For the past 6 years, I & a few other journalists have been trying to get the mainstream press and political elites realize the major danger posed by the radical right. Unfortunately, moderate and liberal elites deluded themselves into thinking that conservatism wasn't a cult.

Thread: Conservative Policy and the Trump Presidency

On the last full day of the Trump administration, I think it's useful to examine why he accomplished so little legislatively. TLDR version: American conservatism has almost no policy program.

The most important thing to know about conservative politicking is that people do not vote FOR Republicans, they vote AGAINST Democrats.

The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.

American conservatism is premised on the twin ideas that the New Deal & Great Society were immoral and that God himself created America and that we should honor this creation by establishing full Christian supremacism in which LGBT people, atheists, and Muslims have fewer rights.

Because God created America, this means that conservatives believe in essentially no domestic policy of any kind. If it wasn't literally in the Constitution, then the feds shouldn't be doing it is their opinion.

This is not, however, how things used to be in the GOP.

For much of its history, American conservatism was a sort of intellectual parasite on the Republican party which was run by a mix of moderates and liberals. They actually had domestic policies. Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had many policies that actually helped America.

Thread: People love to rag on Nate Silver for his arrogance & they should, but he's merely an example of a larger issue that the web has made it easy to draw inferences from data without knowing the context in which it lives. 1/x

Alexander Pope's warning that "a little learning is a dangerous thing" has never been more true than an age in which we can obtain information about anything without being able to understand it.

Having data doesn't mean you can use it.

Western society has a very significant problem that expertise in one area is often conflated with expertise in others.

Men are the main culprit. We have been socialized to think we know more than we do. There are many studies showing this. Here's one:

Not only do men think we're smarter than we are, we also overestimate our own attractiveness:

Male overconfidence has lots of negative implications for society. The biggest is that too many men in media have amassed followings by speaking confidently about subjects they don't understand.

Nate Silver finds Donald Trump appalling, but his shtick isn't all that different.

As a former conservative activist and journalist, it has been so frustrating to see my former compatriots spreading wild and unchecked claims about "voter fraud." @jacknicas of the NYT took a deep look at claims of "dead" people in Michigan voting. Link in next tweet.

While examining claims made by right-wing activists who are not credible individuals is a thankless task which elite media editors despise, this is vital and important work in this age of fake news. Here's the link:

As the co-creator of NewsBusters, the most prominent anti-media website, I was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being "unfair" to conservative views. There is still much to that argument, but eventually I saw that I was missing context.

What I did not realize until I began expanding my work into creating actual media and reporting institutions such as the Washington Examiner (I was the founding online editor) was that U.S. conservatives do not understand the purpose of journalism.

This became evident to me as I saw that conservative-dominated media outlets were MUCH more biased than outlets run by liberals. The latter had flaws that arose from a lack of diversities (note plural) but they operated mostly in good faith. That's not how the former operated.

Conservatives love to complain that everyone is against them: professors, journalists, intelligence officers, social media companies, and so on.

I used to as well until I considered that maybe having problems with everyone else isn't their fault, it's yours.

I was reminded of that realization when I read this important NYT article about how Facebook keeps weakening news source quality controls because conservative content gets disproportionately effected by them.

Unfortunately, this great piece of reporting by @MikeIsaac, @sheeraf, & @kevinroose didn't mention the greatest challenge in AI news signal processing: Humans can barely separate conservative & far-right content. Which means computers can't either.

This techno-semiotic conundrum originates from the fact that in the US, because there is no moderate conservative tradition, the gravitational center of the right is far removed from the political center.

More plainly, this means that almost all the energy and organizing on the right exists on the far right.

This is not the case on the US left where there is a strong moderate tradition capable of organization and force projection. Ask Bernie Sanders if you disbelieve.

AUGUST WILL ALWAYS COME BEFORE DECEMBER

Journalism, for all its bells and whistles, shiny business models, is fundamentally built on honour. 
None of the big offices, fancy equipment will matter, if the humans are not humane.

That it was only in December you saw a call made since August, only because I amplified its contents, shows you exactly the problem, that a call has to exist, since August.

No one has to have to leave the system, and unwittingly seek a voice online, if the humans within the system had honour. 
 
Humans make the system. 
Where a system somehow leaves a person with no choice but to cry out online, only the humans indicted can make it right.

If humans who profess to be humane did just that, and insisted for more choices for each other, then there would have been no August. 
That I chose to point this out how and when I did, after several private efforts, is my prerogative, as Bobby Brown sang it.

That you choose to interpret it however assuages your bias and demigods, is your prerogative. What can never change, is that August came before December, and August brought December.

Who wants to know what it's like to go on the record with a reporter? Pull up a chair. I'll tell you.

I should clarify that I've done this a grand total of 1 time and with only one journalist. :-) I can speak to my experience and what helped.

"Going on the record" generally means you're taking some sort of risk. I knew this. I thought it over for a very long time. I hoped someone else would go on the record. I kept waiting for that person to show up. And one day I realized, hmmmm..... maybe I should be that person.

I knew of @bobsmietana because I had seen his work. He's passionate about religion reporting. He loves the "God beat". If you have a story to tell and it involves something related to a faith community, you want someone who understands that faith.

In addition, @bobsmietana lives in the Nashville area. (That's widely known now. Sorry, Bob). He understands Middle TN. It has a rare air of it's own when it comes to religion reporting.

@TheCanaryUK, journalism and free speech:

Like all news outlets, The Canary produces good and bad journalism. The same can be said of the Guardian, BBC and even the Daily Mail...

I don't agree with some of its editorial positions and at times I find some of the reporting over simplistic. But it also does extremely rigorous, well-sourced and informative analysis that addresses issues often overlooked by mainstream press (cf its reporting on Venezuela)...

What is relatively unique is the degree to which The Canary has been attacked by the left, centre and right. This is partly because of a perception that it has challenged the reach of mainstream media, especially on social media...

Though it's short history is a relative success story among news start ups, the notion that it competes on any level with either the audience reach or agenda influence of mainstream media is a constructed myth...

a myth that serves to obscure the enduring grip of national press and broadcasters over the public consciousness, and absolve policymakers of the need to address this...

@StephenFlynnSNP @NHSGrampian

This is how bullies operate, they will say you are to blame but not care about why! Mrs Dickson and her practice has misrepresented me for the last time.

It was her staff who were rude and hung up on me because it was 16:50pm and she was tired.

The fact is, for the what 20th time, holburn medical got my prescription wrong, the day before Christmas Eve after ordering well in advance.

I have anxiety disorder, they know this. I had every right to be annoyed and while I was firm but not aggressive or shouting.

Her receptionist told me for NO REASON to "stop shouting" even though I was just speaking. When I tried to say 'hey, I'm not shouting, I just am annoyed and want help' she hung up the phone on me.

I called back and tried to explain what happens to someone else, who was also rude. I explained and said 'look, I'm working tomorrow, I need to know this is sorted', to this the woman rudley snipped back with zero empathy "well, we are working too"... This blew my mind.

I was not calling their work into question and I was in no way trying to boast, I was just trying to get help but when I said 'won't, I'm not trying to be funny ' this second woman turned it into an argument and hung up! I was left awestruck at this treatment.

1. Was making a QAnon reading list for a journalist friend of mine, and thought the rest of you might find it useful as well – especially this week. Enjoy.

2. On origins, @QOrigins did a good summary piece a few weeks ago:

3. On spread outward, great piece by @BrandyZadrozny and @oneunderscore__

4. On mainstreaming:

5. On mainstreaming, by @AlKapDC: