course, the ones that the law has already forced to close.
Some have argued that this law didn't cause the closure of the 22 clinics that are no longer open in Texas that were open before the law was passed, or that even if it did, it was the requirement for medication abortions that did it, not the admitting privileges or ASC requirements. Yet, as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has pointed out, the trends in the number of clinics open after the law took effect and then was suspended is exactly what we would expect if the law caused clinic closures. In her words: “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen.” Also worth noting is that according to NPR, the law would close at least 10 of the 19 remaining clinics in the state if it is upheld by SCOTUS. This makes sense not just because many abortion doctors can't get admitting privileges, but also because building/buying an ASC to comply with that provision of the law would cost millions of dollars for a clinic to do.
So what? Perhaps the closure of these clinics will still not place an undue burden on women seeking abortions in Texas. This is the argument that has been advanced by the state in the SCOTUS case about this law: according to NBC News, they have argued that "More than 90 percent of women of reproductive age live within 150 miles" of one of the clinics that would remain open if the law went into effect completely. This claim originates from Todd Giberson, a geographer who testified in defense of the state and HB2. Yet his analysis has been criticized because, according to Mary Tuma, it "did not take into account women who would be unable to secure access to a car (such as poor women along the U.S.-Mexico border), and included a facility in New Mexico as a clinic within reach for those residing in El Paso." Also, the problem with including a clinic in New Mexico is that, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pointed out, New Mexico doesn't require abortion clinics to meet ASC standards or for abortionists to have admitting privileges.
Lastly, the state argues that its law would have prevented incidents like that of Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of multiple charges related to exploiting pregnant women who wanted abortions (charges that included murder and involuntary manslaughter) in 2013. Yet this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because, for one thing, as has been pointed out at Slate's Double X blog, "the story of Kermit Gosnell is not one of under-regulation, but rather of government failing to enforce already-existing laws that were more than sufficient to shut him down."
In short, the answer to the question posed in the title of post is no.
1. Abortion after 20 weeks is now illegal.
2. Abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), even if they do not provide surgical abortions.
3. Doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic where they perform them.
Now it's clearly medically unnecessary to make abortions illegal after 20 weeks, so the only reason for this would be to "protect the lives of the unborn" rather than the health of women. But regarding the second two provisions, some argument, superficial though it may be, can be and has been made for how these laws benefit/protect women's health.
First, let's look at the ASC issue. What is an ASC? According to NPR, "Such facilities are mini-hospitals, with wide corridors, large operating rooms and advanced HVAC systems, among other requirements." On the surface it seems fair to make abortion clinics conform to higher safety standards, especially when you read on right-wing websites that such standards "ensure that these facilities have a sterile environment and proper sanitation; an adequate number of trained and qualified staffers; and the ability to address medical emergencies, emergency access, and basic fire prevention and safety." Similarly, Texas Solicitor General Ken Paxton has claimed that these laws are necessary for "ensuring that EMTs can have access to the facilities" and that "there's not a maze of hallways." However, the fact remains that abortion is exceptionally safe already: with a mortality rate of <1/100,000 abortions, it's safer than almost any other medical procedure, including plastic surgery. Also, as the AMA and ACOG pointed out in their amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court, "Abortion procedures do not require the full operating theater or external sterility precautions that are mandated by H.B. 2," (page 11) and the ACOG has noted that this law sets a higher standard than for other procedures with higher risk, like colonoscopy. Similarly, the AMA/ACOG brief noted that "no law requires colonoscopies or liposuction to be performed in an ASC or hospital setting, despite the fact that the mortality rate for both procedures is higher than for abortion," which undermines the argument made by proponents of the law that it requires abortion clinics to meet "the same minimum cleanliness and safety standards as other outpatient surgery facilities." (page 15)
So now that it's been established that this law is unnecessary and won't provide any benefits, we must then ask what, if any, the downsides of it are or will be. The most obvious comes from the closure of clinics that will be caused by these laws, as well as, of course, the ones that the law has already forced to close.
Some have argued that this law didn't cause the closure of the 22 clinics that are no longer open in Texas that were open before the law was passed, or that even if it did, it was the requirement for medication abortions that did it, not the admitting privileges or ASC requirements. Yet, as Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has pointed out, the trends in the number of clinics open after the law took effect and then was suspended is exactly what we would expect if the law caused clinic closures. In her words: “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen.” Also worth noting is that according to NPR, the law would close at least 10 of the 19 remaining clinics in the state if it is upheld by SCOTUS. This makes sense not just because many abortion doctors can't get admitting privileges, but also because building/buying an ASC to comply with that provision of the law would cost millions of dollars for a clinic to do.
So what? Perhaps the closure of these clinics will still not place an undue burden on women seeking abortions in Texas. This is the argument that has been advanced by the state in the SCOTUS case about this law: according to NBC News, they have argued that "More than 90 percent of women of reproductive age live within 150 miles" of one of the clinics that would remain open if the law went into effect completely. This claim originates from Todd Giberson, a geographer who testified in defense of the state and HB2. Yet his analysis has been criticized because, according to Mary Tuma, it "did not take into account women who would be unable to secure access to a car (such as poor women along the U.S.-Mexico border), and included a facility in New Mexico as a clinic within reach for those residing in El Paso." Also, the problem with including a clinic in New Mexico is that, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg has pointed out, New Mexico doesn't require abortion clinics to meet ASC standards or for abortionists to have admitting privileges.
Lastly, the state argues that its law would have prevented incidents like that of Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of multiple charges related to exploiting pregnant women who wanted abortions (charges that included murder and involuntary manslaughter) in 2013. Yet this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because, for one thing, as has been pointed out at Slate's Double X blog, "the story of Kermit Gosnell is not one of under-regulation, but rather of government failing to enforce already-existing laws that were more than sufficient to shut him down."
In short, the answer to the question posed in the title of post is no.
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