{"id":33637,"date":"2020-10-27T14:45:46","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T18:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33637"},"modified":"2020-10-27T16:06:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T20:06:03","slug":"the-left-steps-up-the-ad-hominem-attacks-on-trump-voters-with-juvenile-vitriol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33637","title":{"rendered":"The <i>Left<\/i> steps up the ad hominem attacks on Trump voters with juvenile vitriol"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>&#8220;Lizard Brains&#8221;: NBC Analyst Meacham Attacks Trump Supporters Functioning On Primitive Limbic Systems<\/h1>\n<p>by Jonathan Turley<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Below is my column on Fox regarding the recent remarks of\u00a0<strong>NBC analyst Jon Meacham explaining how Trump supporters suffer from \u201clizard brains.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>The statement is indicative of a long-standing trend in the media of insulting and biased comments about Trump supporters. Analysts seem to have dispensed with any notion of restraint or reason in such attacks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is most troubling is that there are students who support Trump at Vanderbilt and there have been\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vanderbilthustler.com\/14273\/featured\/conservative-students-speak-about-representation-on-campus\/\">complaints for years<\/a>\u00a0about an increasingly hostile environment for conservative students.<\/strong>\u00a0Taking a professor who has publicly dismissed your political views as the result of a lizard brain is hardly welcoming.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"MRC TV video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mrctv.org\/embed\/554848\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Here is the column<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jonathanturley.org\/2020\/09\/08\/vanderbilt-quiz-on-the-constitution-marked-students-wrong-if-they-said-it-was-not-designed-to-perpetuate-white-supremacy\/\">recently discussed<\/a>\u00a0how Vanderbilt professor and historian Jon Meacham gave a quiz in his course on the 2020 Election in which students were asked \u201cWas the Constitution designed to perpetuate white supremacy and protect the institution of slavery?\u201d\u00a0<strong>You had to answer \u201cyes\u201d or get points deducted.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It appears that the final exam in the class could prove even more demanding for any intellectually honest student if Meacham asks about the voters themselves. The NBC analyst this week declared that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/person\/donald-trump\">President Trump<\/a>\u00a0and his supporters are examples of being controlled by what is called \u201cthe lizard brain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>It only got worse from there.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meacham\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__thehill.com_homenews_media_522428-2Dpresidential-2Dhistorian-2Dmeacham-2Ddescribes-2Dtrump-2Dsupporters-2Das-2Danguished-2Dwhite&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=AA442jMvbCURPtZiNmMNtJBnripGQYCHw7_DqJFkmec&amp;m=FjpWGQUYvJq26mV4EzMMR_aviJ4WHGY-eUFVBo3eTNk&amp;s=fe-Oy4aWvV8NP1RN6SWcLOqMn3PZkk2AdP2IgPJ3cRk&amp;e=\">addressed a simple question<\/a>\u00a0of whether Trump helped himself with his base in the second presidential debate Thursday night. It is impossible on NBC, however, to refer to Trump voters without some derisive or insulting precursor. Meacham did not disappoint his audience.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI think Trump did himself good with his base tonight,\u201d Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>\u201cThe question for America is how big that base is. There is a lizard brain in this country. Donald Trump is a product of the White man\u2019s, the anguished, nervous White guy\u2019s lizard brain.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Meacham was referring to a primitive part of the brain in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_where-2Daddiction-2Dmeets-2Dyour-2Dbrain_201404_your-2Dlizard-2Dbrain&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=AA442jMvbCURPtZiNmMNtJBnripGQYCHw7_DqJFkmec&amp;m=FjpWGQUYvJq26mV4EzMMR_aviJ4WHGY-eUFVBo3eTNk&amp;s=4Gt5gO9v2nEquH6QIot22kSttATvSVvz9uJ_9FTqLuc&amp;e=\">psychological literature<\/a>: \u201cMany people call it the \u2018Lizard Brain,\u2019 because the limbic system is about all a lizard has for brain function. It is in charge of fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing up, and fornication.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, even with the lead held by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the polls, roughly half of this country still supports Trump (or at least rejects Biden, who Meacham has endorsed). That is a lot of lizard people.<\/p>\n<p>What is striking is that Meacham is supposed to give what NBC, MSNBC and PBS present as neutral, scholarly analysis. But his comment about Trump supporters having lizard brains captures why conservative or independent voters view the networks as biased and gratuitously insulting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Indeed, these comments show that networks like NBC are now focusing entirely on Democratic and liberal viewers \u2014 writing off half of the American people as gag lines.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__jonathanturley.org_2020_05_18_bobo-2Dthe-2Dclowns-2Drevenge-2Dhow-2Dthe-2Dmedia-2Dis-2Dreelecting-2Ddonald-2Dtrump_&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=AA442jMvbCURPtZiNmMNtJBnripGQYCHw7_DqJFkmec&amp;m=FjpWGQUYvJq26mV4EzMMR_aviJ4WHGY-eUFVBo3eTNk&amp;s=VNQtTquiO1-w6Y7qkHqKfMfEcjZi7mtEBf6uJzv3dPQ&amp;e=\">written repeatedly about how the media have helped Trump<\/a>\u00a0by fulfilling his narrative of open bias. Meacham shows that they are now enjoying this too much.<\/p>\n<p>There appears to be no point that is too insulting or raw for national commentary so long as it is an attack on Trump or those who support him.<\/p>\n<p>I did not vote for Trump, and I have regularly criticized him in columns and blog posts. However,\u00a0<strong>I have watched the stereotyping of Trump supporters at media conferences for years. It suggests that roughly 63 million people in this country who voted for Trump in 2016 are knuckle-dragging racists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The media have simply never tried to see any nuance or gain any insight into what is motivating Trump supporters. It is easier to dismiss them as a whole as racists and lizard people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin has declared that Trump supporters as a whole are racists.<\/strong>\u00a0That common stereotyping of Trump supporters is uncontested, even as the media object to Trump\u2019s generalizations about other groups.<\/p>\n<p>Miami Herald columnist\u00a0and NBC analyst Leonard Pitts wrote\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/opinion\/opn-columns-blogs\/leonard-pitts-jr\/article211963789.html\">a column<\/a>\u00a0headlined:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>\u201cNo, it\u2019s not the economy, stupid. Trump supporters fear a black and brown America.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The narrative has moved beyond Hillary Clinton\u2019s description of Trump supporters as a\u00a0<strong>\u201cbasket of deplorables\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0to now portraying all Trump supporters as open racists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hats are denounced by academics as the<strong>\u00a0symbol of \u201cmodern day hitlerjugend\u201d and hate speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What is most distressing about Meacham\u2019s comments is that he is an incredibly talented and insightful academic. But it is hugely popular to degrade Trump\u2019s supporters on television. That can create its own conditioning reward system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It is also popular in academia today to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/urldefense.proofpoint.com\/v2\/url?u=https-3A__jonathanturley.org_2020_09_08_vanderbilt-2Dquiz-2Don-2Dthe-2Dconstitution-2Dmarked-2Dstudents-2Dwrong-2Dif-2Dthey-2Dsaid-2Dit-2Dwas-2Dnot-2Ddesigned-2Dto-2Dperpetuate-2Dwhite-2Dsupremacy_&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&amp;r=AA442jMvbCURPtZiNmMNtJBnripGQYCHw7_DqJFkmec&amp;m=FjpWGQUYvJq26mV4EzMMR_aviJ4WHGY-eUFVBo3eTNk&amp;s=VnzvOFKmRHFEGvBWvwc2zfX3TdZp8_PsJRru0JN_McU&amp;e=\">rewrite history to fit a narrative<\/a>, like declaring simplistically that the Constitution was designed to perpetuate White supremacy and protect the institution of slavery. No nuance. No objectivity.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Following this logic, if you believe Trump is a threat, it follows that his supporters are threats. That actually sounds familiar.\u00a0You could almost say that it sounds like \u2026 well \u2026 the lizard brain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>An article headlined \u201cWhy Your Lizard Brain is Keeping You Stuck and Specific Tools To Start Connecting\u201d could be distributed as a self-help guide for network analysts.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The article states:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re acting in one of these fear-based modes \u2014 whether you fight, flee or freeze \u2014 you\u00a0can\u2019t remember\u00a0any of the great communication tools you\u2019ve learned or the tips or strategies you\u2019ve been practicing\u00a0because you can\u2019t access the part of the brain where that stuff is saved! Brain imaging has shown that when the amygdala is activated by negative emotions, it actually interferes with the brain\u2019s ability to solve problems (or figure out how to get unstuck). But here\u2019s the good news: positive emotions and thoughts do the opposite; they\u00a0help\u00a0you with creative problem-solving and strategic thinking.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>In other words, it is possible that tens of millions of voters are not lizard people, but people with opposing views.<\/strong>\u00a0Yet, once Trump supporters are shown or discussed, it triggers these intense negative emotions in analysts who respond with fight and flight impulses.<\/p>\n<p>Once you accept that, you can access parts of \u201cthe brain where that stuff is saved\u201d from your training and your scholarship. You know. Like history.<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/lizard-brains-nbc-analyst-meacham-attacks-trump-supporters-functioning-primitive-limbic\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/lizard-brains-nbc-analyst-meacham-attacks-trump-supporters-functioning-primitive-limbic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Lizard Brains&#8221;: NBC Analyst Meacham Attacks Trump Supporters Functioning On Primitive Limbic Systems by Jonathan Turley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}