Hey, we’re here! by The Confluence

How is MSNBC hiring Ronna McDaniel like a high school public speaking class and a couple other things in this shorter version. I’m trying.

A cheery concoction of stuff on my mind last week.

In this episode, I try to make a coherent narrative out of Trump’s half billion fine dilemma, bond money, top secret documents, Witness #5, Ken Buck, Lauren Boebert and the House Majority. There are a lot of moving parts and way too many revelations lately. Also, how did ScarJo’s parody of Katie Britt’s SOTU rebuttal highlight something unpleasant about Katie Britt. Then some random philosophical stuff based on an old poem.

How did we get to the place where Katie Britt, junior Senator from Alabama, gives the GOP response to the president’s State of the Union response from her kitchen, why did it go over like a lead balloon, and what does it say about the public image of women in America in this era? I meander but eventually get to the point.

Well, it looks like Trump is an unstoppable force on the way to the Republican nomination for president. The Supreme Court seems to want to help him out. And he’s planning mass deportations and concentration camps. What can we do about it when he and his minority of voters suck all the oxygen out of the room and we are invisible? We do like the Germans are doing: mass protests against the far right AfD party. We become the firewall. Protest after protest, week after week, all across the country until the media finally stops chasing the diner people and recognizes that we are the majority.

In this episode, I review what it means to be gaslighted, how plot lines in HBO series can lead to the further distrust of scientists, and how the BITE model works on MAGA people and the SuperBowl.

In this episode, we’ll revisit smear campaigns, the Tversky similarity index and how it shapes the way we perceive candidates, and talk about the Tale of Two Donalds and our place in the world.

In this episode, I put on my best Dear Abby hat and talk about advice to scapegoats, how to vote your values, and what indicted January 6 defendants should do in the wake of the DC Court of Appeals ruling on whether Trump has immunity (it turns out he doesn’t).

In this episode, I imagine that Judge Tonya Chutkan allows me to give a victim impact statement at Trump’s January 6, 2021 trial. I start with an example from E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump.

In this episode, we talk about New Hampshire, the dangers of predicting outcomes too far in advance, the perils of fundamentalism, why having the perfect family could get you in over your head in debt, what can be done with AI and other things that popped up on the radar this week.

We’re hearing a lot about how the economy is doing great by every possible metric but Americans don’t believe it. In this episode, I try to get to the bottom of it. Spoiler alert: I go over the last 10ish years from a personal perspective and it gets grim.

In this episode, I make some corrections. Also, the Iowa caucuses happened tonight and the cable news journalists are like magpies, trying to interpret the polls of white republicans in a very white state. They never seem to ask these voters the question I’m most interested in getting an answer to.

Why are never Trumpers called RINOs when we know some of them are the most conservative republicans badasses around? In this episode, I’m going to dive into the Behavioral component of Steve Hassan’s BITE model and apply high control religion’s enforcement of behavior to the current incarnation of the Republican party.

What happens after MAGA’s day dream of extreme political Armageddon with collateral damage? Have they thought about that? Let’s do some thought experiments.

Hi there, this episode is about my childhood in a cult and my observations on how people get into them and how they get out. I keep thinking this will only be a 5 minute thing but I rambled on for 20. I’m still learning. Let me know what you think about cult conversions and whether MAGA used the same strategies on their followers.

Hi this is the inaugural episode of Hey, We’re Here! Have you felt left out of the whole conversation when it comes to January 6, 2021? Was your vote on the chopping block? Are you sick of hearing Trump say he was a victim? Then join me at Hey, We’re Here! as we try to create a presence for ourselves.