George Saunders Goes To A Trump Rally

Who are all these Trump supporters?

He wings it because winging it serves his purpose. He is not trying to persuade, detail, or prove: he is trying to thrill, agitate, be liked, be loved, here and now. He is trying to make energy. (At one point in his San Jose speech, he endearingly fumbles with a sheaf of “statistics,” reads a few, fondly but slightingly mentions the loyal, hapless statistician who compiled them, then seems unable to go on, afraid he might be boring us.)

And make energy he does. It flows out of him, as if channeled in thousands of micro wires, enters the minds of his followers: their cheers go ragged and hoarse, chanting erupts, a look of religious zeal may flash across the face of some non-chanter, who is finally getting, in response to a question long nursed in private, exactly the answer he’s been craving. One such person stays in my memory from a rally in Fountain Hills, Arizona, in March: a solidly built man in his mid-forties, wearing, in the crazy heat, a long-sleeved black shirt, who, as Trump spoke, worked himself into a state of riveted, silent concentration-fury, the rally equivalent of someone at church gazing fixedly down at the pew before him, nodding, Yes, yes, yes.

Links for Later 3-22-16

1. Lessons from the very prolific Isaac Asimov.
2. Sleek cyberpunk fashion short film by ACRONYM (recommended by William Gibson).
3. Generic NYT article on Millennials.
4. Donald Trump is not making a lot of sense.
5. Ted Cruz is the worst person in the world.
6. Mapping creativity. Not sure I buy these studies, or the article's conclusions.
7. Stewart Lee wrote a negative review of his own show.

Links for Later 5-3-14

1. Kip Manley writes an open letter to John C. Wright.
2. Cat Valente writes an open letter to John C. Wright.
3. Hal Duncan and the Elders of Sodom write an open letter to John C. Wright.
4. John C. Wright takes his post down in response to a large number of open letters objecting to it.
5. Aaron Hedlund notes some issues with Piketty involving, among other things, questions about what variables are properly endogenous and exogenous to growth & production models. Interesting critique.
6. Noah Smith notes Tyler Cowen's anti-Piketty posts, their frequency & intensity, and the similarity of Cowen's predictions about inequality to Piketty's. So why the friction?
7. List of the "30 most influential living psychologists". Weirdly, I have heard of all of them except for their choice for #1.
8. How to write an essay.