Open Thread Feb. 20: The Content of the GOP’s Character [UPDATED]

Lest we think all the bad behavior by Republicans and their white enablers is going unnoticed, Paul Krugman notes that their fealty to Trump exposes the rot at the core of the GOP’s character. Many of us have been ringing that bell for a long time — the party that loves to tell poor people to take personal responsibility has never acted that way itself.

[I]f you step back a bit and think about it, Trump’s latest outbursts were very much in character — and I don’t just mean his personal character. When did you last see a member of the Trump administration, or for that matter any prominent Republican, admit error or accept responsibility for problems? it’s not just Trump. And it didn’t start with Trump. In fact, way back in 2006 I wrote about the “mensch gap” in the Bush administration — the unwillingness of top officials to accept responsibility for the botched occupation of Iraq, the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and more.

[UPDATE]: Right on schedule, here’s a brief video clip that beautifully demonstrates that character: An Idaho shitbag state senator not just blowing off college students who drove seven hours for a 9 a.m. meeting, but declaring that he’s “a Roman Catholic and a conservative Republican,” which strike me as two good reasons to have nothing to do with either institution, and saying that he’ll call the cops if they try to meet wth him again. I can’t say this often enough: The GOP must be destroyed. Hanging the Russian bunch as traitors will be a good start.

Here’s an important point about the sort of election interference addressed by Friday’s indictments — if it hadn’t been done by foreign nationals, it would be lauded as a brilliant example of using up-to-the-minute technology to win an election. Indeed, these authors say the Internet Research Agency, the infamous “troll farm,” was engaged in nothing beyond “basic digital marketing”.

For example: A political advertiser (or communicator) might test a message about immigration in different cities across the country, or it might compare responses to that message based on age, income, ethnicity, education-level, or political preference. Because digital-media companies like Facebook collect vast amounts of data on their users, advertisers can parse based on age, income, ethnicity, political affiliation, location, education level, and many other consumer preferences that indicate political interests. Once the ad buys indicate what messages get the biggest response from particular groups, the operator can organize its entire social-media campaign to reach those people and build out bigger and bigger audiences. This is digital marketing 101. Start with a product to sell and test a variety of messages until the best one rises to the surface.

In the election-interference case, the “products” for Russian trolls were divisive political messages about issues like, say, religion. But just as with any other product, the ads ginning up fear and outrage about Islam in America benefited from Google and Facebook’s machine-learning algorithms, which scan vast amounts of data and conduct tests on multitudes of political messages to determine the best way to find and engage an audience. Everybody makes more money if the ads work well—that is to say, if people click on them. The economic interests of advertisers and social media companies are essentially aligned.

Why does the NRA always win? That’s the title of this piece, and the answer is fairly simple: It built a lifestyle brand that created an army of single-issue voters.

[I]t’s a mistake to attribute the NRA’s success entirely to its campaign spending. The dollar amount was considerable in 2016: $54.4 million. But that money was not spent on the entire Congress. Thirty million went to Donald Trump, the rest mainly to six Republican Senate candidates in competitive races, five of whom won. For most members of Congress, the amount of money they get from the NRA is a tiny percentage of their overall hauls. If money were the only reason for their gun rights stances, Michael Bloomberg could offer to double whatever the NRA gives them and flip their votes. To beat the NRA at its own game, the gun control movement needs to better understand how the NRA has built an army of single-issue voters.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court unveiled its new Congressional district maps, prompting the immediate promise of a lawsuit from the state GOP claiming that only the legislature can draw redistricting maps. They simply never give up, no matter how far in the wrong they are.

While we’re up in Pennsylvania, not every knucklehead in Philadelphia saved it for the Eagles parade. There’s also the dumb mook who went to an Ugly Sweater Party at the Franklin Institute, slipped into the Terracotta Warriors exhibit of 2,000-year-old Chinese statuary, took a few selfies and oh, btw, broke off a thumb and took it home as a souvenir. Yes, he’s been apprehended, and the Chinese are more than little pissed off about it. Please, nobody tell Trump.

I don’t really know if forcing Republicans to acknowledge the truth about things will move the needle of national stupidity out of the idiot zone and up to moron, but I think it’s worth the effort. To that end, I think it’s important to make them admit the real reason they’re anti-immigrant: They’re afraid the immigrants will vote for Democrats. Rush Limbaugh said as much when he said he’d take in all the immigrants in the country if they weren’t allowed to vote “for 15 to 25 years.” The truth will set you free, Rushbo.

Fascinating story about Airbnb from The Atlantic, noting that the online rooms-for-rent service has disrupted the market — but not, as predicted, for hotel rooms. Turns out that, five years on, hotels have done just fine, because Airbnb customers and business customers don’t want rooms in the same places. What has it disrupted instead? The residential rental market. Click through to learn how.