And from another reader in California:

Trump’s attack on the judge and his demand that his surrogates pile on, and also attack as “racist” any journalists who question what they are doing—this is Trump doing what he seems always to do. He focuses all his energy and rhetoric and bullying on the crisis right at hand (the lawsuit about the Trump U fraud) with no consideration at all for the long-term effects or more important priorities.

I can practically hear him saying, “The convention? We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. It’ll be a cakewalk. People love me.” 

Think of only what is happening now, and take care of the future when it arrives. The idea seems to be that if you can solve any crisis (“Easy!”), then you might as well tackle the one closest to hand, and deal with the others as you get to them: since you can solve them as they come, no biggie. 

He’s way out of his depth, and I don’t think he’s quite realized it yet.

***

From another reader on the East Coast who is a lawyer, on my comment that Trump’s harping on the civil-suit against Trump U is a weird self-inflicted distraction from the real business of the campaign:

Your statement that the Trump University lawsuit has nothing to do with the presidential campaign isn’t really correct; it’s more complicated than that.  

Clearly, Trump and the “University”’s actions in conducting business, and the revelations coming from Trump’s deposition, reflect pretty badly on the candidate. It’s more or less true that the lawsuit itself, separate and apart from the underlying facts, isn’t all that relevant to the campaign, particularly since as a result of Judge Curiel’s order, the trial won’t take place until after the election (a decision for which Trump ought to be down on his knees thanking the judge).

It’s impossible to tell if Trump’s ranting about Curiel is a strategic move to attempt to blunt the impact of the revelations coming out or whether it’s just Trump obsessively interjecting into the middle of the campaign his petulant complaints about the way he feels he’s been treated in a purely private lawsuit. I tend to go with the latter, since I think Trump’s impulsiveness and narcissism makes it very difficult for him to operate strategically in this campaign. He’s taken what is essentially his sense of aggrievement in a personal matter and brought it into his campaign, simply because he can’t help it.

Plus, I think this tendency on his part to speak and act impulsively may have been exacerbated in the last week or so by the pressure building up on his campaign. A withering attack by Hillary, the increasing push-back he’s now experiencing from the media, the fact that he is increasingly being confronted with his own lies and contradictory statements, what appears to be terrible tensions and infighting in the campaign, the lack of funds—all of this may be pushing him to act less rationally, more impulsively, to lash out, to feel that he’s being treated “unfairly” by everyone.

Interesting that his children haven’t been visible in the campaign in the last week or so.

More security showed up along with the head of security who seemed like he could have been the president of his fraternity. It didn’t help that another protestor who was on his way out decided to lock arms with me and then started to hurl obscenities at the fraternity president guy, who seemed to pride himself with being firm but fair. And now he had reason to be firm.

I was able to unlock my arm with the other guy just as three police officers arrived. They booted the other guy, and because I must have seemed like an angel by comparison, I got to stay. But they wanted my press credentials. I told them I didn’t have press credentials, which confused them. So then they said something like, “Stay out of trouble,” and they all left.

Outside after the rally there were a lot of police but not very many protestors. A few groups of latinos held Mexican flags and a couple times I heard some Trump supporters shout, “Go back to Mexico.”

As I walked home, I passed some guys hawking Trump hats, shirts, and buttons. I asked one of them, “Are you really for Trump?” He answered by saying he was really for making a living.

***

After the event, I lingered inside the convention hall for about 20 minutes and when I left, there were virtually no protesters I could find—and I spent over an hour looking for them. There were lots of people both pro and anti Trump still around, but there was almost no interaction that I could see. I found four girls chanting “Dump Trump,” but it sounded like they were tired and nobody was paying them any attention.

An announcement from a police helicopter declared that the corner of San Carlos an Almaden was an illegal assembly, but all I saw was about 10 people just standing around and 100 policemen in riot gear.

Up until midnight on the scanner, I heard the police were trying to push about 30 protesters east on San Carlos toward Woz Way. There was a report of somebody picking up and trying to toss a metal barricade and a report of a trash can fire at Chavez Plaza, but that’s about it.

All of the ugly video you see of the violence must have occurred within 20 minutes of the rally as people were exiting. Perhaps they should have been better separated by the police at that time.

The Trump supporters were very nice to me, even those who knew I wasn’t for Trump. And the protesters who saw me carrying my Trump sign didn’t hassle me at all, and a couple tried to engage me in a discussion, not a debate.

Even the beefy security guys in the rally who put their hands on me and started shoving me were only doing what they were told. The assistant to the chief of security, who gave the order to have me booted seemed to be compensating for his short stature with his officious nature. But in his shoes, I might have been stressed out too.

Trump security shouldn’t manhandle protesters and the press should be allowed to be in a position to record that when it happens.

A press pass used to give a journalist access. In the Trump universe, a press pass means you have less access than the general public—which has kind of an Orwellian twist to it, if you want my opinion.

This line stood out to me: “Through my conscious lifetime American society has seemed on the verge of blowing up at least half a dozen times. The episodes have passed; the caravan moves on.”

Despite being a longtime Atlantic reader (and as of a few months ago, a subscriber!) [thank you!], I suspect that at 23 I am on the younger end of your readers. To me, the present political situation is remarkably alarming, as it is the first real moment where I have genuinely feared for the state of America.

I was eight when 9/11 happened, and I remember my struggle to understand how two entire skyscrapers could be laid low. But of the subsequent fear I remember nothing.

I remember nothing of the debates leading to the war in Iraq, though I clearly remember the darkest days. But even then I knew that while the situation was grave, the nation itself was not at risk. I remember a blog of The New York Times declaring “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” as the song of the day as a Wall Street investment bank collapsed (Lehman Brothers, I think—though I haven’t been able to find the post).

But even then, while things looked dire, I trusted that the lessons of the Great Depression had been heeded, and outright crisis would be averted.

Yet now, with what I have wryly taken to calling “the current political situation,” I have genuinely lost faith.

I am a first-generation American, the son of Chinese (now Americans) who left China in the years just before Tiananmen. My girlfriend is Hispanic and Mexican-American. In a rhetorical climate where “Mexican” has become an epithet and China is the evil empire cheating America out of her greatness, I cannot help but begin to feel “othered.”

Your Time Capsule series reads to me like the logbook entries of a doomed sailor stranded at sea, futile missives to a distant, unknown future to catalog a final struggle. I am aware of past historical events that should be on par with Trump’s rise and the febrile GOP partisanship (e.g. the Cuban Missile Crisis, Goldwater’s nomination, the fight for desegregation, the Kent State shootings, the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention), but they lack to me the visceral immediacy of the present situation.

Of course, the polls, economic indicators, conventional wisdom, and betting market predictions all strongly suggest that Hillary Clinton is the strong favorite in the general election. But “strong favorite” still leaves far too much of a chance that Donald Trump would become President.

For those for which this is their first rodeo, what are your thoughts on the other “half a dozen” crises that America has weathered in your lifetime, and what advice might you offer?

For now I’ll say about this last: Good question, very well set up. I will think about the answer. You can send your own to hello@theatlantic.com.

This sensitivity to the audience in immediate view helps explain one of many seeming contradictions of Trump: that he can go so easily from yelling and ranting on the platform to being charming and pussycat-like in other settings, as with the recent smarmy interview with Megyn Kelly. In each case he read the audience shrewdly and then smoothly re-calibrated. And sometimes, of course, he can use part of the crowd as a foil for attacks, when protestors are present (“get ‘em out of here!”) or reporters are questioning him (“you’re a sleaze!”)

Don’t all politicians do this? The good ones all have this ability; it’s what we call EQ. But part of running a modern, internet-age national campaign is recognizing that the audience is never just the people in front of you. Everything is always on the record; the whole world is watching, and then Tweeting and scrutinizing.

***

The contrast between Trump and Bill (not Hillary) Clinton illustrates the point. The reason Bill Clinton has been considered the Secretariat or Usain Bolt of politics is his unmatchable ability to talk with people from any walk of life — clean-up staff at a restaurant, physicists at a research center, black parishioners at a southern gospel church, white millworkers in the northeast — and find a natural rapport. So Clinton’s tone and wording change venue by venue, but his message doesn’t really. He is using a range of skills to advance a more-or-less consistent theme.

Trump is (sort of) similar in instinctively changing his tone and affect. But he’s (obviously) much less controlled about the message. The only continuity is the anger. Whatever he thinks the local crowd is angry about, he’ll say — even if that meant, earlier this year, frightening talk about roughing up or punching protestors, even if it means he picks fights he obviously doesn’t need. Some farmers in central California will cheer a line saying “There is no drought!” Most people in the state will say, WTF?? It’s a fight that made no strategic sense for him to get in the middle of, but it must have sounded good at the time.  

Back during the 1992 campaign, Paul Tsongas, former Senator from Massachusetts, labelled Bill Clinton the “Pander Bear” for what Tsongas thought was Clinton’s willingness to “say anything, do anything to get votes.” The term has been applied, in turn, to Hillary Clinton. But I bet if you mapped variability of message, but audience, the pander-bear pattern would be strongest this cycle for Trump. That is odd given his oft-declared independence from special interests and willingness to speak the blunt truth. But it may help explain his looseness in making outsized claims crowd-by-crowd.

***

Speaking of that 1992 campaign, this SNL cold open from 24 years ago is an amazing time capsule of what is different, and what is surprisingly continuous, in American politics. It has three main figures: Dana Carvey as Jerry Brown, Al Franken as Paul Tsongas, and Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton.

Of course Tsongas and Hartman are both prematurely gone (and Carvey is still in business). But Jerry Brown, then a candidate and ex-governor, is a governor again and is right in the middle of California and national politics, having endorsed Hillary Clinton today; Al Franken, then a sublime comedian, is right in the middle of Democratic politics as a Senator; and as for that guy Bill Clinton ....

On economic issues, I attribute the continued strong role of unions and collective bargaining [in Australia] to compulsory voting.  There is only political disadvantage in seeking to curb economic equality that gives workers a "fair go."

It is such a small change, but I really believe it makes a huge difference in making Australia a more economically fair and politically moderate country than the U.S.

Australia usually appears in the U.S. press in a lifestyle / culture / “Lucky Country” context. Like any nation it has its problems, most obviously now a nasty situation involving quarantine of boat-people refugees. But many aspects of its social contract deserve study and admiration, even if the different history and “path dependencies” of the United States make it difficult to imagine applying them here.

(The most famous of these admirable-but-unmatchable Aussie responses is of course to the “Port Arthur Massacre,” as described here. But beyond that, despite polarizing economic pressures like those affecting every country, Australia has a markedly more egalitarian middle-class sensibility than today’s U.S. does. Tiny but significant illustration: at least for male passengers, you’re expected to ride in the front rather than the back seat of a  taxi. It’s more comfortable — and anyway, who do you think you are, riding around in the back like some toff? The high-minimum-wage/no-tipping social bargain also helps.)

Think how different campaigning would be, if you never had to think about “the turnout game” or “revving up the base.” Not to mention “voter suppression.” Ah well.

But because the United States is now such an old country, considered as a system of government, and because after all the turmoil it has ended up as the strongest and most resilient of nations, it’s very hard not to assume that whatever is today’s crisis will work itself out. Through my conscious lifetime American society has seemed on the verge of blowing up at least half a dozen times. The episodes have passed; the caravan moves on.

With the accumulating evidence of disasters-avoided, it’s also tempting to assume that the recovery process is natural, and organic. And to some extent that’s true: the United States is a shambling entity that can absorb a lot. But I’ve come to think that it’s dangerous to let the mechanics of recovery and self-correction drift out of view. Because the United States has withstood so much, it’s natural to think it will automatically keep doing so, and not to pay attention to the rules, norms, and values that have allowed a loose, diverse, small-l liberal democracy to do as well as it has.

Thus three diverse, dissimilar readings on the mechanics of self-government, in the age of Trump and also the age of Hamilton:

***

The first is an analysis published eight years ago, Paul Graham’s “How to Disagree.” Graham lays out a seven-level “Disagreement Hierarchy,” from the least- to most-enlightening ways to deal with differences of opinion. (Yes, I’m aware that other versions of this analysis have appeared elsewhere.)

At the top, as the most useful sort of disagreement, is Graham’s Level 6, “Refuting the Central Point.” You take on your opponent’s argument in its strongest and most accurate form, and you explain why it’s wrong. At the bottom, on Level 0, is the most destructive and divisive form of disagreement, simple “Name-calling.” Graham explains thus:

This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We've all seen comments like this:
          u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!
But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like
        The author is a self-important dilettante.
is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."

The civics-related point: think how much of this cycle’s discussion has taken place on Level 0.

***

The second is something published almost 230 years ago. This is Federalist #10, from the Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, laying out the logic of the new Constitution. #10 is by Madison.

At some point in schooling most people have had some exposure to the Federalist Papers. This one, about the risks of “faction,” deserves notice because of the new oomph it has in campaign year 2016. Specifically, it is important for showing the long-standing concern about the fragility of the system the Federalists were designing, and the need for conscious attention to its underpinnings. Eg:

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts….

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

The inference to which we are brought is, that the causes of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its effects.

And on through a famous analysis “the means of controlling the effects” of faction. Why do I mention this? Because our politics of the moment proceeds as if there is no difference among the different levels of argument, and our governance is proceeding (or, not proceeding) as if the damage of faction can be waved away. A refusal even to consider nominees for the Supreme Court? It’s normalized as part of today’s partisan battle, rather than regarded as a specimen of the problem the Federalists hoped to avoid.

[Update because of a late night brain-freeze typo, I originally wrote that Federalist #10 was by Hamilton. Of course it’s by Madison, and is one of the most famous and carefully studied of his essays.]

***

Third is an item posted not eight years ago nor 230 but rather this weekend. It’s by Gary Hart — former Senator, former leading presidential candidate, ongoing defense expert and blogger. He writes about what the fraying of civility has meant, in practical terms, to today’s operational politics. A sample:

Civility is the name we give to mutual respect, decency, and honor among men and women.  Like civilization itself, civility evolves over time.  It is utilitarian in that societies function best when civility is the norm.  But its deeper meaning has to do with the nature of humanity.  When civility breaks down, societies fall apart. ...

Political civility began to crack two or three decades ago.  Coded language was used to give resentment a voice…

The new media, first non-stop partisan cable, then the startling rise of an array of social media, caused traditional media outlets, print and electronic, to abandon professional standards and join the mad hunt for “the story” at the cost of the privacy of public servants and eventually the very caliber of those willing to seek office….

This perfect storm inevitably brought wide-spread resentment, political candidates proudly proclaiming their ignorance, and desperately voracious media outlets together in 2016.  

Donald Trump didn’t invent all of this.  He was simply clever enough to stand outside, watch the storm gathering, and then give it voice.

***

To sum it up: the United States has withstood a lot, and will probably withstand what it is going through now. But its resilience is not automatic, and should not be taken for granted. The fundamentals of its civic structure deserve as much attention as the latest campaign-trail insult.

My sister isn’t ignorant. She simply doesn’t follow politics religiously, hates the dysfunction of Washington, and isn’t a fan of the drama that inevitably follows the Clintons. Because it’s only May and she doesn’t follow the nomination process like a fiend, most of the controversies swirling around Trump are a sort of white noise to her.

And yet, I feel myself sympathetic to reader John; supporting Trump is stupid. Does it make me “smug” to say that, in relation to political support for a xenophobic, misogynist demagogue? I’d like to think not, since America’s political environment isn’t a vacuum for the left; when half the country considers itself “real America” compared to coastal liberals, you tell me who is the smug one.

Which simply leaves us all talking past each other. But we on the left and center do this at our own risk. We have to understand where Trump’s appeal comes from, and doing so means accepting that it isn’t all coming from KKK members. My guess? It’s coming from voters who don’t dream of riches, but of being part of the traditionally secure middle class, and who are hearing different voices (Bernie Sanders being the other one) promising that it can come back.

It won’t, of course. But the desire for it to be made so is real. And apparently people are willing to overlook a lot of ignorance and bluster for that type of message, because the alternative? Another Clinton. More politics as usual, by virtue of the name.

Joseph is on the same page when it comes to the dynastic, establishment tendencies of U.S. politics:

Your reader, John, says about the working-class Trump supporter in Kentucky, Don: “And he’s hurting. But he is clueless as to why. Now he’s voting for a buffoon, because?”

He’s voting for a buffoon because neither political party has been able to give him a compelling vision for how things are going to get better in that part of the country. Trump’s whole pitch is based on the idea that he cares about people like this guy. Even if the promises Trump makes are ludicrous, there is a neglected constituency that is desperate to be paid attention to at all. If you want to convince people like this guy to not vote for Trump, you can’t accuse them of being racist, etc. You have to give them something they can say “yes” to.

If you think you’ve been failed by both parties, why not go vote for someone to shake up the system?

That question is addressed in our growing reader debate on third party candidates in this presidential cycle, and we’ll be airing more of your emails on that thread very soon. This final reader, Kathy, doesn’t want let Don and other Trump supporters off the hook:

Don sounded just like my aggrieved parents and sisters, and they are doing just fine. Other than Don being factually incorrect about the source of many of his problems, the thing we need to think about is how we encourage the Dons of the future to prepare themselves for the next jobs. I have worked next to people who bragged about not reading books, or the newspaper past the sports page.

I don’t think Don deserves his fate, but he bears some responsibility for how his life has played out.

Has he done anything on his own to improve his skills? Has he voted for visionary leaders, who might want to raise taxes to build better roads and schools, or who will bring new technologies and industries to his community, or has he voted for tax cuts? He’s stuck doing two jobs, but what is he teaching his kids—to hate Obama because the U.S. doesn’t use as much coal because other power sources are cheaper and cleaner (and does Don want to pay more to heat his house, just to heat it with coal?), or is he teaching his kids that they better learn all they can in school, and keep learning after they graduate?

Kathy’s sentiments are similar to Kevin Williamson’s in his controversial National Review piece, “The Father-Führer”—which is only available to subscribers, but Williamson’s colleague David French lays out the basics in his post “Working-Class Whites Have Moral Responsibilities—In Defense of Kevin Williamson.”

I can’t honestly blame a black man such as Bouie if he feels antipathy for people from a region who have had great hatred for his people for no reason whatsoever, especially after the guy mentions Pat Buchanan in an admiring light. But not everyone who supports Trump is a racist, and neither is everyone from that region. What is true of people from that region is that they have benefited very little from white privilege, a concept that is based on the historical reality of an exclusive social position which over time is extended to other groups (the Irish, Italians, etc). White trash, as they’re so often called, are some of the poorest people in the country and are relentlessly mocked and dismissed.

I think they’re wrong to support a man as deranged as Donald Trump for the Presidency of the United States, but neither am I willing to consign struggling people to the bin because they’re the wrong identity group. I’d hazard to guess that Tom Ashbrook has benefited far more from white privilege than Don from Kentucky.

Nick from Omaha:

I think Molly’s note should be more aptly named “The Stereotypical Trump Voter.”

I’m a registered Democrat who, in analyzing the Republican field in the fall of 2015, saw Ted Cruz as dangerous and Donald Trump as ridiculous and inexperienced but also as a less dangerous candidate who would likely surround himself with smart people and (critically) listen to them while making (critically) progress-driven deals with Congress that got the legislative wheels turning.

My view has changed. I now see this election as more consequential than most, even while having deep reservations about both Democratic candidates.

But others have not. I have been shocked to learn that some smart, educated, well-compensated, politically-savvy professionals still see Trump as an independent dealmaker and, even if inexperienced, policy-ignorant, and narcissistic, a better alternative than the “untrustworthy” Hillary Clinton. These are my neighbors and family members varying in age from late 20s to late 60s— some of whom I know voted for Barack Obama (at least in 2008). They are steadfastly liberal on social issues, if perhaps somewhat critical of “class warfare” and Obamacare.

I can offer no wisdom as to how this is possible. I can’t make sense of it. It’s my intuition that those in the media can’t either and therefore stick to the stereotypes that do “make sense.”

I’m not suggesting that these Trump supporters exist in large numbers. My intuition is that they don’t. But my intuition also told me that they wouldn’t exist at all and that Trump would never make it this far.

In short, even if it can’t be explained, it’s worth acknowledging that Trump supporters aren’t just from the disaffected working class.

Here’s one more reader, John, who emailed me directly:

Obama didn’t kill coal mining; fracking and economics did. NAFTA likely didn’t kill Don’s father’s job; it was probably automation. Illegal immigration isn’t lowering his wages; again it’s probably automation, lack of education, and the slow death of unions.

I feel for the guy. But he’s so misguided, so … ignorant. He’s probably a Fox News viewer. He’s probably been voting all his life for Republicans, who have systematically been strengthening capital and hurting workers. And he’s hurting. But he is clueless as to why. Now he’s voting for a buffoon, because?

Here’s what I’m sayin’. If you vote for Trump, could it not just be that you’re a workin’ dude who got destroyed by NAFTA like my old man? Couldn’t it just be you’re like one of my uncles who can’t dig coal anymore ’cause Obama won’t let him? Can you not just be a family guy who’s got three kids he’s trying to support who knows the TPP is just gonna destroy more jobs? Can he not just be a guy working for a wage that you know is probably $3 less on the hour because there’s illegal labor all over the country?

I mean, where's common sense?

I wonder if Bill Kristol, I wonder how much coal he’s dug in his life, you know what I'm saying? How many 16-hour shifts has he worked in a factory making 11 bucks an hour? I couldn’t care less what these fools have to say.

Look, I’m a working man. I work 13, 14 hours every day. I got two jobs, I got three kids, I got a wife. I’m not a misogynist. I got a mom, I like her. I got sisters, I like them. I got a wife, I really like her. So I like ladies, I like women, I try to take care of them as best I can.

I’ve always voted Republican, and I vote Democrat on the state level because the federal Democrats are out of their minds. But so are Republicans on the federal level now. I don’t care what party you are. Trump’s a blowhard Yankee moron. I get it. But he’s against NAFTA, he’s against the TPP, he doesn’t want to play empire. Pat Buchanan likes him. That’s good enough for me.

I bring this up because it seems to me Gioia's conflation here is actually part of the broader problem he's lamenting. While on the one hand, many people seem to make the mistake that because their friends and Internet communities can be trusted to give them good advice regarding their shared tastes, those places can be trusted to give them good knowledge regarding facts, Gioia makes the mistake in the opposite direction: Because the populist strains of the Internet so often lead people astray regarding factuality, it cannot be trusted to provide good information regarding personal preferences. In both cases, the problem is a lack of discernment between when my friends or message board buddies can be trusted, and when I need to consult the consensus of experts.

***

Another note to similar effect:

There is a mismatch in your piece on The Revolt of the Masses that deserves a second look.  

You mention climate change and Trump's (and, to be honest, many national Repubicans') difficulty in coping with facts, but the part of Gioia's piece that you quote is all about opinions - restaurant reviews and comments on Amazon.  

If I'm looking to understand the context of a chef's innovations and how that fits into historical and current culinary movements, then a restaurant reviewer might be the appropriate source.  But I doubt anyone goes to Yelp for that perspective, and I'd much rather get a sampling of opinions of people with unrefined palates like mine as a proxy for how I might like the dinner.  It might be interesting to know why the reviewer liked or did not like a particular restaurant, but that might actually have very little value in predicting how _I_ will like the restaurant.  Similarly, an Atlantic(!) book review is good for some purposes, but for many purposes Amazon reviews (when taken in aggregate) are perfectly adequate.

Facts in general and facts about climate change in particular aren't like this.  If we disagree on whether we liked a restaurant - we will just disagree.  We can disagree on whether climate change is happening, but the climate doesn't care about our opinions and will keep on changing regardless.

The questions that your post raised for me are (1) why don't Ortega y Gasset's masses today make a distinction between the relevance of expert opinion to facts versus opinions (versus considered opinions - i.e. opinions where you really have to understand a situation in order for your opinion to be anything more than bloviating) and (2) did they ever or is the real change he was talking about a move from accepting expert pronouncements on 'everything' (fact/opinion/considered opinion) to accepting expert pronouncements on nothing?

To try to explore these questions, I think I'll pick up a copy of the book and see what an expert has to say!

***

And just before press time a third note has just come in, directly related to the argument of these previous two:

Your post about masses vs. experts brought two contradictory thoughts to mind.

1) One the one hand, if given a choice between Yelp vs. professional restaurant critic, the masses have a good point.  When given a choice between "big data" and so-called expert opinion, the data is obviously superior. (This assumes the data is good  - there is the problem of fake reviews etc.)

2) One the other hand, when crowd wisdom is NOT based on evidence, but group-think, social norms, traditions, etc., experts who have data, research, and professional consensus behind them are always the winners.  Crowds may ignore the experts or the data, for all sorts of reasons, which leads to persistent wide-spread belief in pseudo-science, religion, climate change denial, and so forth.

So the crucial difference is whether opinions are based on evidence or not.  Evidence trumps crowds, but other things being equal, multiple opinions are better than one.

Why do we trust our own opinions and our local crowd more than is warranted?   I think the answer is that evolution has shaped us for a life lived in small communities where the experience coming from our local environment, cohesion of the tribe, and our standing within that tribe, are paramount for survival.  We have not evolved to think globally and strictly scientifically and rationally.  The following well-known findings from psychology and cognitive science all reflect different aspects of the "masses vs. experts" phenomenon described in your post:

- Overconfidence effect: we think we're better/smarter/competent than we  really are
- Dunning-Kruger effect:  the less competent we actually are, the more overconfident we are
- In-group bias:   we favor people who are more like ourselves (either physically or socially)
- Attribution bias:  we attribute negatives in others to inherent characteristics, but to circumstance when it comes to ourselves or people in our in-group
- Confirmation bias: we tend to not register or discount evidence that contradicts beliefs already held (this is very helpful in disregarding experts making good points that don't agree with our views, or for believing in conspiracy theories)
- Conformity bias:  we change our own judgments (even when based directly on perception) to agree with our group (the famous Asch experiment).

How can we overcome these built-in biases?   An optimist would say that culture (education, positive change in social norms, etc.) can overcome them. A pessimist would say that it will take a long, long time for evolutionary change to catch up with our changing world and nudge these biases in a different direction.

The point about every one of those issues is that there is a certain phrase or formulation that might seem perfectly innocent to a normal person but that can cause a big uproar. Without going into the details, there is all the difference in the world between saying "Taiwan and mainland China" versus "Taiwan and China." The first is policy as normal; the second -- from an important US official -- would light up the hotline between DC and Beijing.

So back in 2008 I was arguing that in just two months on the campaign trail, no beginner in national-level campaigning, like Palin, could learn all the lingo on these issues. Thus gaffes were sure to ensue, as they did. (This accurate call is all the more heroic in retrospect, since we’ve now learned that I was practically at death’s door, in China, when I filed that post! Ah the plucky life of the reporter.)

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Until this point in Trump’s campaign, he would seem to be the walking refutation of all such established wisdom. Gaffes? Never heard of ‘em! I’ll say whatever comes to mind, and the crowds will cheer for more!

The difference we’ve seen, with Trump’s sequential fumbles on abortion policy, and nuclear policy, and war-and-peace in Europe and Asia, etc is that until the past ten days he’s managed to be “outrageous” mainly on personal-performance matters. He’s been (as often noted) a figure straight from pro wrestling. He is not Rush Limbaugh called from behind the microphone; he’s Howard Stern. You can’t make fun of John McCain for his war record, can you??? Trump could! And did. You can’t mock your opponents to their face — Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted — and be taken seriously, can you??? Trump could! And did. The equally outrageous Howard Stern-style policy claims he made — let’s build a wall! and make Mexico pay for it — somehow didn’t register as “gaffes,” precisely because there is no chance whatsoever he could actually deliver on them. It was all in the fashion of pre-bout preening before a wrestling match: “I’m gonna smash him down so hard he’ll be cryin’ for his Mama, and the only words he’ll remember will be Wee, wee, wee all the way home!”

The setup of the GOP “debates” so far allowed Trump to get away with this, at least with his base. The “point” of each debate was to see who could bully or disconcert whom. And in his omnipresent “interviews,” Trump also got away with shunting any question into a discussion of how strong his polls were, how successful he had been, and how great things would be when he was in charge. Leading to this Onion-esque but apparently serious emission yesterday:

Over the past two weeks, we’ve had the Washington Post editorial board interview, with its revelation of the vacuum that is Trump’s knowledge of policy; and the long NYT interview with Trump’s loose talks about bringing nukes to Korea and Japan; and his fateful interview with Chris Matthews, who to his credit was the first person really to push Trump for an answer on abortion; and the similar gaping-emptiness of Trump’s knowledge revealed in his Washington Post interview today.

What’s different now is Trump is being forced to talk about actual policy choices, like abortion, as opposed to talking about his own machismo, or striking purely symbolic “we’re gonna win again!” poses. And that he’s actually being forced, most impressively by Chris Matthews. You can never count him out, but the damage is beginning to show.

He is a more resourceful performer than Sarah Palin was, and he has changed politics more than she could. But she is actually better informed than he is, and finally that is catching up with him. That’s what we’re seeing now.