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Voters Just Want to Have Fun

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Clarissa

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I thought at the time that it was a mistake for Clinton to bring up Alicia Machado but I should have known that she never makes a comment unless it has been tested on a bizillion focus groups. It has become clear that the comment is all that anybody retained from the debate. I wish, of course, that people were as passionate about the subject of the minimum wage as they are about Machado’s weight issues but that’s the kind of voters we get.

On the positive side, once again Hillary has managed to get Trump to star a vendetta against an individual, send out weird tweets and make an impression of being very unstable. 

I keep misjudging these things because I always forget that in a rich society, the weight issues of a beauty queen are always going to attract more attention than education, healthcare, parental leave, etc. People just want to be entertained, and comparing photos of Machado to see how much weight she gained (which every TV channel has been doing for 4 endless days) is apparently fun.

45 responses to “Voters Just Want to Have Fun”

  1. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    This is so funny. I was actually about to leave a comment saying that I misjudged the “power” of the Machado comment only to find you have a post about it.

    But yes: the comment is doing exactly what Clinton needed it to do. And it seems like the racist side of it (Trump calling Machado “Miss Housekeeping”) is mobilizing some Latino voters and voter registrations are rising in Latino communities.

    I personally think Trump has said more racist things and more misogynist things and continue to be surprised that this has gained the momentum it has. Be that as it may however, Clinton was able to goad Trump into making an entire series of problematic comments and blunders. And the more he acts like an unstable bully, the less people will be inclined to vote for him.

    At the end of the day, it’s clear that Clinton is simply smarter than Trump and knows how to manipulate him. If she can accomplish this every debate, she might be able to lock down a decisive victory.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      What’s interesting is that he clearly is incapable of resisting the temptation to badger people. It happened with the Khans, it’s happening now. It’s like he has zero control over himself in these situations.

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      1. Evelina Anville Avatar
        Evelina Anville

        It really is bizarre. I have never seen anyone in public life (or in my private life for that matter) be so utterly committed to petty meanness.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          The really scary part is imagine if he’s president and feels insulted by a foreign leader. Right now, when he feels slighted, he fires off tweets. What if he has the power to fire missiles? That’s the terrifying prospect in all this.

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          1. Stringer Bell Avatar
            Stringer Bell

            But don’t you know? Trump and Clinton are equally sociopathic liars, equally unfit for the presidency.

            ‘Check out her sex tape and past’.

            Preferred candidate of the Christian right.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Forget her sex tapes. What about his well-known debauchery?

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              1. Shakti Avatar
                Shakti

                The people who are scandalized by the existence of sex tapes tend to be the same people who think divorcing in the manner Trump does is shameful. I can’t imagine anybody who has grown up with the internet or who actually uses a smartphone being scandalized by sex tapes.

                Trump has no filter and probably no self control. Could you imagine if he figured out how to post videos and pictures from his phone instead of just tweeting?

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  2. Shakti Avatar
    Shakti

    The funny thing is that there is a correlation between your BMI and your salary even in occupations that aren’t specifically about looking physically attractive, especially for women.

    I don’t get why people want to vote for a cartoon. Perhaps it’s the nonstop entertainment?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      It’s not discrimination. Overweight people have psychological problems, otherwise they wouldn’t be overweight. These problems make them (us, actually) less attractive on the job market.

      Physical attraction has nothing to do with weight, so it’s another issue entirely.

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      1. Dreidel Avatar
        Dreidel

        “Overweight people have psychological problems, otherwise they wouldn’t be overweight.”

        From a medical/psychiatric standpoint, I can’t agree with that statement. The majority of people who are overweight (and that includes by some estimates two-thirds of Americans today) have simply reached their genetically determined weight for their rather sedentary lifestyle.

        I’ve known many overweight people who are at least as psychologically normal as naturally slender individuals like me — other overweight people who have spent a lifetime making themselves miserable following endless diets and trying in vain to achieve a physique that’s beyond their reach.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Sedentary lifestyles are also evidence of psychological problems.

          “I’ve known many overweight people who are at least as psychologically normal as naturally slender individuals like me”

          There is absolutely no way for you to know anything about their psychological health. Thinness is no guarantee of psychological health.

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          1. Dreidel Avatar
            Dreidel

            “There is absolutely no way for you to know anything about their psychological health.”

            A number of them were patients of mine when I was a flight surgeon in the Air Force doing general medicine as well as psychiatry, and it was my job to be knowledgeable about their general health, including their mental health. Don’t tell me that I couldn’t do my job.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              These are not the kind of problems that are accessible to psychiatrists.

              I also find it deeply bizarre when people mention genes in the context of North American obesity. This is an immensely heterogeneous population in terms of genes, yet everybody is uniformly fat. It’s clear that this is about anything but genes. But the word “genes” is like a magical word that cancels out all need to think these days.

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              1. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                There is a significant medical difference in being merely “overweight” and in being clinically “obese.” Many people are genetically programmed to be above their ideal (from a health standpoint) body weight, unless they spend a lifetime struggling, mostly in vain, to keep the extra pounds off.

                “Obesity” is definitely medically and psychologically abnormal.

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                “Many people are genetically programmed to be above their ideal (from a health standpoint) body weight, unless they spend a lifetime struggling, mostly in vain, to keep the extra pounds off.”

                • And somehow they all ended up in this country. What a coincidence!

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              3. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                “And somehow they all ended up in this country.”

                …except for the millions of them in Europe, Asia, Africa, and everyplace else on earth except the Antarctic! 🙂

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              4. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Where exactly did you see such a uniformly fat country in Europe or Africa? Even in Canada it’s impossible to find clothes over size 12 almost anywhere. As for Europe, nobody even knows that sizes like 22+ exist.

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              5. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                “Currently, one in three U.S. adults is obese, bringing forth a possible health toll, including high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Another third of Americans are overweight.”

                http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/WeightManagement/Obesity/Understanding-the-American-Obesity-Epidemic_UCM_461650_Article.jsp

                This ain’t happening in Africa, that’s for sure.

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      2. Shakti Avatar
        Shakti

        If this tracked solely with psychological problems, then very thin women in that same study (underweight) would also see correlative drops in salary. They don’t. You would also see in that same study overweight men being penalized to the same degree. (They aren’t).

        When you talk about psychological problems you’re talking about <a href=https://clarissasblog.com/2014/06/25/the-psychopathology-of-obesity/”>people who are far more overweight than when the salary correlation with being overweight kicks in for women. In that post you’re talking about people who are at least 50 lb overweight; and that study talks about women who are 13 lb or more overweight.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “If this tracked solely with psychological problems, then very thin women in that same study (underweight) would also see correlative drops in salary.”

          • “Underweight” is not an existing phenomenon for anybody but newborns. Especially in this country. When was the last time anybody has seen “an underweight person”? Other than on Dr. Phil’s shows about anorexics, I can’t remember a single occasion.

          “You would also see in that same study overweight men being penalized to the same degree. (They aren’t).”

          • People with psychological problems elicit the same unconscious reactions from everybody.

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          1. Clarissa Avatar
            Clarissa

            Also, if a person believes she is 2 ounces over the ideal weight, her interlocutors will perceive this anxiety and reject her because this doesn’t read as psychological health.

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  3. el Avatar
    el

    \Where exactly did you see such a uniformly fat country in Europe or Africa?

    Following your logic, it means that Americans are uniquely psychologically unhealthy people. As you said about genes, one can say about psychological health: “And somehow they all ended up in this country. What a coincidence!”

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Jung distinguishes several levels of psychological problems: individual/ familial, collective / national, historic. If there is a problem that exists on all three levels, it’s next to impossible to eradicate. Shared historic events create the same problems in groups of people. For instance, Ukrainians tend to have enormous food trauma because of our history.

      “Following your logic, it means that Americans are uniquely psychologically unhealthy people.”

      • Oral stage traumas are not any more or less unhealthy or unique than, say, anal stage traumas. Germanic cultures, for instance, have a notable tendency towards anal stage traumas. Different cultures have different anxieties. There is nothing all that new or controversial in the idea that shared experiences have shared consequences.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \For instance, Ukrainians tend to have enormous food trauma because of our history.

        Which traumas do Russians and Jews tend to have?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “Which traumas do Russians and Jews tend to have?”

          • With Russians it depends, in part, on the geographic area. For instance, the descendants of WWII-era Leningraders are also notorious for food trauma for the obvious reasons. The way Russians are obsessed with their leaders point to genital-stage traumas (also known as oedipal.) They want the leader to be their God / Daddy. They adore and hate him at the same time. You won’t encounter that among Ukrainians or Americans, for instance.

          Jews today are a group that experienced genocide within living memory. That brings a whole host of consequences. For instance, a fixation on children. This is something that Jews share with Armenians, for instance.

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  4. el Avatar
    el

    An interesting article on Israel emulating US even in undesired aspects of American life:

    Overweight among Israeli kids inching towards US rate
    …
    The study included an analysis of the availability of nutritional food at local providers and the density of local play and outdoor spaces relative to their proximity to public schools and gathering places for children and adolescents. The researchers mapped the town of Afula and identified 193 food stores and retailers, more than 70 percent of which sold nutrition-poor food. Only 15 stores offered fresh fruits and vegetables. In total, there were three times as many fast food purveyors per thousand children as there were stores where fresh fruit was available.
    http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Overweight-among-Israeli-kids-inching-towards-US-rate-321076

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      In one of the previous discussions on this subject, readers of this blog insisted that the quality of food also had nothing to do with obesity.

      The only answer people seem ready to accept is the meaningless reference to “genes.” Which is precisely the only answer that makes zero sense whatsoever.

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      1. Dreidel Avatar
        Dreidel

        “The only answer people seem ready to accept is the meaningless reference to “genes.” Which is precisely the only answer that makes zero sense whatsoever.”

        Genes “aren’t relevant” in determining your physical body?

        You’re joking, right? HAHAHAHAHAHAH! 🙂 🙂 🙂

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          This is going in circles, as usual in these discussions. And I’m still waiting for an explanation of how it is possible that in a country with such enormous ethnic diversity there is such incomparably uniform problem of excessive weight.

          I’ve been waiting for years for somebody at least to attempt to answer the question but people just repeat “genes, genes, genes”. It’s getting scary because it’s like people have been zombified.

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          1. Dreidel Avatar
            Dreidel

            You’re right, this discussion is going in circles.

            But I note that you refer a lot to Jungian psychological theories, and that Jung was a strong proponent of an inherited “collective unconscious” memory. If such a thing existed, it could be passed along only through genes.

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            1. el Avatar
              el

              \Jung was a strong proponent of an inherited “collective unconscious” memory. If such a thing existed, it could be passed along only through genes.

              That’s exactly what Rachel Yehuda discusses in the linked below post.

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              1. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                @el —

                Your post below (“Read two articles here…”) contains a link only to the Shimon Peres interview, not to the Rachel Yehuda article.

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            2. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              There is nothing else to discuss until I receive an answer to my question.

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              1. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                You mean why Americans are relatively fatter than the populations of most other countries?

                Probably because even poor people in America can afford to buy all the calories they want, so more of their bodies reach their genetic potential. 🙂

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                I’m glad you realized that the “genes argument” fails to explain the US obesity issue.

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              3. Dreidel Avatar
                Dreidel

                I don’t think you realized what I actually said. 🙂

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              4. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                In Western Europe the poor live better. Yet, the obesity epidemic is happening here, a country with a weak welfare state. Curiously, the majority of Americans are ethnically related to those Western Europeans. It’s strange how they are not fat over there, where they get more free money from the state, yet they are hugely fat over here with far less free money from the state. Hmmm…

                Your argument makes no sense. This isn’t about “genes.”

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  5. el Avatar
    el

    Since some readers recently criticized me for not blaming soldiers for shooting a teenage probable terrorist, here is breaking news:

    A Palestinian man reportedly stabbed an Israeli man at the checkpoint separating the West Bank and Jerusalem; the attacker was neutralized, and the Israeli man is said to have been moderately-to-severely wounded
    …
    Violent protests are said to have then broken out at the site, with about 200 Palestinians throwing stones at security personnel, who used riot dispersal means in an attempt to quell the unrest.

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4861932,00.html

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  6. el Avatar
    el

    Read two articles here:

    Do Jews Carry Trauma in Our Genes? A Conversation With Rachel Yehuda.

    AND

    ONE LAST INTERVIEW
    Three weeks ago, Shimon Peres sat for what he intended to be a Rosh Hashanah-timed discussion about the state of the world. It was also his final one.

    http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/214621/one-last-interview

    I am not sure how you’ll feel about him talking RE Russia, but his discussion of Israeli history he participated in was curious.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Genes again. It’s the modern equivalent of witchcraft. People substitute the need to think about anything by repeating this magic encantation.

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  7. xykademiqz Avatar
    xykademiqz

    Life in the US is characterized by low-level anxiety due to the absence of a social safety net, dependence on the whims of the employers, and general distrust of the government. Yet, Americans consider it shameful — un-American even! — to complain, even though there is outright abuse of their basic rights, such as the right to get healthcare when sick or to have a few weeks of work while recovering from labor. There appears to be a great need for mass delusion that things are peachy, that they are not being exploited, and that if only they work hard everything will be fine… But they still get laid off, and their pension funds vaporize, and they still cling to the idea that the system is good and that if only they did better, they would not been left on the street or required to go back to work, packing groceries, at age 75…

    Now that I type it out, it does seem like a society-level trauma related to having an abusive parent, who feeds and clothes you but then occasionally lashes out at you and spanks you, and convinces you that what you have is the best of all loving families you could have, that no one else in the world has it any better, ant that it’s all your fault and if only you had behaved better you would not get beaten… Whereas in reality the parent is an abusive, manipulative a$$hole.

    I don’t know if overeating at the national level relates to this trauma, but it probably does. Like stuffing down your feelings of worthlessness because the corporate world clearly communicates to you that you are a worthless replaceable cog who can die in the street with no possessions, yet your mind rejects overwhelming evidence that the reality is so.

    Or maybe overeating, trashy Hollywood movies, tabloids are all escapism. Food for the American national id — which is all about instant gratification — because the (psychological) ego is underdeveloped.

    Sounds like collective oral trauma?

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  8. Dreidel Avatar
    Dreidel

    “Your argument makes no sense. This isn’t about “genes.’”

    It’s definitely about jeans, lady. The more Americans eat, the bigger their jeans get.

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  9. Deplorably Quantum Inserted Jones Avatar
    Deplorably Quantum Inserted Jones

    Damn it man, I want SNPs and Genecards for all of those genes that are involved!

    Not that I’ll do a bloody thing with any of that, but this is a science researcher’s version of “I WANT A PONY”, and I haven’t had a good thrashing about with that kind of game for years.

    🙂

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  10. TomW Avatar
    TomW

    One of the other blogs I follow is written by an obesity researcher and he is always very careful about stating that it is the risk for obesity that is genetic. Genes don’t automatically make you fat, but they determine your risk when diet and activity levels make it possible. The majority of people have some potential for obesity, the problem in the US is to be found in the diet and activity levels because the genetic potential is common throughout the world.

    I personally suspect that the quality of food and the lack of walking around are the biggest differences between the US and Europe. The last time I spent an extended period of time in Europe (six weeks, mostly in Germany) I ate everything I wanted and didn’t worry about my weight. I had bread, beer, meat, cheese, and sweets every day. I also spent quite a bit of time on my feet walking around to get places. I lost ten pounds on that trip and never said no to a glass of beer or a piece of cake when one was on offer.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Exactly. I always eat like a horse when I come to Canada and end up losing weight.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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