alternet--2020-10-30--Russia could still upend next week's election with these disturbing tactics

The United States ' top intelligence and cyber security officials claim there is no evidence to suggest Russian operatives have attempted to interfere with the upcoming election as they did in the 2016 election , there are still a number of threats that could greatly impact the 2020 presidential election .
A new report has revealed multiple possible outcomes security experts have expressed concern as Election Day nears .
According to NBC News .
the same officials also have no way to shield every state , county , city , and voting precinct network from the threat of hackers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ could turn the 2020 election into a political and civil nightmare : 1 .
Lock Down Election Computer Systems : While voting machines do not require an Internet connection to collect ballots , many cities and precincts do rely on Internet connections and ransomware attacks could greatly impact the election .
If something like this were to occur in a swing state , the integrity of the election could be jeopardized , and possibly even destroyed .
Matt Drake , a former FBI election threats specialist and current Science Applications International Corporation ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the severity of the threat .
`` We 've seen an increase in the use of ransomware by folks who maybe could n't write it themselves , but now it 's available out on the black market and they can buy it , '' said Drake .
`` And it 's certainly concerning that if it were launched shortly before the elections .
it could be difficult for some places to overcome that . ''
2 .
Cause a Black Out : For quite some time , U.S. officials have warned that Russians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America 's power grid and communication systems .
However , those bombs are said to be lying in wait for the moment when Russians decide to detonate .
One of the most critical attacks on the election would involve causing a black out that would interrupt cell phone towers and voting systems .
`` Imagine an infrastructure attack , maybe in some key precincts , or states , swing states for the election , where maybe power goes out , or maybe the 911 service goes out , '' said Frank Figliuzzi , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an NBC News contributor .
`` Or you ca n't use your credit card or pump gas .
Just something that sows discord and confusion . ''
3 .
Create Voter Roll Confusion : Earlier this week , Florida Gov .
Ron DeSantis ( R ) arrived at a Tallahassee courthouse to cast his vote for the election only to find out that his address had been changed .
Incidents like this could be a foreshadow of an electoral interference that could impact swing states .
The publication also offers a glimpse of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that could ultimately sway the election .
Imagine if the Russians or some other adversary deleted every third voter registration record in three Pennsylvania counties , and voters showed up , only to be turned away .
4 .
Raise More Doubts about Election Integrity to Sow Division : For months now , President Donald Trump has set the stage to challenge the election results and raise question about the integrity of the United States ' voting practices and electoral systems .
Experts also warn that Russian operatives could use social media as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubt surrounding the results of the election .
Following the 2018 election , Knox County Tennessee faced issues amid its mayoral primary as officials indicated that a `` distributed denial of service , or DDOS , attack , shut down a county website publishing election results .
The county had to mail out the official tallies . ''
An attack like this could prolong the release of the election results in key battleground states which could ultimately delay the outcome of the election .
With so many possible outcomes that could occur , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election .

The United States' top intelligence and cyber security officials claim there is no evidence to suggest Russian operatives have attempted to interfere with the upcoming election as they did in the 2016 election, there are still a number of threats that could greatly impact the 2020 presidential election.
A new report has revealed multiple possible outcomes security experts have expressed concern as Election Day nears. According to NBC News. the same officials also have no way to shield every state, county, city, and voting precinct network from the threat of hackers.
Here are a few ways Russian hackers could turn the 2020 election into a political and civil nightmare:
1. Lock Down Election Computer Systems: While voting machines do not require an Internet connection to collect ballots, many cities and precincts do rely on Internet connections and ransomware attacks could greatly impact the election. If something like this were to occur in a swing state, the integrity of the election could be jeopardized, and possibly even destroyed.
Matt Drake, a former FBI election threats specialist and current Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) defense contractor weighed in on the severity of the threat.
"We've seen an increase in the use of ransomware by folks who maybe couldn't write it themselves, but now it's available out on the black market and they can buy it," said Drake. "And it's certainly concerning that if it were launched shortly before the elections. it could be difficult for some places to overcome that."
2. Cause a Black Out: For quite some time, U.S. officials have warned that Russians have planted "cyber bombs" within America's power grid and communication systems. However, those bombs are said to be lying in wait for the moment when Russians decide to detonate. One of the most critical attacks on the election would involve causing a black out that would interrupt cell phone towers and voting systems.
"Imagine an infrastructure attack, maybe in some key precincts, or states, swing states for the election, where maybe power goes out, or maybe the 911 service goes out," said Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's former counterintelligence chief and an NBC News contributor. "Or you can't use your credit card or pump gas. Just something that sows discord and confusion."
3. Create Voter Roll Confusion: Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) arrived at a Tallahassee courthouse to cast his vote for the election only to find out that his address had been changed. Incidents like this could be a foreshadow of an electoral interference that could impact swing states. The publication also offers a glimpse of a nightmare scenario in a swing state that could ultimately sway the election.
Imagine if the Russians or some other adversary deleted every third voter registration record in three Pennsylvania counties, and voters showed up, only to be turned away.
4. Raise More Doubts about Election Integrity to Sow Division: For months now, President Donald Trump has set the stage to challenge the election results and raise question about the integrity of the United States' voting practices and electoral systems. Experts also warn that Russian operatives could use social media as a tool to fuel the perception of doubt surrounding the results of the election.
5. Block Reporting of Election Results:
Following the 2018 election, Knox County Tennessee faced issues amid its mayoral primary as officials indicated that a "distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attack, shut down a county website publishing election results. The county had to mail out the official tallies." An attack like this could prolong the release of the election results in key battleground states which could ultimately delay the outcome of the election.
With so many possible outcomes that could occur, there is substantial concern about interferences in the election.


alternet--2020-10-30--Even California's governor Newsom is preparing for civil unrest on Election Day -- here's why

On Thursday , October 29 — with the 2020 election less than a week away — California Gov .
Gavin Newsom announced that he was taking precautions to deal with possible civil unrest in his state on or after Election Night .
And given how much of a powder keg the United States has been in 2020 , the Democratic governor has plenty of reason to worry about unrest not only in California , but all over the country .
Newsom 's announcement came during a week in which 3000 miles away on the East Coast , Philadelphia was being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looting following the fatal shooting of Walter Wallace , Jr. — a 27-year-old African-American man — by police and the discovery of a van filled with explosives that was parked several blocks from Philadelphia City Hall .
And Newsom 's announcement follows a disturbing series of events ranging from a white nationalist terrorist plot to kidnap and possibly murder Michigan Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer to President Donald Trump expressing his solidarity with the extremist Proud Boys during his first debate with former Vice President Joe Biden in late September .
Discussing the possibility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Night , Newsom told Politico , `` As it relates to making sure people are safe — making sure not only the process of voting is a safe and healthy one , but keeping people safe after the election for whatever may occur — the answer is yes , we are always gaming out different scenarios and making sure that we are prepared . ''
Journalist Jordan Williams , reporting in The Hill on October 29 , noted that Newsom was by no means the only elected official who was worried about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Night .
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot , during a conference call on October 27 , said , `` We are preparing for the worst .
So , what we 've been doing is a lot of drilling , a lot of making sure that we break down barriers — that no one part of election security is operating in a silo .
And Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison has said that his city is `` planning , practicing , creating protocols to deploy our resources before , on and even after Election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first debate with Biden , encouraged his supporters to `` go into polls '' and monitor them for voter fraud — and Trump 's critics responded that he was encouraging voter intimidation .
Harrison has said that in Baltimore , officials are prepared to `` de-escalate tensions at the polls '' and will not tolerate any type of voter harassment or intimidation .

On Thursday, October 29 — with the 2020 election less than a week away — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he was taking precautions to deal with possible civil unrest in his state on or after Election Night. And given how much of a powder keg the United States has been in 2020, the Democratic governor has plenty of reason to worry about unrest not only in California, but all over the country.
Newsom's announcement came during a week in which 3000 miles away on the East Coast, Philadelphia was being rocked by riots, civil unrest and looting following the fatal shooting of Walter Wallace, Jr. — a 27-year-old African-American man — by police and the discovery of a van filled with explosives that was parked several blocks from Philadelphia City Hall. And Newsom's announcement follows a disturbing series of events ranging from a white nationalist terrorist plot to kidnap and possibly murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to President Donald Trump expressing his solidarity with the extremist Proud Boys during his first debate with former Vice President Joe Biden in late September.
Discussing the possibility of chaos or violence on or after Election Night, Newsom told Politico, "As it relates to making sure people are safe — making sure not only the process of voting is a safe and healthy one, but keeping people safe after the election for whatever may occur — the answer is yes, we are always gaming out different scenarios and making sure that we are prepared."
Journalist Jordan Williams, reporting in The Hill on October 29, noted that Newsom was by no means the only elected official who was worried about the possibility of violence on or after Election Night. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, during a conference call on October 27, said, "We are preparing for the worst. So, what we've been doing is a lot of drilling, a lot of making sure that we break down barriers — that no one part of election security is operating in a silo. And Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison has said that his city is "planning, practicing, creating protocols to deploy our resources before, on and even after Election Day."
Trump, during his first debate with Biden, encouraged his supporters to "go into polls" and monitor them for voter fraud — and Trump's critics responded that he was encouraging voter intimidation. Harrison has said that in Baltimore, officials are prepared to "de-escalate tensions at the polls" and will not tolerate any type of voter harassment or intimidation.


alternet--2020-10-30--Young voters backing Biden could shift gears soon after the election -- here's why

As Election Day approaches , one youth-led climate activist group is campaigning for the election of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , but their rallying may be over soon after November 3 .
The Sunrise Movement has been at the center of the progressive movement with a dominant focus on bringing the Green New Deal to fruition in an effort to combat climate change .
While the proposal aims to improve climate control over the next decade , there is just one problem : the group 's preferred presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders ( I-Vt. ) and his strongly supportive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( D-N.Y. ) are not the candidates on the Democratic presidential ticket .
In fact , many are not excited about voting for Biden .
While they are pleased that the Biden campaign has taken their ideas into consideration , now the goal is to push for action behind that consideration .
`` I 've been really happy to see the ways that he and his campaign have , at least on paper , listened to activists , '' Robby Phillips , a 19-year-old Duke University sophomore working for Sunrise , said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not fully enough . ''
Ocasio-Cortez offered her take on younger voters and there intent where Biden is concerned .
`` They are not here with the intent of voting for their favorite person or voting for someone that they think is perfect as president , '' Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN .
`` I think young people are actually quite disciplined . ''
She added , `` It will be a privilege to lobby [ Biden ] , should we win the White House .
But we need to focus on winning the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the election , they will be gearing up to present their proposals to Biden if he wins the election .
The group 's first actions will likely be similar to their move to lobby Democratic lawmakers in 2018 .
Not even a week after Democrats regained control of the house , the group staged a sit-in at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 's ( D-Calif. ) office in hopes of shifting her focus to climate control .
The latest news on the Sunrise Movement come just months after Sanders also weighed in on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden presidency .
Back in August , Sanders spoke with Trevor Noah where he made it clear that there needs to be a discussion the day after the election to begin planning the Democratic Party 's focus for the next four years .
`` We 're going to come together to defeat Trump , '' Sanders told `` The Daily Show '' host Trevor Noah at the time .
`` And the day after Biden is elected , we 're going to have a serious debate about the future of this country , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ framework of a democratic society . ''

As Election Day approaches, one youth-led climate activist group is campaigning for the election of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, but their rallying may be over soon after November 3.
The Sunrise Movement has been at the center of the progressive movement with a dominant focus on bringing the Green New Deal to fruition in an effort to combat climate change.
While the proposal aims to improve climate control over the next decade, there is just one problem: the group's preferred presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his strongly supportive, political allies like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are not the candidates on the Democratic presidential ticket. In fact, many are not excited about voting for Biden. While they are pleased that the Biden campaign has taken their ideas into consideration, now the goal is to push for action behind that consideration.
"I've been really happy to see the ways that he and his campaign have, at least on paper, listened to activists," Robby Phillips, a 19-year-old Duke University sophomore working for Sunrise, said. He added, "It's still not fully enough."
Ocasio-Cortez offered her take on younger voters and there intent where Biden is concerned.
"They are not here with the intent of voting for their favorite person or voting for someone that they think is perfect as president," Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN. "I think young people are actually quite disciplined."
She added, "It will be a privilege to lobby [Biden], should we win the White House. But we need to focus on winning the White House first."
Almost immediately after the election, they will be gearing up to present their proposals to Biden if he wins the election. The group's first actions will likely be similar to their move to lobby Democratic lawmakers in 2018. Not even a week after Democrats regained control of the house, the group staged a sit-in at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office in hopes of shifting her focus to climate control.
The latest news on the Sunrise Movement come just months after Sanders also weighed in on how the post-election period could shape a Biden presidency. Back in August, Sanders spoke with Trevor Noah where he made it clear that there needs to be a discussion the day after the election to begin planning the Democratic Party's focus for the next four years.
Bernie Sanders - Mobilizing Progressives for Biden | The Daily Social Distancing Show youtu.be
"We're going to come together to defeat Trump," Sanders told "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah at the time. "And the day after Biden is elected, we're going to have a serious debate about the future of this country, but it will be done within the framework of a democratic society."


alternet--2020-10-31--Al Franken jokes that Mitch McConnell 'is not as charming as he looks' on HBO's 'Real Time'

Former Sen. Al Franken ( D-MN ) showed off the sense of rumor that put him on `` Saturday Night @ @ @ @ @ night appearance on HBO 's `` Real Time '' with Bill Maher .
The two @ @ @ @ @ debate on what would happen if President Donald Trump refuses to leave office on January @ @ @ @ @ said that would be a good thing , as it would mean Trump lost and @ @ @ @ @ premises .
Maher , however , had far less faith in America 's institutions .
@ @ @ @ @ on the topic .
Franken urged viewers to vote for Democrats in Senate races , @ @ @ @ @ Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( R-KY ) remains in power he would block everything a @ @ @ @ @ try to accomplish .
`` He 's not as charming as he looks , '' @ @ @

Former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) showed off the sense of rumor that put him on "Saturday Night Live" during a Friday night appearance on HBO's "Real Time" with Bill Maher.
The two politically-minded comedians had a fascinating debate on what would happen if President Donald Trump refuses to leave office on January 20, 2021.
Franken said that would be a good thing, as it would mean Trump lost and would be escorted from the premises. Maher, however, had far less faith in America's institutions.
The two agreed to disagree on the topic.
Franken urged viewers to vote for Democrats in Senate races, warning that if Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) remains in power he would block everything a potential Joe Biden administration might try to accomplish.
"He's not as charming as he looks," Franken quipped.
Watch:


alternet--2020-10-31--Fox News viewers write about 'BLM' the same way CNN viewers write about 'KKK'

It 's no secret that U.S. politics has become highly polarized .
Even so , there are probably few living Americans who ever witnessed anything that quite compares with this fall 's first presidential debate .
Was it really the case that the nation could do no better than a verbal food fight , with two candidates hurling fourth-grade insults and talking past each other ?
To us , the discordant debate was just one more symptom of the nation 's fraying civic discourse , which , in a recent study , we were able to show extends to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Earlier this year , we started constructing a data set that consists of all of the viewer comments on YouTube videos posted by four television networks — MSNBC , CNN , Fox News and One America News Network — that target slices of the political spectrum .
Together , the data set contains over 85 million comments on over 200,000 videos from 6.5 million viewers since 2014 .
We studied whether there are distinct variants of English written in the comments sections , akin to the distinction between British English and American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we found these permutations do exist .
Moreover , we can rank them in terms of the `` left-ness '' and the `` right-ness . ''
To the best of our knowledge , this is the first empirical demonstration of quantifiable linguistic differences in news audiences .
Our second finding , however , was even more unexpected .
Our machine learning translation system found that words with vastly different meanings , like `` KKK '' and `` BLM , '' were used in the exact same contexts depending on the YouTube channel being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — say , Spanish and English — automated translation systems like Google Translate begin with a large training set of texts in both languages .
The system then applies machine learning methods to become better at translating .
Over the years , this technology has become increasingly accurate , thanks to two key insights .
The first dates back to the 1950s , when linguist John Rupert Firth came up with the aphorism `` You shall know a word by the company it keeps . ''
To modern machine translation systems , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its `` context , '' or the words surrounding it .
For example , the English word `` grape '' occurs in contexts such as `` grape juice '' and `` grape vine , '' while the equivalent word in Spanish , uva , occurs in the same contexts — jugo de uva , vid de uva — in Spanish sentences .
The second important discovery came rather recently .
A 2013 study found a way to identify — and thereby link — a word 's context in one language to its context @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavily on this process .
What we have done is to use this type of translation in an entirely new way : to translate English to English .
That may sound bizarre .
Why translate English to English ?
Well , consider American English and British English .
Many words are the same in both languages .
Yet there can be subtle differences .
For instance , `` apartment '' in American English may translate into `` flat '' in British English .
For the purposes of our study , we labeled the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ section `` MSNBC-English , '' `` CNN-English , '' `` Fox-English '' and `` OneAmerica-English . ''
After analyzing the comments , our translation algorithms uncovered two different patterns of `` misaligned words '' — terms that are n't identical across the comment sections but are used in the same contexts .
One type was similar to `` flat '' and `` apartment , '' in the sense that both are describing ostensibly the same thing .
However , the word pairs we uncovered have different intonations .
For example , we found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , '' the other one calls `` Pelousy '' ; and `` Trump '' in one news-language translates into `` Drumpf '' in another .
A second — and deeper — kind of misalignment occurred when the two words refer to two fundamentally different things .
For example , we found that in CNN-English , `` KKK '' — the abbreviation for the Ku Klux Klan — is translated by our algorithm to `` BLM '' — shorthand for Black Lives Matter — in Fox-English .
The algorithm is basically finding that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are very much like the comments made by the other about BLM .
While the belief systems of the KKK and BLM are about as different as can be , depending on the comment section , they seem to each represent something similarly ominous and threatening .
CNN-English and Fox-English are not the only two languages displaying these types of misalignments .
The conservative end of the spectrum itself breaks into two languages .
For example , `` mask '' in Fox-English translates to `` muzzle '' in OneAmerica-English , reflecting the differing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a mirrorlike duality at play .
`` Conservatism '' becomes `` liberalism , '' `` red '' is translated to `` blue , '' while `` Cooper '' is converted into `` Hannity . ''
There 's also no lack of what can only be called childish name-calling .
`` Trumptards '' in CNN-English translates to `` snowflakes '' in Fox-English ; `` Trumpty '' in CNN-English translates to `` Obummer '' in Fox-English ; and `` republicunts '' in CNN-English translates to `` democraps '' in Fox-English .
Linguists have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with different beliefs requires common ground .
Our findings show that the way we talk about political issues is becoming more divergent ; depending on who 's writing , a common word can be imbued with an entirely different meaning .
[ Deep knowledge , daily .
Sign up for The Conversation 's newsletter . ]
We wonder : How far are we from the point of no return when these linguistic differences begin to erode the common ground needed for productive communication ?
Have echo chambers on social media exacerbated political polarization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have become ingrained in political discourse ?
When will `` democracy '' in one language variant stop translating into `` democracy '' in the other ?
Mark Kamlet , University Professor of Economics and Public Policy , Carnegie Mellon University ; Ashique KhudaBukhsh , Project Scientist at the School of Computer Science , Carnegie Mellon University , and Tom Mitchell , Founders University Professor of Machine Learning , Carnegie Mellon University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license .
Read the original article .

It's no secret that U.S. politics has become highly polarized.
Even so, there are probably few living Americans who ever witnessed anything that quite compares with this fall's first presidential debate.
Was it really the case that the nation could do no better than a verbal food fight, with two candidates hurling fourth-grade insults and talking past each other?
To us, the discordant debate was just one more symptom of the nation's fraying civic discourse, which, in a recent study, we were able to show extends to the words we use to talk about politics.
Earlier this year, we started constructing a data set that consists of all of the viewer comments on YouTube videos posted by four television networks — MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and One America News Network — that target slices of the political spectrum. Together, the data set contains over 85 million comments on over 200,000 videos from 6.5 million viewers since 2014.
We studied whether there are distinct variants of English written in the comments sections, akin to the distinction between British English and American English.
Using machine learning methods, we found these permutations do exist. Moreover, we can rank them in terms of the "left-ness" and the "right-ness." To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical demonstration of quantifiable linguistic differences in news audiences.
Our second finding, however, was even more unexpected.
Our machine learning translation system found that words with vastly different meanings, like "KKK" and "BLM," were used in the exact same contexts depending on the YouTube channel being analyzed.
The company a word keeps
When translating two different languages — say, Spanish and English — automated translation systems like Google Translate begin with a large training set of texts in both languages. The system then applies machine learning methods to become better at translating.
Over the years, this technology has become increasingly accurate, thanks to two key insights.
The first dates back to the 1950s, when linguist John Rupert Firth came up with the aphorism "You shall know a word by the company it keeps."
To modern machine translation systems, the "company" a word keeps is its "context," or the words surrounding it. For example, the English word "grape" occurs in contexts such as "grape juice" and "grape vine," while the equivalent word in Spanish, uva, occurs in the same contexts — jugo de uva, vid de uva — in Spanish sentences.
The second important discovery came rather recently. A 2013 study found a way to identify — and thereby link — a word's context in one language to its context in another. Modern machine translation depends heavily on this process.
What we have done is to use this type of translation in an entirely new way: to translate English to English.
When "Trumptards" become "snowflakes"
That may sound bizarre. Why translate English to English?
Well, consider American English and British English. Many words are the same in both languages. Yet there can be subtle differences. For instance, "apartment" in American English may translate into "flat" in British English.
For the purposes of our study, we labeled the language used in each network's comment section "MSNBC-English," "CNN-English," "Fox-English" and "OneAmerica-English." After analyzing the comments, our translation algorithms uncovered two different patterns of "misaligned words" — terms that aren't identical across the comment sections but are used in the same contexts.
One type was similar to "flat" and "apartment," in the sense that both are describing ostensibly the same thing. However, the word pairs we uncovered have different intonations. For example, we found that what one community calls "Pelosi," the other one calls "Pelousy"; and "Trump" in one news-language translates into "Drumpf" in another.
A second — and deeper — kind of misalignment occurred when the two words refer to two fundamentally different things.
For example, we found that in CNN-English, "KKK" — the abbreviation for the Ku Klux Klan — is translated by our algorithm to "BLM" — shorthand for Black Lives Matter — in Fox-English. The algorithm is basically finding that the comments made by one community about KKK are very much like the comments made by the other about BLM. While the belief systems of the KKK and BLM are about as different as can be, depending on the comment section, they seem to each represent something similarly ominous and threatening.
CNN-English and Fox-English are not the only two languages displaying these types of misalignments. The conservative end of the spectrum itself breaks into two languages. For example, "mask" in Fox-English translates to "muzzle" in OneAmerica-English, reflecting the differing attitudes across these subcommunities.
There seems to be a mirrorlike duality at play. "Conservatism" becomes "liberalism," "red" is translated to "blue," while "Cooper" is converted into "Hannity."
There's also no lack of what can only be called childish name-calling.
"Trumptards" in CNN-English translates to "snowflakes" in Fox-English; "Trumpty" in CNN-English translates to "Obummer" in Fox-English; and "republicunts" in CNN-English translates to "democraps" in Fox-English.
Uncharted territory
Linguists have long emphasized how effective communication among people with different beliefs requires common ground. Our findings show that the way we talk about political issues is becoming more divergent; depending on who's writing, a common word can be imbued with an entirely different meaning.
[Deep knowledge, daily.Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]
We wonder: How far are we from the point of no return when these linguistic differences begin to erode the common ground needed for productive communication?
Have echo chambers on social media exacerbated political polarization to the point where these linguistic misalignments have become ingrained in political discourse?
When will "democracy" in one language variant stop translating into "democracy" in the other?
Mark Kamlet, University Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University; Ashique KhudaBukhsh, Project Scientist at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, and Tom Mitchell, Founders University Professor of Machine Learning, Carnegie Mellon University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


alternet--2020-10-31--The fears we laugh about during Halloween say a lot about our politics

`` Blessed be our new founding fathers and America ... A nation reborn . ''
This year will see us celebrating a very different Halloween .
In many places around the country , children will not be able to go trick-or-treating , and adults will not be able to dress up and make fools of themselves at the club , given the current pandemic .
But what is Halloween without a scary story ?
And what is the nature of those spooky tales ?
Most of the time they are rooted in very real issues and very real threats .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ books is not the killer , monster , or demon jumping out of the dark .
Some of the best works scare people with what they can get the viewer or reader to imagine to be behind the creaking door , without ever spelling out what was really there , or even if there was really anything to be scared of in the first place .
For a little kid , what lurks underneath their bed is anything the fear of their mind can imagine .
The best horror stories bring people back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
But this is also true of those adult fears , which the most manipulative use for untoward ends .
Without even getting into arguments over aliens , ghosts , Bigfoot , chupacabras , green children , the Loch Ness monster , or even who killed Jimmy Hoffa , there are more down-to-earth real mysteries and monsters which are just as chilling and unnerving .
The Trump administration has been likened to Pennywise the Dancing Clown of Stephen King 's It , an entity which feeds on human fears while making targets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ negative emotions of everyone in the community .
In this respect , the great and terrible darkness we fight is not lurking to get at us from another dimension or to escape a hell below us .
It 's right here with us , staring back in any mirror .
The sad thing is these monsters are not just things which scurry about in the dark .
The monsters of today stand in broad daylight wearing suits with flag lapel pins .
These demons prey on children and the weak to gain their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ followers , some of which may be our own family members , united in fear and worship of their leaders ' every lie .
The evil which lurks corrupts everything it touches and foments violence against anyone that disagrees .
Author C.S .
Lewis , a Christian apologist who worked his faith into many of his works , believed the problem of evil was not the conflict between two separate and equal entities , but what humans classify as evil only exists as only a dark reflection of that which is good .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the universe is perfection , since it was created by a perfect God , who passed on that perfection—until humans screwed things up with original sin .
Therefore , any evil which exists is only a corruption of a society 's norms and a person 's integrity , and not an innate aspect of either the community or individuals .
Sometimes it 's the individual or societal anxieties which express very real fear-causing aspects of life , albeit in grossly exaggerated ways .
This notion becomes important when looking at the ideas and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stories and horror tales for centuries , and which still reverberate to this day .
People who have premarital sex and do drugs deserve to die My mother 's next-door neighbor is someone I could call at three in the morning and he 'd be there to help .
When my mother was rushed to the hospital in the back of an ambulance and we had no way to get back home , he answered his phone in the middle of the night .
However , this neighbor is also one of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ met .
I vividly remember him talking about his opposition to birth control and abortion , which were based in his belief there must be `` consequences '' for sex .
If social conservatism has been defined by a fear of one 's own body , then the end point for socially conservative policies is punishment as the wages of sin for anyone who chooses agency over their own person .
This sort of right-wing idea of punishing sin is a very common trope in many horror films .
Who do Jason Voorhees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 13th ?
Their victims tend to be a lot of teenagers who decided it was a good idea to have sex in a tent next to a lake known for an undead killer in a hockey mask .
Of course , being too dumb to live is also an acceptable excuse for characters in a horror movie to die .
All of this leads to an argument that the horror genre is actually `` innately conservative , even reactionary '' in ideology .
The essence of fear as a tool to elicit an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of essential normality in relation to the threat of change , whether that change be a fear of death or even radical social change .
That 's why even though scary movies have more than enough violence and bare breasts to make most moral guardians clutch their pearls , most also have a fundamental morality which allows the audience to accept the enjoyment of watching horrible things happen to those people who break certain rules—since many of those rules align with the aims of Focus on the Family and other conservative assholes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Red Riding Hood is derived from two sources—Charles Perrault ( also known as Mother Goose ) and the Brothers Grimm .
However , the story is much older than either of them , and like a lot of well-known fairy tales , the original iteration of the story is quite gruesome .
The Big Bad Wolf actually feeds the grandmother to a naive Little Red Riding Hood , then gets her to disrobe and get in bed with him .
In the Brothers Grimm version , the girl and her grandmother were rescued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proceeded to fill the Wolf 's belly with stones .
But it is Perrault 's version that 's noted for removing darker elements like cannibalism and adding the `` red hood , '' which takes on some symbolic significance , since there is no happy ending for his Little Red Riding Hood .
The Wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood ... the end .
Perrault intended the story to be a moral to young women about all wolves who deceive .
The redness of the hood has been interpreted as a symbolic representation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of almost every element of Little Red Riding Hood appear in modern horror movies .
The Big Bad Wolf is the archetypal `` slasher '' villain ; a predator who shows almost , or true , supernatural abilities to deceive and manipulate his victims , most of whom are almost always women .
Throw in Perrault 's sexual symbolism , and you have the virginal `` final girl '' of many horror movies .
The term `` final girl '' was coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men , Women , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Modern Horror Film .
The book analyzed the slasher genre from a feminist perspective , and Clover argues that , instead of being driven by misogyny and sadism against women , these movies put the male viewer into the mindset of the female protagonist , or `` the final girl '' to survive .
The final girl can scream , cry , and show fear in a way which audiences would n't accept from a male character .
The final girl usually has a unisex name ( e.g.
, Ripley , Sam , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It Follows ) , and tends to be portrayed as an idealization of female innocence and purity .
She 's probably not sexually experienced , does n't drink , does n't smoke , does n't do drugs and more likely than not is a bit of a `` Mary Sue . ''
The character may be based on conservative attitudes and ideas of what women `` should be . ''
On the other hand , the final girl is usually separated emotionally from her parents , and the horror of the story tends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the parents , which is hidden behind a facade of family values .
Many have argued this trope takes advantage of regressive sexual attitudes in pop culture , where an apprehension to sex is coupled with the audience being titillated by sadism against a female protagonist and female characters .
Beyond just horror movies , depicting a woman with sexual agency is still problematic in both fiction and real-life .
There 's a `` virgin whore '' dichotomy that Freud would have a field day with , where the culture sexualizes women , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it 's either ridiculed ( i.e.
, slut-shaming ) or seen as something wrong or weird .
The other side of the argument is that many of the horror movies which came out of the 1970s `` exploitation '' film era are some of the first movies to have strong female characters that were n't dependent on men to `` save '' them .
This argument is also found in discussions of Blaxploitation films , where the trade off to having Black actors and actresses front and center meant seeing them typecast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Apparently all evil monsters , aliens , and serial killers are racists , since people of color hardly ever survive a horror movie , and usually are among the first to die .
On the one hand , this ties in to an argument about diversity both in front of and behind the camera in Hollywood .
As it became more important for movies and television shows to increase representation and not pretend every community only has white people , more people of color appeared in front of the camera .
However @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and to some extent still is , dominated by white writers and mostly white people in production .
Writers tend to write what they know , and if given a character with a background they do n't know or have n't really experienced , it may lead to either a cliche storm of stereotypes or killing the character off to get them out of the way once they 're onscreen for a few minutes , long enough to get bonafides for diverse casting .
And so Black characters—just as Black people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used and discarded in service of white characters ' needs .
Black people rarely make it to the end of a horror movie , but it 's not exactly true that they always die first .
Over the past few decades , this notion has further been subverted , especially as more people of color are producing and directing their own material .
More films in the horror genre have put issues of race and class front and center , with the horror of the movies shifted .
Instead of the story being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , as it was in many past films with token characters , the struggle of these films switches the perspective where the horror is the wants of white people .
Jordan Peele 's Get Out is a `` social thriller , '' in which the horror scenario is a way for the story to expound into a damning satire about objectification and exploitation of Black people and Black culture , while assailing a type of white liberal guilt that talks a good game but does nothing to change anything .
Peele 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action around a family being terrorized by violent doppelgängers attempting to take their place .
The film is just as full of subtext as Get Out , but this time it 's a contemplation about the nature of how we define ourselves as persons , and the ways it spirals out into the lies we want to believe about societies .
The Purge series was originally written off as nothing more than schlock , but each installment has made the themes of social inequality more explicit .
Set in a future where a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of America has instituted an annual holiday where all crimes are legal for one night , under the claim of purging negative emotions , the propaganda of the regime claims instituting the event has resulted in 1 % unemployment and an `` America reborn . ''
In actuality , the purge is intended as a legalized form of mass murder , in which the poor and other undesirable elements of society are eliminated through death squads , and the purge itself is a metaphor for the destruction done by the social inequalities created @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the wealthy are able to protect themselves or take part in the holiday with a degree of safety , while the poor are preyed upon by racists and elements of government who have judged them to be burdens or non-human .
The Purge thus becomes a story for how people will rationalize abandoning the unfortunate if given only a perception of fairness , even when the result is not—reminiscent of the elevation of the idea that the free market fairly picks the `` winners '' and `` losers , '' without allowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of bias and discrimination plays a part .
Catholics are the only ones capable of fighting demons Religious horror basically takes the Cliffs Notes version and various apocrypha of major religions and turns it into a scary story .
In any horror movie , if it comes time to battle the forces of darkness and there is a possibility of defeating the evil by some vestiges of religion , the means by which it will be defeated will probably be quasi-Catholic .
So thanks a lot for nothing , Martin Luther and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is because the Catholic Church is old and has a history of ornate ritual and majestic symbolism .
Plus , cursing out a demon in Latin just sounds cooler .
Both Rosemary 's Baby and The Exorcist use the concept of the Devil and demons to inspire fear .
But at their core , they 're really movies about the female condition , within a religious framework .
In both films , women are in situations where their pleas for help are either subverted or not taken seriously .
And in both movies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , are absent , or are emotionally detached from offering any comfort .
Rosemary 's Baby connects to real fears that women have during pregnancy : the possibility that something is wrong with their baby , that they 're losing control of their body , and the situation is one they have little control over .
The movie just adds in Satanic rape and devil worshipers .
The true horror of The Exorcist exists whether one believes in demonic possession , since the crux of the story is really about helplessness and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a child that no one seems able to fix .
In this respect , whether it 's mental illness , cancer , or a demon , the story connects on that emotional level .
The key to surviving any horror scenario is friendship and a family 's love 1982 's Poltergeist is now considered a classic of this particular genre .
And that 's interesting for a number of reasons , given some of the controversy and trivia which surrounds the movie .
Poltergeist is a great example of a theme usually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the late '70s to the mid-'80s ( i.e.
, suburban , middle-class families dealing with extraordinary circumstances ) .
One of the knocks usually levied against Spielberg is he idealizes American suburbia and visualizes it in a nostalgic tone .
That 's not exactly true .
In E.T .
and Poltergeist , both families have flaws .
Spielberg 's suburban life is one in which unsupervised children stay up all hours watching TV , eating junk food , surrounded by products and things which provide no meaning , while living in cookie cutter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he idealizes the ability of a family 's love to overcome all obstacles .
Teamwork makes the dream work and , like a dysfunctional family , this is especially true for any disparate group of people thrown together in a crisis .
The George Romero Living Dead films touch on race , gender , and the inability of people to work together at the end of the world , which is just as true when expanded out to societies which ca n't work together to combat climate change , systemic racism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zombie apocalypse is a situation that brings out the worst tendencies in humans , and turns our best qualities against us .
In order to survive , a balance has to be found between the two .
With almost any zombie film , they can be seen in such an entirely different light when you realize the zombies are n't meant to be evil—or even the villains .
The zombies are no different than a thunderstorm , or a hurricane , or an earthquake .
It 's just a part of nature that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deal with it can sometimes depend on what kind of person we are .
Therefore , the true evil in most zombie apocalypses is humanity .
With the world crumbling around them , the human characters still ca n't put aside their differences ( whether race , class or ego ) to save each other .
The survivors would rather fight over the last scraps of civilization , or hold on to prejudices that serve to help no one survive .
Do n't turn off the main road for a shortcut Among one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broadcast is The Donner Party , which focuses on the infamous incident in which a disastrous expedition of settlers to California resulted in starvation , murder , and cannibalism .
Director Ric Burns , whose brother is Ken Burns ( The Civil War ) , uses historical stills , nature photography , and celebrity voice overs to create a truly unsettling tale .
Just as in The Civil War , David McCullough narrates , with readings from the actual diary entries of the Donner settlers providing the details of what happened as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McCullough 's narration is particularly effective .
The way McCullough nonchalantly mentions a wife having to watch her dead husband 's heart being roasted on a stick catches the viewer off-guard .
And with the use of still photography , what one does n't see becomes more troubling , since the mind fills in the gaps in ways that are more horrific .
Many very common horror movie tropes occurred over the course of the Donner Party 's journey .
Hell , it might be the source of some of the cliches : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ road to take a shortcut that turns out to be the worst choice of their lives , an arrogant member of the group 's behavior making a bad situation worse , disintegration of relationships through greed and ego , and ending most gruesomely with blood and gore through cannibalism .
What could possibly go wrong ?
A hunger to know things is a common theme in literature and mythology , but it 's been balanced over thousands of years with messages that the pursuit of knowledge may destroy paradise .
Curiosity is frequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pursuit of knowledge and the discovery of truth usually signify the loss of innocence .
The Holy Bible uses this trope with the temptation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil .
And Greek mythology has both Pandora and her box and Prometheus and his gift of fire .
Reams could and probably have been written on the effect on Western civilization due to two big cultural myths which blamed women for bringing evil and suffering into the world , and how that corresponds to ideas about sexual innocence and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of scary movies that touch on science fiction , there is more than a fair share of Luddite tendencies .
Even though science fiction deals with possibilities and all the wonder that may be , it also has a habit of tempering that with a lot of paranoia and suspicion of advanced technology , scientific discovery , and its application .
To this end , most stories posit corporations and government as the `` Big Bads , '' since their depictions tend to be neither benevolent nor trustworthy enough to deal with knowledge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ulterior motives of greed and power .
As a child , I learned some important lessons .
If I should ever come across a crashed meteor , and ooze should slither out of it , I should run the hell away instead of poking it with a stick .
If I am ever part of an experiment , any positive physical changes will be temporary ; I will ultimately descend into becoming a monstrous mass of flesh .
And if someday a flying saucer is discovered under the ice of Antarctica , do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end with teeth growing out of the chest and one 's head growing tentacles .
Until the mid-1970s , both the American psychiatric and psychological associations classified homosexuality as a mental health disorder and listed it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM ) .
This particular bias is prevalent in many , many stories where gay and transgender characters are shown enduring a life of self-hating sadness , suffering from an addiction to supposedly aberrant behavior , or drawn to an underworld of sin .
And since people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broken , LGBTQ characters have been used , sometimes as the twist , in a lot of murder-mysteries , psychological dramas , and horror movies .
Tennessee Williams ' Suddenly , Last Summer plays the monster angle literally , where a gay character is chased through the streets like Frankenstein 's monster and killed .
Along the same lines , the implied or explicit homosexuality of the killer is often a twist of the `` thriller '' genre .
The adaptation of Roderick Thorp 's The Detective , starring Frank Sinatra , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` felt more guilty about being a homosexual than being a murderer '' and skulking around the streets looking to pick up men , like an addict searching for a fix .
William Friedkin 's Cruising , which follows an undercover cop investigating a serial killer targeting gay men within New York 's leather/BDSM scene , was protested during its production and upon release by gay rights activists who believed the film characterized homosexuals as promiscuous and violent .
Similar to the most problematic issues surrounding Cruising , 1992 's Basic Instinct was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people and bisexuals in a negative light ; some protesters stood outside theaters holding signs that revealed the identity of the movie 's killer .
One of the most controversial aspects of both the novel and Jonathan Demme 's adaption of Thomas Harris ' The Silence of the Lambs was the characterization of serial killer Buffalo Bill .
It 's fascinating how this characterization has changed over the years .
The change in these views of the LGBTQ community has led many to feel that positive depictions of gay men and lesbian women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in pushing the public to a more tolerant position .
We live in The Twilight Zone As I 've gotten older , I 've come to realize a lot of my love for science fiction and horror material can be seen through the prism of cathartic wish fulfillment and a release of all the things we 're afraid of within an engaging story .
Because `` in a better world , '' we can do anything .
In some far-off future society , things make sense .
Unlike in the here and now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and science , no one looks down their nose at others for being different , and the worst mistakes can be made right again .
Brave heroes boldly charge through the darkness in great machines to save the day .
While there will be struggles and suffering , and dark threats must be confronted , even death itself can be opposed .
And through it all , maybe there 's even a fatherly figure who dispenses wisdom and lessons of morality in between drags on his cigarette .
One of the greatest powers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divorce a controversial topic from all of the usual bullshit that surrounds it , forcing the reader/viewer to examine a topic in a new way .
It allows the public conscious for confronting humanity 's hopes and despairs , fears and failings , prejudices and atrocities in allegory and metaphor .
So it should be no surprise that scary stories reflect who we are as a people , both good and bad .
The horror films of the last two decades have seen an increased diversity in topics and formats , which are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ footage films arose at the same time that selfies and social media became commonplace .
A glut of horror movie remakes , and remakes in general , have occurred during the same era where a significant part of the populace has clung to old ideas and want to make flawed , past memories great again instead of creating better and newer ones .
What does the future hold ?
How will the influence of the Trump era be expressed in future scary movies ?
Only time will tell .
If Trump loses refuses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the streets .
The Protect the Results coalition has been preparing for this by organizing hundreds of post-election events across the country .
Click here to find , and RSVP for , the Count Every Vote rally near you .

"Blessed be our new founding fathers and America ... A nation reborn."
This year will see us celebrating a very different Halloween. In many places around the country, children will not be able to go trick-or-treating, and adults will not be able to dress up and make fools of themselves at the club, given the current pandemic. But what is Halloween without a scary story? And what is the nature of those spooky tales? Most of the time they are rooted in very real issues and very real threats.
Sometimes the scariest thing in movies or books is not the killer, monster, or demon jumping out of the dark. Some of the best works scare people with what they can get the viewer or reader to imagine to be behind the creaking door, without ever spelling out what was really there, or even if there was really anything to be scared of in the first place. For a little kid, what lurks underneath their bed is anything the fear of their mind can imagine.
The best horror stories bring people back to that childhood innocence and then exploit it. But this is also true of those adult fears, which the most manipulative use for untoward ends.
Without even getting into arguments over aliens, ghosts, Bigfoot, chupacabras, green children, the Loch Ness monster, or even who killed Jimmy Hoffa, there are more down-to-earth real mysteries and monsters which are just as chilling and unnerving. The Trump administration has been likened to Pennywise the Dancing Clown of Stephen King's It, an entity which feeds on human fears while making targets of the vulnerable and exacerbating the overall negative emotions of everyone in the community. In this respect, the great and terrible darkness we fight is not lurking to get at us from another dimension or to escape a hell below us. It's right here with us, staring back in any mirror. The sad thing is these monsters are not just things which scurry about in the dark. The monsters of today stand in broad daylight wearing suits with flag lapel pins. These demons prey on children and the weak to gain their power. They have a cult of followers, some of which may be our own family members, united in fear and worship of their leaders' every lie. The evil which lurks corrupts everything it touches and foments violence against anyone that disagrees.
Author C.S. Lewis, a Christian apologist who worked his faith into many of his works, believed the problem of evil was not the conflict between two separate and equal entities, but what humans classify as evil only exists as only a dark reflection of that which is good. To Lewis, the natural state of the universe is perfection, since it was created by a perfect God, who passed on that perfection—until humans screwed things up with original sin. Therefore, any evil which exists is only a corruption of a society's norms and a person's integrity, and not an innate aspect of either the community or individuals.
Sometimes it's the individual or societal anxieties which express very real fear-causing aspects of life, albeit in grossly exaggerated ways. This notion becomes important when looking at the ideas and morality which have been part of scary stories and horror tales for centuries, and which still reverberate to this day.
People who have premarital sex and do drugs deserve to die
My mother's next-door neighbor is someone I could call at three in the morning and he'd be there to help. When my mother was rushed to the hospital in the back of an ambulance and we had no way to get back home, he answered his phone in the middle of the night. However, this neighbor is also one of the most politically conservative people I've ever met. I vividly remember him talking about his opposition to birth control and abortion, which were based in his belief there must be "consequences" for sex. If social conservatism has been defined by a fear of one's own body, then the end point for socially conservative policies is punishment as the wages of sin for anyone who chooses agency over their own person.
This sort of right-wing idea of punishing sin is a very common trope in many horror films. Who do Jason Voorhees and his mother kill in Friday the 13th? Their victims tend to be a lot of teenagers who decided it was a good idea to have sex in a tent next to a lake known for an undead killer in a hockey mask. Of course, being too dumb to live is also an acceptable excuse for characters in a horror movie to die.
x
All of this leads to an argument that the horror genre is actually "innately conservative, even reactionary" in ideology. The essence of fear as a tool to elicit an emotional response aims to reestablish our feelings of essential normality in relation to the threat of change, whether that change be a fear of death or even radical social change. That's why even though scary movies have more than enough violence and bare breasts to make most moral guardians clutch their pearls, most also have a fundamental morality which allows the audience to accept the enjoyment of watching horrible things happen to those people who break certain rules—since many of those rules align with the aims of Focus on the Family and other conservative assholes.
The fairy tale we know as Little Red Riding Hood is derived from two sources—Charles Perrault (also known as Mother Goose) and the Brothers Grimm. However, the story is much older than either of them, and like a lot of well-known fairy tales, the original iteration of the story is quite gruesome. The Big Bad Wolf actually feeds the grandmother to a naive Little Red Riding Hood, then gets her to disrobe and get in bed with him. In the Brothers Grimm version, the girl and her grandmother were rescued by a passing hunter, and then proceeded to fill the Wolf's belly with stones.
But it is Perrault's version that's noted for removing darker elements like cannibalism and adding the "red hood," which takes on some symbolic significance, since there is no happy ending for his Little Red Riding Hood. The Wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood ... the end. Perrault intended the story to be a moral to young women about all wolves who deceive. The redness of the hood has been interpreted as a symbolic representation of sexual awakening and lust.
Variations of almost every element of Little Red Riding Hood appear in modern horror movies. The Big Bad Wolf is the archetypal "slasher" villain; a predator who shows almost, or true, supernatural abilities to deceive and manipulate his victims, most of whom are almost always women. Throw in Perrault's sexual symbolism, and you have the virginal "final girl" of many horror movies.
The heroine is a white virginal girl
The term "final girl" was coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, And Chain Saws: Gender In The Modern Horror Film. The book analyzed the slasher genre from a feminist perspective, and Clover argues that, instead of being driven by misogyny and sadism against women, these movies put the male viewer into the mindset of the female protagonist, or "the final girl" to survive. The final girl can scream, cry, and show fear in a way which audiences wouldn't accept from a male character. The final girl usually has a unisex name (e.g., Ripley, Sam, or Jay, in the case of It Follows), and tends to be portrayed as an idealization of female innocence and purity. She's probably not sexually experienced, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do drugs and more likely than not is a bit of a "Mary Sue." The character may be based on conservative attitudes and ideas of what women "should be." On the other hand, the final girl is usually separated emotionally from her parents, and the horror of the story tends to be connected to the sins of the parents, which is hidden behind a facade of family values.
x
Many have argued this trope takes advantage of regressive sexual attitudes in pop culture, where an apprehension to sex is coupled with the audience being titillated by sadism against a female protagonist and female characters. Beyond just horror movies, depicting a woman with sexual agency is still problematic in both fiction and real-life. There's a "virgin whore" dichotomy that Freud would have a field day with, where the culture sexualizes women, but if those women actually enjoy sex, it's either ridiculed (i.e., slut-shaming) or seen as something wrong or weird.
x
The other side of the argument is that many of the horror movies which came out of the 1970s "exploitation" film era are some of the first movies to have strong female characters that weren't dependent on men to "save" them. This argument is also found in discussions of Blaxploitation films, where the trade off to having Black actors and actresses front and center meant seeing them typecast as gangsters, hookers, and pimps.
"Even in the mid-'70s, the kind of proto-feminist element was being written about," said Kathleen McHugh, director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. "Feminist film scholars were writing about Roger Corman and Stephanie Rothman, locating a feminist impulse in the standard plot, where you have these powerful, self-assertive, one might even use the term 'extremely aggressive' women who are wreaking vengeance against forces, people, men who are trying to keep them down."
The Black guy dies first
Apparently all evil monsters, aliens, and serial killers are racists, since people of color hardly ever survive a horror movie, and usually are among the first to die. On the one hand, this ties in to an argument about diversity both in front of and behind the camera in Hollywood. As it became more important for movies and television shows to increase representation and not pretend every community only has white people, more people of color appeared in front of the camera. However, the space behind the camera was, and to some extent still is, dominated by white writers and mostly white people in production. Writers tend to write what they know, and if given a character with a background they don't know or haven't really experienced, it may lead to either a cliche storm of stereotypes or killing the character off to get them out of the way once they're onscreen for a few minutes, long enough to get bonafides for diverse casting. And so Black characters—just as Black people in real life, sadly—become accessories to be used and discarded in service of white characters' needs.
Black people rarely make it to the end of a horror movie, but it's not exactly true that they always die first.
x
Over the past few decades, this notion has further been subverted, especially as more people of color are producing and directing their own material. More films in the horror genrehave put issues of race and class front and center, with the horror of the movies shifted. Instead of the story being in service to the wants of white people, as it was in many past films with token characters, the struggle of these films switches the perspective where the horror is the wants of white people.
Jordan Peele's Get Out is a "social thriller," in which the horror scenario is a way for the story to expound into a damning satire about objectification and exploitation of Black people and Black culture, while assailing a type of white liberal guilt that talks a good game but does nothing to change anything. Peele's second film, Us, bases its action around a family being terrorized by violent doppelgängers attempting to take their place. The film is just as full of subtext as Get Out, but this time it's a contemplation about the nature of how we define ourselves as persons, and the ways it spirals out into the lies we want to believe about societies.
The Purgeseries was originally written off as nothing more than schlock, but each installment has made the themes of social inequality more explicit. Set in a future where a right-wing party called the New Founding Fathers of America has instituted an annual holiday where all crimes are legal for one night, under the claim of purging negative emotions, the propaganda of the regime claims instituting the event has resulted in 1% unemployment and an "America reborn." In actuality, the purge is intended as a legalized form of mass murder, in which the poor and other undesirable elements of society are eliminated through death squads, and the purge itself is a metaphor for the destruction done by the social inequalities created by poverty. In The Purge films, the wealthy are able to protect themselves or take part in the holiday with a degree of safety, while the poor are preyed upon by racists and elements of government who have judged them to be burdens or non-human. The Purge thus becomes a story for how people will rationalize abandoning the unfortunate if given only a perception of fairness, even when the result is not—reminiscent of the elevation of the idea that the free market fairly picks the "winners" and "losers," without allowing for the idea that hundreds of years of bias and discrimination plays a part.
Catholics are the only ones capable of fighting demons
Religious horror basically takes the Cliffs Notes version and various apocrypha of major religions and turns it into a scary story. In any horror movie, if it comes time to battle the forces of darkness and there is a possibility of defeating the evil by some vestiges of religion, the means by which it will be defeated will probably be quasi-Catholic. So thanks a lot for nothing, Martin Luther and the rest of you Protestants! The reason is because the Catholic Church is old and has a history of ornate ritual and majestic symbolism. Plus, cursing out a demon in Latin just sounds cooler.
Both Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist use the concept of the Devil and demons to inspire fear. But at their core, they're really movies about the female condition, within a religious framework. In both films, women are in situations where their pleas for help are either subverted or not taken seriously. And in both movies, the male figures either betray them, are absent, or are emotionally detached from offering any comfort.
x
Rosemary's Baby connects to real fears that women have during pregnancy: the possibility that something is wrong with their baby, that they're losing control of their body, and the situation is one they have little control over. The movie just adds in Satanic rape and devil worshipers.
The true horror of The Exorcist exists whether one believes in demonic possession, since the crux of the story is really about helplessness and a mother's fear of having something wrong with a child that no one seems able to fix. In this respect, whether it's mental illness, cancer, or a demon, the story connects on that emotional level.
The key to surviving any horror scenario is friendship and a family's love
1982's Poltergeist is now considered a classic of this particular genre. And that's interesting for a number of reasons, given some of the controversy and trivia which surrounds the movie. Poltergeist is a great example of a theme usually associated with Steven Spielberg's movies from the late '70s to the mid-'80s (i.e., suburban, middle-class families dealing with extraordinary circumstances). One of the knocks usually levied against Spielberg is he idealizes American suburbia and visualizes it in a nostalgic tone. That's not exactly true. In E.T. and Poltergeist, both families have flaws. Spielberg's suburban life is one in which unsupervised children stay up all hours watching TV, eating junk food, surrounded by products and things which provide no meaning, while living in cookie cutter neighborhoods. But if Spielberg sentimentalized anything, he idealizes the ability of a family's love to overcome all obstacles.
Teamwork makes the dream work and, like a dysfunctional family, this is especially true for any disparate group of people thrown together in a crisis. The George Romero Living Dead films touch on race, gender, and the inability of people to work together at the end of the world, which is just as true when expanded out to societies which can't work together to combat climate change, systemic racism, health care, or pandemics.
The zombie apocalypse is a situation that brings out the worst tendencies in humans, and turns our best qualities against us. In order to survive, a balance has to be found between the two. With almost any zombie film, they can be seen in such an entirely different light when you realize the zombies aren't meant to be evil—or even the villains. The zombies are no different than a thunderstorm, or a hurricane, or an earthquake. It's just a part of nature that we deal with, and how we deal with it can sometimes depend on what kind of person we are. Therefore, the true evil in most zombie apocalypses is humanity. With the world crumbling around them, the human characters still can't put aside their differences (whether race, class or ego) to save each other. The survivors would rather fight over the last scraps of civilization, or hold on to prejudices that serve to help no one survive.
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Don't turn off the main road for a shortcut
Among one of the most disturbing documentaries PBS ever broadcast is The Donner Party, which focuses on the infamous incident in which a disastrous expedition of settlers to California resulted in starvation, murder, and cannibalism.
Director Ric Burns, whose brother is Ken Burns (The Civil War), uses historical stills, nature photography, and celebrity voice overs to create a truly unsettling tale. Just as in The Civil War, David McCullough narrates, with readings from the actual diary entries of the Donner settlers providing the details of what happened as the situation went from bad to worse. McCullough's narration is particularly effective. The way McCullough nonchalantly mentions a wife having to watch her dead husband's heart being roasted on a stick catches the viewer off-guard. And with the use of still photography, what one doesn't see becomes more troubling, since the mind fills in the gaps in ways that are more horrific.
Many very common horror movie tropes occurred over the course of the Donner Party's journey. Hell, it might be the source of some of the cliches: people deciding to turn off the main road to take a shortcut that turns out to be the worst choice of their lives, an arrogant member of the group's behavior making a bad situation worse, disintegration of relationships through greed and ego, and ending most gruesomely with blood and gore through cannibalism.
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What could possibly go wrong?
A hunger to know things is a common theme in literature and mythology, but it's been balanced over thousands of years with messages that the pursuit of knowledge may destroy paradise. Curiosity is frequently treated as something of a sin; the pursuit of knowledge and the discovery of truth usually signify the loss of innocence. The Holy Bible uses this trope with the temptation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And Greek mythology has both Pandora and her box and Prometheus and his gift of fire. Reams could and probably have been written on the effect on Western civilization due to two big cultural myths which blamed women for bringing evil and suffering into the world, and how that corresponds to ideas about sexual innocence and moral purity.
In a good portion of scary movies that touch on science fiction, there is more than a fair share of Luddite tendencies. Even though science fiction deals with possibilities and all the wonder that may be, it also has a habit of tempering that with a lot of paranoia and suspicion of advanced technology, scientific discovery, and its application. To this end, most stories posit corporations and government as the "Big Bads," since their depictions tend to be neither benevolent nor trustworthy enough to deal with knowledge that might be gained, due to ulterior motives of greed and power.
As a child, I learned some important lessons. If I should ever come across a crashed meteor, and ooze should slither out of it, I should run the hell away instead of poking it with a stick. If I am ever part of an experiment, any positive physical changes will be temporary; I will ultimately descend into becoming a monstrous mass of flesh. And if someday a flying saucer is discovered under the ice of Antarctica, don't thaw it, as it will end with teeth growing out of the chest and one's head growing tentacles.
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Killers struggle with sexual identity
Until the mid-1970s, both the American psychiatric and psychological associations classified homosexuality as a mental health disorder and listed it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This particular bias is prevalent in many, many stories where gay and transgender characters are shown enduring a life of self-hating sadness, suffering from an addiction to supposedly aberrant behavior, or drawn to an underworld of sin. And since people with these "unnatural" compulsions are broken, LGBTQ characters have been used, sometimes as the twist, in a lot of murder-mysteries, psychological dramas, and horror movies.
Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer plays the monster angle literally, where a gay character is chased through the streets like Frankenstein's monster and killed. Along the same lines, the implied or explicit homosexuality of the killer is often a twist of the "thriller" genre. The adaptation of Roderick Thorp's The Detective, starring Frank Sinatra, has the killer at one point saying he "felt more guilty about being a homosexual than being a murderer" and skulking around the streets looking to pick up men, like an addict searching for a fix. William Friedkin's Cruising, which follows an undercover cop investigating a serial killer targeting gay men within New York's leather/BDSM scene, was protested during its production and upon release by gay rights activists who believed the film characterized homosexuals as promiscuous and violent. Similar to the most problematic issues surrounding Cruising, 1992's Basic Instinct was protested by LGBTQ activists for presenting gay people and bisexuals in a negative light; some protesters stood outside theaters holding signs that revealed the identity of the movie's killer. One of the most controversial aspects of both the novel and Jonathan Demme's adaption of Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs was the characterization of serial killer Buffalo Bill.
It's fascinating how this characterization has changed over the years. The change in these views of the LGBTQ community has led many to feel that positive depictions of gay men and lesbian women in film and television have been important in pushing the public to a more tolerant position.
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We live in The Twilight Zone
As I've gotten older, I've come to realize a lot of my love for science fiction and horror material can be seen through the prism of cathartic wish fulfillment and a release of all the things we're afraid of within an engaging story.
Because "in a better world," we can do anything. In some far-off future society, things make sense. Unlike in the here and now, problems can be solved with reason and science, no one looks down their nose at others for being different, and the worst mistakes can be made right again. Brave heroes boldly charge through the darkness in great machines to save the day. While there will be struggles and suffering, and dark threats must be confronted, even death itself can be opposed. And through it all, maybe there's even a fatherly figure who dispenses wisdom and lessons of morality in between drags on his cigarette.
One of the greatest powers of story can be its ability to divorce a controversial topic from all of the usual bullshit that surrounds it, forcing the reader/viewer to examine a topic in a new way. It allows the public conscious for confronting humanity's hopes and despairs, fears and failings, prejudices and atrocities in allegory and metaphor. So it should be no surprise that scary stories reflect who we are as a people, both good and bad.
The horror films of the last two decades have seen an increased diversity in topics and formats, which are themselves reactions to cultural shifts. Found footage films arose at the same time that selfies and social media became commonplace. A glut of horror movie remakes, and remakes in general, have occurred during the same era where a significant part of the populace has clung to old ideas and want to make flawed, past memories great again instead of creating better and newer ones. What does the future hold? How will the influence of the Trump era be expressed in future scary movies?
Only time will tell.
If Trump loses refuses to concede, we need to take to the streets. The Protect the Results coalition has been preparing for this by organizing hundreds of post-election events across the country. Click here to find, and RSVP for, the Count Every Vote rally near you.


alternet--2020-10-31--‘Very tired’ president shocks with short speech: 'I've never seen Trump look less interested'

President Donald Trump has given rally speeches that last longer than 100 minutes , but on Friday cut thing short for his speech at a rally in Minnesota .
`` President Trump only spoke for 21 ( ! )
minutes at this smaller event in Rochester , MN tonight .
Ca n't remember him ever speaking for less than 45 minutes at a rally but this was restricted to only 250 people due to coronavirus safety guidelines and Trump was not pleased , '' NBC News correspondent Monica Alba reported .
ABC News producer John Santucci said , `` I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
`` This is about half his average speech length , and he often goes much longer when he 's into the crowd ( nearly 90 min in Tampa yesterday ) , '' LA Times White House correspondent Eli Stokols reported .
NBC News reporter Garrett Haake said , `` Maybe it 's the small crowd .
Maybe it 's the cold .
But this is the lowest energy I 've ever seen the President be at a rally .
He 's blowing through his applause lines , just checking the boxes on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got somewhere to be . ''
`` Trump appears very tired at this rally in MN , slowly moving through his prepared remarks , '' CNN 's Jim Acosta noted .
`` People of Twitter reminding me he was up at 3 a.m .
tweeting . ''

President Donald Trump has given rally speeches that last longer than 100 minutes, but on Friday cut thing short for his speech at a rally in Minnesota.
"President Trump only spoke for 21 (!) minutes at this smaller event in Rochester, MN tonight. Can't remember him ever speaking for less than 45 minutes at a rally but this was restricted to only 250 people due to coronavirus safety guidelines and Trump was not pleased," NBC News correspondent Monica Alba reported.
ABC News producer John Santucci said, "I've never seen Trump look less interested.
"This is about half his average speech length, and he often goes much longer when he's into the crowd (nearly 90 min in Tampa yesterday)," LA Times White House correspondent Eli Stokols reported.
NBC News reporter Garrett Haake said, "Maybe it's the small crowd. Maybe it's the cold. But this is the lowest energy I've ever seen the President be at a rally. He's blowing through his applause lines, just checking the boxes on his usual speech, like he's got somewhere to be."
"Trump appears very tired at this rally in MN, slowly moving through his prepared remarks," CNN's Jim Acosta noted. "People of Twitter reminding me he was up at 3 a.m. tweeting."
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/1322156446046396417


alternet--2020-10-31--McConnell's latest agenda is to make sure the GOP continues to trample democracy even if they lose t

McConnell's latest agenda is to make sure the GOP continues to trample democracy even if they lose the Senate

Instead of focusing on a viable stimulus plan to help the American people and the country 's flailing small businesses , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( R-Ky. ) is focused on doing the one thing he and his Republican colleagues said Democrats would do : pack the courts .
During an interview with Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt , McConnell admitted that he will continue to fill the courts with conservative judges who will likely uphold their views and strike down opposing views .
`` We 're going to run through the tape .
We go through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does the President , '' McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt .
`` We 're going to fill the 7th Circuit .
And I 'm hoping we have time to fill the 1st Circuit as well . ''
He added , `` We 're going to clean the plate , clean all the district judges off as well . ''
In another effort to trample on the United States ' democracy , McConnell is ignoring the Thurmond rule which serves as an unwritten practice where the Senate refrain from confirming any more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports Talking Points Memo .
However , following practices is not something Senate Republicans have adhered to during this election year .
If McConnell succeeds at packing federal courts , his efforts will likely serve as damage control to ensure Republican lawmakers maintain some form of control even if the lose control of the White House and the Senate .
Although Republicans remain hopeful that they will regain control of the Senate , McConnell 's actions suggest otherwise as if he is doing all he can to secure positions while he is still @ @ @

Instead of focusing on a viable stimulus plan to help the American people and the country's flailing small businesses, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is focused on doing the one thing he and his Republican colleagues said Democrats would do: pack the courts.
During an interview with Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, McConnell admitted that he will continue to fill the courts with conservative judges who will likely uphold their views and strike down opposing views.
"We're going to run through the tape. We go through the end of the year, and so does the President," McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. "We're going to fill the 7th Circuit. And I'm hoping we have time to fill the 1st Circuit as well."
He added, "We're going to clean the plate, clean all the district judges off as well."
In another effort to trample on the United States' democracy, McConnell is ignoring the Thurmond rule which serves as an unwritten practice where the Senate refrain from confirming any more of the president's judiciary nominees, reports Talking Points Memo. However, following practices is not something Senate Republicans have adhered to during this election year.
If McConnell succeeds at packing federal courts, his efforts will likely serve as damage control to ensure Republican lawmakers maintain some form of control even if the lose control of the White House and the Senate. Although Republicans remain hopeful that they will regain control of the Senate, McConnell's actions suggest otherwise as if he is doing all he can to secure positions while he is still in office.