Kudos for your superb article. I really enjoyed it, so let me offer you a return swap; a little single paragraph thing that I wrote a few weeks ago. You will quickly grasp the overlap with your own article; the common thread being 'Dominance':
---------
Thrasymachus Meets Evolution and Zero-sum Thinking:
There is only so much of X (money, food, oil, water, arable land), so for me to get more of X the rest of you must take less. And through me getting more my genes will be able to evolutionarily dominate yours. I can outcompete you for sexual access, so have more offspring, and can also give my additional offspring competitive advantages – in diet, education and so on – that will ensure their ability to dominate your offspring; from which the cycle will then repeat, and so on. This is basic and inescapable reality; ‘the way of the world’ imposed on us (so, intrinsically, not my fault) by the competitive mechanism of evolution. Resistance to it is self-defeating, in that it can lead only to competitive disadvantage, and thereby ultimately to genetic elimination for the resistors. Its logical corollary is dominance as our only honest directive. If – through my failure to lie, cheat, steal or betray, etc. – I miss some competitive advantage that is not missed by my less scrupulous adversary then, and to my cost, he will gain in dominance; so there is finally nothing but dominance. Reason, fairness, honesty and altruism are merely naïve comforters for the weak and foolish. There are many more of them than of me, so – as recommended by Machiavelli – I must be able to convincing fake these weaknesses when required to further my dominance agenda. But I’m way too smart and wise to fall for them.
I offer this as a statement of the Trump/Vance/Musk/Putin/Orban/etc. position, in the unlikely event that they were to suddenly become willing to express it with honesty and precision. It is of course a large and stinking pile of garbage. But until and unless our side can sufficiently recover its intellectual mojo for honest articulation of the powerful rational arguments which show it to be such a pile then it will continue to trash our world.
Thank you so much, Keith—I really appreciate you taking the time to read and reflect on the piece. And yes, I definitely see the overlap in what you wrote. The zero-sum, dominance-driven worldview you describe is exactly what’s fueling so much of the performative authoritarianism I wrote about.
That drive to control, intimidate, and eliminate resistance isn’t just political—it’s psychological and evolutionary, like you laid out. And what’s wild is how it gets dressed up in patriotism or principle when really it’s just power-hunger masked as ideology.
Your framing adds another layer to this conversation, and I’m grateful you shared it. Let’s keep naming it—because once we stop pretending it’s about “policy,” we can start confronting the rot for what it actually is.
Thanks for your quick and kind reply, and I'm very pleased to be making your acquaintance. Based on your article and this reply I get the feeling that you and I are soldiers enlisted in the same intellectual army, and maybe even fighting from the same trench; from which I'd like to offer you a proposal for sharing weapons. If you're interested then I'd request what you consider to be your best article; the one that most clearly and compellingly lays out your position(s). Send it to me as a Word file or URL, and I will reciprocate from my side.
Hoping that I've been able to pique your curiosity; and very best regards,
Keith
BTW: From my understanding that you are an Oxnard/Ventura guy; I was a Hollywood Beach and Port Hueneme surf and biker bum for about 20 years, so we may even have bumped into each other.
History doesn’t repeat itself but it certainly rhymes Herbert Hoover presided over the calamitous equity market collapse of 1929 and then ushered in the Smoot Hawley tariffs in 1931 A year later the American electorate had enough and FDR was elected into office In that same decade the growing influential Nazi party in the US began using the political slogan “Make America First”
Now the US electorate has chosen a Nazi solution after being lied to by Cheeto and his Nazi sychophants using the banner “Make America Great Again” And like Hoover Cheeto believes that the path to greater prosperity and solving inflation is the imposition of tariffs recognizing that the “golden era of tariffs” in the late 1890’s brought about increased wealth for the already wealthy while stiffing the middle class It’s a classic Reagan “trickle down economics” ploy and has proven in studies over decades not to work
But there’s a gathering storm for Cheeto Not only are his polling numbers under water he’s hard at work to push the dollar into oblivion and throw the country’s economy into default by alienating foreign investors to not only stop supporting US debt but reducing equity investment as well(sharp drop in the stock market)
It will take time but during Cheeto’s term it will become clear that Cheeto will be “Hoovered” by the American electorate
Thank you for this, Bill. You connected some powerful historical dots here. The Smoot-Hawley reference really stood out—most folks forget how much those tariffs deepened the pain of an already broken system. And your callout of the “Make America First” slogan shows just how far back this rhetoric goes.
You’re absolutely right about the “trickle down” scam too—it’s been dressed up, rebranded, and repackaged for decades, but the damage is consistent. Appreciate you taking the time to lay this out—and for reading the piece so closely.
Thanks for engaging, E. Shelton. It really is sad how much of this administration feels like a piece of dystopian fiction—and not even the clever kind. More like the kind you read once and hope never comes true… and yet, here we are.
Absolutely agree, Chroma. “Mass hysteria” really is the throughline—and if we don’t call it what it is, we risk losing even more ground on due process and constitutional norms. Thanks so much for engaging with the piece—really appreciate your voice in this space.
Wow. That was really clear. Gotta remember those terms when I am having breakfast with the boys and these things are discussed. 8 "emergencies" this year! Pretty telling.
Thanks so much—I really appreciate that. And yep, there’s a name for every bad-faith Republican performance. Logical fallacies, rhetorical games, fear tactics—you name it. I plan on calling them out every time I see them. We’ve got to name it to fight it.
Thank you, Maxine—I really appreciate that. “Obedience optics” felt like the only way to describe this performative nonsense we’re watching unfold. Grateful you resonated with it!
These contributions make me wish I could sum up as this does, so eloquently!
Hello Prof. Ealy,
Kudos for your superb article. I really enjoyed it, so let me offer you a return swap; a little single paragraph thing that I wrote a few weeks ago. You will quickly grasp the overlap with your own article; the common thread being 'Dominance':
---------
Thrasymachus Meets Evolution and Zero-sum Thinking:
There is only so much of X (money, food, oil, water, arable land), so for me to get more of X the rest of you must take less. And through me getting more my genes will be able to evolutionarily dominate yours. I can outcompete you for sexual access, so have more offspring, and can also give my additional offspring competitive advantages – in diet, education and so on – that will ensure their ability to dominate your offspring; from which the cycle will then repeat, and so on. This is basic and inescapable reality; ‘the way of the world’ imposed on us (so, intrinsically, not my fault) by the competitive mechanism of evolution. Resistance to it is self-defeating, in that it can lead only to competitive disadvantage, and thereby ultimately to genetic elimination for the resistors. Its logical corollary is dominance as our only honest directive. If – through my failure to lie, cheat, steal or betray, etc. – I miss some competitive advantage that is not missed by my less scrupulous adversary then, and to my cost, he will gain in dominance; so there is finally nothing but dominance. Reason, fairness, honesty and altruism are merely naïve comforters for the weak and foolish. There are many more of them than of me, so – as recommended by Machiavelli – I must be able to convincing fake these weaknesses when required to further my dominance agenda. But I’m way too smart and wise to fall for them.
I offer this as a statement of the Trump/Vance/Musk/Putin/Orban/etc. position, in the unlikely event that they were to suddenly become willing to express it with honesty and precision. It is of course a large and stinking pile of garbage. But until and unless our side can sufficiently recover its intellectual mojo for honest articulation of the powerful rational arguments which show it to be such a pile then it will continue to trash our world.
Thank you so much, Keith—I really appreciate you taking the time to read and reflect on the piece. And yes, I definitely see the overlap in what you wrote. The zero-sum, dominance-driven worldview you describe is exactly what’s fueling so much of the performative authoritarianism I wrote about.
That drive to control, intimidate, and eliminate resistance isn’t just political—it’s psychological and evolutionary, like you laid out. And what’s wild is how it gets dressed up in patriotism or principle when really it’s just power-hunger masked as ideology.
Your framing adds another layer to this conversation, and I’m grateful you shared it. Let’s keep naming it—because once we stop pretending it’s about “policy,” we can start confronting the rot for what it actually is.
Prof. Ealy,
Thanks for your quick and kind reply, and I'm very pleased to be making your acquaintance. Based on your article and this reply I get the feeling that you and I are soldiers enlisted in the same intellectual army, and maybe even fighting from the same trench; from which I'd like to offer you a proposal for sharing weapons. If you're interested then I'd request what you consider to be your best article; the one that most clearly and compellingly lays out your position(s). Send it to me as a Word file or URL, and I will reciprocate from my side.
Hoping that I've been able to pique your curiosity; and very best regards,
Keith
BTW: From my understanding that you are an Oxnard/Ventura guy; I was a Hollywood Beach and Port Hueneme surf and biker bum for about 20 years, so we may even have bumped into each other.
Orange Cheeto and Herbert Hoover
History doesn’t repeat itself but it certainly rhymes Herbert Hoover presided over the calamitous equity market collapse of 1929 and then ushered in the Smoot Hawley tariffs in 1931 A year later the American electorate had enough and FDR was elected into office In that same decade the growing influential Nazi party in the US began using the political slogan “Make America First”
Now the US electorate has chosen a Nazi solution after being lied to by Cheeto and his Nazi sychophants using the banner “Make America Great Again” And like Hoover Cheeto believes that the path to greater prosperity and solving inflation is the imposition of tariffs recognizing that the “golden era of tariffs” in the late 1890’s brought about increased wealth for the already wealthy while stiffing the middle class It’s a classic Reagan “trickle down economics” ploy and has proven in studies over decades not to work
But there’s a gathering storm for Cheeto Not only are his polling numbers under water he’s hard at work to push the dollar into oblivion and throw the country’s economy into default by alienating foreign investors to not only stop supporting US debt but reducing equity investment as well(sharp drop in the stock market)
It will take time but during Cheeto’s term it will become clear that Cheeto will be “Hoovered” by the American electorate
]
Thank you for this, Bill. You connected some powerful historical dots here. The Smoot-Hawley reference really stood out—most folks forget how much those tariffs deepened the pain of an already broken system. And your callout of the “Make America First” slogan shows just how far back this rhetoric goes.
You’re absolutely right about the “trickle down” scam too—it’s been dressed up, rebranded, and repackaged for decades, but the damage is consistent. Appreciate you taking the time to lay this out—and for reading the piece so closely.
Now all we have to do is Protest Protest Protest
“Make Orwell’s 1984 fiction again,” said someone, forgot who.
Thanks for engaging, E. Shelton. It really is sad how much of this administration feels like a piece of dystopian fiction—and not even the clever kind. More like the kind you read once and hope never comes true… and yet, here we are.
After all is said and done, we may need to label this an era of mass hysteria, in order to keep our Constitution and protect due process.
Absolutely agree, Chroma. “Mass hysteria” really is the throughline—and if we don’t call it what it is, we risk losing even more ground on due process and constitutional norms. Thanks so much for engaging with the piece—really appreciate your voice in this space.
Wow. That was really clear. Gotta remember those terms when I am having breakfast with the boys and these things are discussed. 8 "emergencies" this year! Pretty telling.
Thanks so much—I really appreciate that. And yep, there’s a name for every bad-faith Republican performance. Logical fallacies, rhetorical games, fear tactics—you name it. I plan on calling them out every time I see them. We’ve got to name it to fight it.
Well said. "Obedience Optics: the pageantry of power without the policy" says it all. Thanks.
Thank you, Maxine—I really appreciate that. “Obedience optics” felt like the only way to describe this performative nonsense we’re watching unfold. Grateful you resonated with it!