Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
Coming Soon
The Duckpin Podcast drops this week! Subscribe to the video version on YouTube, or subscribe to the Audio version at Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Anchor, Google Podcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast, Radio Public, or Breaker. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an episode!
News and Politics
You had one job, David Bossie: Maryland National Committeeman Botches the Vote in an Embarrassing Way.
Their Brand is Crisis: This is how Donald Trump gets re-elected.
Is it Safe to Go Outside Yet? The Science & Politics of COVID: Discussion about COVID-19 policy rarely seems to go very far before the word "Science" is invoked reverentially. By implication, further discussion is no longer warranted.
Sports
No Easy Answers: The complicated world of Pro Sports walkouts.
The Monday Thought
It’s the dog days of August. I was going to write a long post debunking the latest nonsense on the online “right”. But why? What’s the point? It’s so entirely and easily debunked and it’s not even worth the effort.
The TL;DR version is that certain segments of the “right” think that the Centers for Disease Control data that shows “only” 6% of people who died from COVID-19 died from COVID-19 alone and that 94% of the people who died from COVID-19 had other mitigating factors and this somehow proves that the nationwide shutdowns and quarantines were useless.
This argument, of course, is mind-numbingly silly and doesn’t take into account the fact that they died from complications from COVID-19 and something else specifically because of COVID-19. This line of thinking suggests, for example, that AIDS isn’t a problem because AIDS doesn’t directly kill anybody because AIDS weakens your immune system to the point that almost anything will kill you.
Instead of that, I’m just going to bemoan the political debate in general.
The quick acceptance of this nonsense CDC talking point shows how those on the right are willing to accept just about any talking point that they perceive to help Republican candidates.
The same thing happens on the left every time some new “fact” is unearthed about Trump.
Is this a function of our society? Is this a function of social media? Is this a function of the media dividing us into two camps for ratings purposes?
I’ve got a few theories of what it could be:
Not nearly enough critical thinking is taught in schools, particularly at the post-secondary level.
Civics and history are not nearly emphasized in the K-12 education as they used to be or as much as the need to be.
The distance of social media makes it easier to be a jerk to somebody with no consequence and to be exposed to information of questionable accuracy.
Combine those three things together and you have a recipe for disaster.
And this is how we got here today. Of course people push dumb conspiracy theories. Of course people just yell obscenities at each other. Of course people assume the worst about every action that occurs at every level of government.
Too many people don’t have the foundation to argue policy anybody. Too many people don’t know what conservatism is. Too many people don’t know what liberalism is. Too many people don’t know how to interpret facts. Too many people don’t know how to read data. Too many people don’t know how to craft an argument. Too many people can’t tell the difference between opinion and data. Too many people will give money and attention to people who say what they want to hear based on emotion instead of facts.
And that’s how we wind up with the world we live, where you can make millions selling out your principles to just yell “own the libs” a bunch of times.
And that’s the problem with our politics. Too. Much. Bull.