Progressivism's Broken Bullshit-Detector

Progressivism has many problems, obviously. And it's obviously not obvious what all the interconnections among them are like. E.g.: is there a most fundamental one from which all other spring? Or a small collection of more fundamental ones? Of course I've often argued that it's political correctness--the subordination of facts and reason to political dogma--that's fundamental. I think that's more than merely plausible.

   Be that as it may, another way to represent their problem with a somewhat different emphasis is: progressivism has a broken bullshit-detector. Massively broken. Almost completely nonfunctional. Or at least: disabled. The public progressive hivemind seems utterly incapable of detecting even the most patent bullshit. If progressives are this bad at bullshit-detection in their ordinary lives, then they're just plain screwed. 

   Unsurprisingly, I don't think they can be that bad at it in their ordinary lives. They're not all impoverished, for one thing. Which they would be if their livelihoods depended on evaluating the plausibility and truth of political claims. With respect to politics, they've become like children. Their judgment is just terrible. They're willing to believe, e.g., that Trump has ruined us by passing up the chance to trade the cow for magic beans. What was he thinking? Mr. big deal-maker? We'd have been set for life! The only explanation is that he wants to ruin us financially! Because he's working for Putin! AND THE MARTIANS...

   Sure, there were some kooks that seemed to honestly believe that Obama was the Antichrist. And I don't see anything to match that on the progressive left. I mean, that's like the H-bomb of crazy. But at least those people were on the extreme and powerless fringe. Not running our major institutions. Not pervading the movement.

   Thing is, contemporary progressives are not only capable of pointing their noses straight at their side's patentest bullshit and swearing it smells like roses...they spastically fling the most ridiculous objections at the other side. How, for example, can you be so clueless as to genuinely think that everything you disagree with is RRRRAAAAACIIIIISSSSST????? How often can you excuse the groundless cry of 'wolf'? How can you repeatedly insulate the charge from disconfirmation with a straight face? (It's systemic! It's a dog whistle!) So their BS-detectors give back, basically, all false negatives about progressive bullshit, and virtually all false positives about conservative stuff. So it's not really broken or disabled, but miscalibrated. Which makes the analogy not really so useful. But not useless, maybe.

   None of this has much to do with Trumpian bullshit and the right's analogous but not nearly so serious problems. Politics, like religion, just breaks people's BS detectors. It's just usually not as bad as it is on the contemporary American left. This is a truly exceptional episode--in my experience, anyway. But the general phenomenon is common. As much of a bullshitter as Trump is, though, he somehow can't manage to hold a candle to the left. Is it because his bullshitting is so obvious? So amateurish? Often so gratuitous? Pointless? More-or-less in-bounds for American political bullshitting? The most promising explanations, I think, are:

1. Trump's bullshitting is just so overshadowed by the mass insanity that's taken over the left that it seems almost quaint and harmless by comparison.

2. Trump has also turned out to be adept at highlighting the bullshit of others. In fact, one reason the left hates him so much is that he is largely immune to their bullshit and unafraid to call it what it is. Which is, of course, why he's a racist--refuse to genuflect to bullshit accusations of racism and you're a super-double-racist. WE TOLD YOU THAT CALLING IT THE CHINA VIRUS...IN ACCORDANCE WITH LONG-STANDING CONVENTION AND BY ANALOGY TO E.G. SPANISH FLU...IS RACIST AND YET YOU STILL REFUSE TO DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!!!

   Refusing to do as they tell you to do is what really tears it for leftists. Man, they hate that...

   Anyway. 

   Broken bullshit-detector.

   Food for thought.

   A possibly helpful analogy.

   Or not.

   Not for me to decide.