I Know You Are But What Am I

Okay, there's a million unbelievable things that have happened in this election, so I'm just going to look at the most unbelievable, at least to me.

Melania Trump has announced that she wants to fight bullying, particularly cyber-bullying. Okay, that's weird to begin with, but not the unbelievable thing that I'm getting to. Sure, a First Lady usually picks a cause to promote, so nice of her to consider that. Aside from the fact that it's a bit presumptuous to be anouncing that before the election, there's the huge problem that she's married to someone who is basically bullying personified.

But there is precedent for this sort of thing. I've written about bullying-hypocrisy before. And Laureen Harper, wife of PM Stephen, tried to promote an anti-bullying strategy, also oblivious to the fact that she was married to Exhibit A. I'd like to think that they, on some level, they understand that their husbands are part of the problem. Remember how Barabara Bush, first lady to Bush Sr., promoted literacy. And then we met her son. And her other son. And her nephew.

Melania fighting bullying is strange, but wouldn't even make the top hundred strange things in this campaign. But here's the thing that I haven't been able to understand right from the start: Trump's a bully, and a candidate bullying his way almost all the way to the presidency doesn't surprise me. But, Trump is so bad at being a bully.

I mean, he's definitely got some abilities: in the primaries he showed a talent for someone's weakness and attaching a label that would stick. Low-energy Jeb, little Marco Rubio, that showed some real evil social skills. But there have also been so many blatantly obvious, grasping at straws moments. "No puppet, no puppet...You're the puppet" Really? Seven-year-olds on a playground would laugh at someone who tried to deflect an insult so desperately.

Countless people have noticed the pattern that he keeps insulting people by accusing others of his own faults, like some sort of ready-made psychoanalysis. It's comical, but it also displays his own weaknesses for all to see. Again, on any playground, that sort of thing would be exploited by everyone around him.

And then there's his common tactic of avoiding questions by spouting a meandering stream of diversions, vague descriptions and promises without details. Of course, polilticians have verbally dodged questions forever, but he is, once again, incredibly bad at it. Rather than distract us from bad news - as most politicians would - he transparently displays that he has no knowledge or plans on the topic he was asked about. Some people have compared this technique to that of a child giving a book report and hoping the teacher won't figure out he hasn't read the book. But a different metaphor is that of a kid trying to fit in, exaggerate his experience, tell everyone he's drank beer, kissed a girl, or kicked someone's ass.

So I don't get it. Bullying is part of everyone's past, and I can understand that the amoral or the authoritarian might be taken-in as adults by someone who displays the traits of a bully as proof of strength. But surely anyone who displays that agression as clumsily as Trump does would end up seeming like a wannabe, and perceived as just another weakling.

You Say You're Not Really That Keen On A Revolution

Most people think of politics as a spectrum. That is, you're not just "left" or "right;" there are different degrees from one extreme to the other. As such, you'd think that people's allegiance would be based on distance on the scale, not just which side you're on. As an analogy, a six-foot-tall man might be called "tall," as is a seven-footer. But really, the six-footer's life is less like the seven-footer, and more like a five-foot-six guy, even though the latter is considered "short." Similarly, centre-right and centre-left politicians have more in common with each other than they do with the extreme voices in their own party.

At least, you'd think so. In practice, I find that people usually find a kinship with others in their own side, even if their views are very different.

An example is when people observe politics in other countries. In the US, all of politics is shifted to the right compared to much of the Western world, such that conservative politicians from other places have policies similar to American liberals. Yet, you still see international conservatives supporting American conservatives, even if the latter is far from the ideals of the former.

Obviously, this whole discussion is motivated by Donald Trump and the cavalcade of Republicans who have knuckled under and agreed to support him. In many cases, this is even after heavily criticising him. And it's even more perplexing when you consider that the Democrats have nominated a business-friendly centrist who would seem to be about as tempting a nominee as they're likely to get.

It all makes you wonder if everyone is, at heart, an extremist. Maybe we only differ in how pragmatic we are in our pursuit of those ideals. That seems especially likely when we look at the other American party's experience in the primary season. On the surface, the battle between the centrist Clinton and the socialist Sanders is a pretty wide divide. Clinton is unofficially running for Obama's third term, while Sanders was calling for revolutionary changes.

But the view changes when you try comparing politicians' actual beliefs, rather than their policies. You never know whether a moderate politician truly believes their moderate policies are the best, or merely think the moderate policies are all they are able to get accepted. Of course, we can never know the answer to this question, as a pragmatic moderate wouldn't want to let on that they secretly want more extreme policies. But the point is that you don't know for certain what a moderate really wants; they could be ideologically the same as any extremist.

So maybe Hillary Clinton is as socialist as Bernie Sanders, and moderate Republicans have always secretly wanted a Donald Trump type figure. Though that does beg the question: does anyone want moderate policies? In most facets of life, the majority doesn't want extremism. Modern music is not just death metal and ambient electronic, so you don't expect politics to just be communism and fascism.

My guess is the explanation is about comfort. Going back to the idea of the political spectrum: we may all have an idea of the best place on the spectrum to be, but we also have a side we'd like to err on. Political people seem to only be afraid of attacks from one side. For instance, a moderate liberal may not want abolish tradition, but they aren't really afraid of or bothered by it the same way a conservative would be.

If we're not scared of the extremists on our own end of the spectrum, we might choose them over a relatively close candidate on the other side. It comes down to the things we value. You may disagree with an extremist's methods and the degrees they go to, but you may still share their priorities. And thus, you'll know that they won't harm the things you hold most sacred.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #34

The Cubs will eventually win the World Series.

I don't have a joke about this.  But it does fit the category better than just about anything.

This Is On You

I think Hugh Laurie summed up the U.S. election recently when he appeared on Colbert. Most news focussed on Dr. House diagnosing Donald Trump. But that's not what I'm talking about - after all, do we really need one more person trying to explain what's wrong with him at this point? No, what I thought was insightful was his confusion at people's attitude to Hillary Clinton. As he put it:

The people who hate Hillary hate her so much...I feel as if I've missed the first reel of the film where she burned down the orphanage or something.

That's been my attitude all along. And it's fitting that I saw my views spelled out so clearly on a talk show, because I also had another moment of clarity about Hillary Clinton while watching a talk show.

It was back during the 2008 election campaign, when Bill Maher was on Leno. He happened to mention her name, provoking a few boos from the crowd. Rather than use that as a springboard to take easy shots at her, he challenged the booers, saying,

If you hate Hillary Clinton, that is so on you. She's a bland centrist. If you hate her, those are your issues. You were molested by a real estate lady or something.

Ironically, I could only find the exact text of that quote at a right-wing blog. But back to the issue. Maher has got a point. Centrist Democrats are the vanilla of politics: not everyone will like it, but no one will really hate it. When you actually look at what Hillary stands for and does, you can certainly explain why Republicans will not be won over, or why the far left won't be excited about her. But there's really no explanation for hatred.

But the understanding of Hillary hatred gets more difficult when you look back at her long-term popularity as a poltician. Sady Doyle points out that she's actually been quite popular once she has a job. Her highest popularity was only a few years ago when she was Secretary of State, but her approval ratings plummet when she runs for President. Of course, you can expect a politician to lose some popularity when exposed to political campaigns, but even that can't explain the night-and-day difference in how she's been seen over the past eight years.

People grasp at different explanations, like a lack of charisma. But I don't remember anything this antagonistic against Mitt Romney or Al Gore. But a bland poltician who gets instantly hated when she shows career aspirations? Let's face it: it's all about gender. We've reached a point where we're okay with women in positions of power, but we still haven't accepted women being assertive or striving to achieve.

Armed with that perspective, you can also understand everyone's sudden love affair with Michelle Obama. She's campaigning for Clinton, essentially saying the same things, and getting heaps of praise for it. And people are saying - with varying degrees of subtlety - how much better it would be if she was the one running against Trump. But that's naive. Of course we love her; she's not running for president.  Give her the nomination and the knives will come out.

One of the most disappointing aspects of this problem is how the prejudice is perpetrated by both genders. Throughout the campaign, I've seen so many women express the same vague-but-strong dislike of Hillary Clinton. There'll be talk of attitude, mannerisms, maybe a comparison to a disliked woman you knew in the past.

I know, as a man, I'm not normally in position to school women on sexism. But as a straight-white-able-bodied-cis-male, if there's one thing I do know, it's prejudice. So let me tell you: prejudice doesn't feel wrong. In fact, it doesn't feel like anything. It feels like you, your feelings. When you hate someone but there's no logical reason why. Or when you're okay with Group X, you just don't like this particular member of Group X. That's what it feels like, and you have to challenge yourself on that. It's something we all have to learn to do.

Behind Plastic Eye-Holes

For this Halloween,  I thought I'd complain about the costumes available when I was a kid. Pre-made Halloween costumes from the seventies and eighties were crap.  For a start,  they were just a cheap plastic mask, and a sort of tunic body covering that was obviously just a colourful garbage bag.

But the thing that bugged me most about these things is their complete failure at being costumes.  There'd be, say, a Bugs Bunny costume with a Bugs Bunny mask, but then the plastic garment would have a picture of Bugs Bunny on it, possibly with the words,  "Bugs Bunny" on it.  For one thing, it's a bad costume if you have to tell everyone what you are. But more to the point,  Bugs Bunny doesn't have a picture of himself on his chest. So you aren't dressing up as Bugs Bunny so much as you're dressing up as an obsessed fan of Bugs Bunny, which is no fun.

Even to my developing mind which was still figuring the way the universe works,  I could tell something was wrong with this arrangement.  I couldn't really articulate it,  because it's kind of an existential mobius strip: things don't usually have pictures of themselves on themselves.  So I just had to accept this and not criticize my classmates when they dressed up as Darth Vaders with pictures of Darth Vaders on their chests.

Since then,  I've found that others had the same problem with these costumes.  Apparently they were like Scrappy-Doo: we all hated it,  but didn't say anything at the time.  Anyway,  I bring this up because I'm amazed at how far costumes have come.  Even pretty cheap Value Village costumes are much better than those old plastic monstrosities,  and probably cost the same,  adjusted for inflation. And they at least take a stab at looking like things,  not referring to them.  So that's something kids today can take pleasure in: better Halloween costumes,  and better cartoons.

Mustang Silly

Back in 2002, GM took the Chevy Camaro out of production due to poor sales. I read an editorial in the Detroit Free Press that tried to explain why the Camaro's sales were low, especially considering that it's eternal rival, Ford's Mustang, was still doing well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it now, but the gist was that the Mustang had some subtlety while the Camaro was too showy, a point they illustrated by refering to the song "Bitchin' Camaro" by the Dead Milkmen. I believe the way they put it was that the Mustang is a cool car for cool people, while the Camaro is the car that tries too hard for people who are desperate to look cool.

At the time, that seemed to me to be an accurate assessment. The Mustang of that era was a fairly modest car, an evolution of a design first used in the late seventies. While the Camaro contemporary was a gaudy vehicle that somehow managed to be sleek but not sexy. So I was totally in line with the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press and the Dead Milkmen.

But I'm not so sure anymore. If you don't follow automotive news on the Internet, let me explain. Owners of impressive cars often get together, for car shows, or more informal gatherings such as the Cars and Coffee series. And when people leave these gatherings, they often can't resist the temptation to lay some rubber. And since many people who own powerful cars cannot drive them nearly as well as they think they can, these burnouts often result in the driver losing control rather embarrassingly. And because there are usually a lot of people around watching this parade of impressive cars leaving the meet, there are a lot of people on hand to see the embarrassed driver, and usually at least one person recording it on their phone. It goes on YouTube, goes viral, yada yada yada.

What's weird is that the car driven by that bad driver is usually a Mustang. I'm not sure why: the Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger offer cars of similar design and power, and the Camaro is currently selling better than the Mustang, so you would expect that there would be plenty of Camaro crash footage too. But it's more likely to be a Mustang. And that's led to a bunch of memes on the subject. And that has led to one celebrated case of a Mustang owner who claimed he wanted to sell his car because he was sick of the memes.

In my own experience, I have to say that there may be something to this idea that Mustang owners are a little different. I mean, I think we all start to notice differences in the behaviour of drivers based on their cars. Even if you don't know much about cars, you've probably realized that you have to give SUV's a wider berth, because there is a good chance they haven't noticed you. And similarly, you realize that BMW and Mercedes drivers will notice you, but won't care. And I find that Mustang drivers are more likely to push the limits. When seeing one of them, I do subconsciously ready myself for aggression.

I don't know why there'd by a difference, since both cars seem to have a similar gaze-upon-my-masculinity style to them. But somehow the recklessly aggressive are opting for the Mustang. That's a little troubling for me. Mustang vs. Camaro is one of those dichotomies where you're drawn to one or the other, and I've always had a preference for the Mustang. But I have a much stronger aversion to the culture around it. So now I'm not sure which I would prefer out of these two cars I'm unlikely to ever own.

Subterranean Home: Sick, Alien

You know what would be a good idea: double basements.  That is, you have a basement that's twice as deep, so you have two floors underground.  I know it sounds crazy, but think of the benefits: you have more room in your house without compromising the space in your yard.  You have free insulation.  The ground moderates the temperature of the interior.  But best of all, it is the embodiment of the suburban dream: you live near your neighbours, yet you can also get far, far away from them.

I know, you don't like the idea of living below ground without windows.  Well, you don't really need windows: it's not like the view really changes in suburbia. Besides, in our modern world, you probably aren't looking up from your screens very often anyway, so who needs to look outside. And here in Canada, you'll only be missing out on the twelve days a year that the temperature is right for opening the windows.

And in addition to you not needing to look outside, people outside don't need to look at your house.  Most suburban houses are either small-and-simple, or big-and-ugly. Putting most of the girth underground saves you from having to come up with one decoration after another.  You have enough exposed house to express your sense of style, but you don't feel the need to add gratuitous arches and columns.

So I went googling the idea, but I found that my radical idea was a little too advanced for our timid development industry, saying that it's "too expensive," "probably illegal," and "you'll die from radon." But there was some precedent of it in Britain. It makes sense there, since space is at a premium, and rules often restrict your ability to add on to existing buildings. So if you want to have a big house, but you also want to live in London, building down might be your only choice.

I think that would be ideal: you're living in the city, but you can still have a quiet getaway deep in the earth. So that's what I'll do if I ever make billions.  That, or I'll build a mansion in the suburbs that will be disguised as a normal house.  There'll be a huge basement that takes up the entire property, but only a normal-sized house sticking up above ground, with no indication of anything unusual. The garage will have an elevator down to my car collection. And I'll make a deal with the developer to build my house before anyone else in the subdivision moves in, so no one will know there's anything unusual about it.