Melania Trump's Plagiarism in Academic and Historical Perspective

Putting Melania Trump's plagiarism and the Trump campaign's response to it in perspective - as a professor, who, like most professors, has on occasion dealt with plagiarism, and who also has studied what happens when dictators get caught up in lies -

- What Melania did was actually worse than a student who plagiarizes. Students usually are taking more than one course, get caught up in final exams, are just becoming adults, etc. Under that kind of pressure, plagiarism is wrong and must be called out, but it happens. Trump's campaign had months to prepare for yesterday's speech by Melania - the fact that she so blatantly plagiarized shows Trump's continuing disdain for both truth and democracy.

 - The denial by Chris Christie and Paul Manafort of plagiarism is the same as Trump denying a tweet contained an anti-semitic Jewish star.  Trump's approach is just double down and deny the truth when caught in a wrongdoing. This is right out of the Goebbels-Hitler propaganda playbook. Why does this work?  As Erich Fromm pointed out in Escape from Freedom, some people don't want the responsibility of thinking for themselves - they want their leaders to do it for them, and are happy to accept as truth whatever their leaders say.   This, alas, is one of the foundations of fascism.

 -Trump has already gone after the press. We'll soon see him go after academics, because professors are the in-the-trench experts on plagiarism. Attacks on the press and academics are another hallmark of leaders who don't like democracy (Erdogan in Turkey has arrested both journalists and professors).

The Trump campaign has thus far shown an astonishing resilience, often picking up rather than losing support after getting caught up in an outrageous lie.  Plagiarism, and then denying it, is part of the same pattern.   Will it have a similar effect on Trump's success?  The very future of our democracy may reside in the answer to that question.

Third GOP Presidential Debate: Participants and Bystanders

Back with a review of the third GOP Presidential debate tonight, as always with the proviso that I've only voted for a Republican once in my life - for John Lindsay for Mayor of New York City decades ago - and no doubt won't be voting for any of the Republicans up on the stage in Colorado this evening.

But, that said, who did the best and the worst?

I think Chris Christie had the single best moment, when he said he did not deny climate change - as do many Republicans - and would do what he could to improve our climate by supporting private alternate energy enterprise.  That's an enlightened anti-government position on this issue.

The best exchange was between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who both came across well in Bush's attack on and Rubio's defense of his poor attendance record in the Senate.   In general, both Bush and Rubio had a good night, with Rubio somewhat better.

Cruz had a strong moment with the perennial Republican chestnut of attacking the media in general and the questions being asked of him and his colleagues in the debate.  But that was about Cruz's only moment.

Kasich started strong then all but disappeared.  Rand Paul gave some good answers but looked tired and bored.   Huckabee was unmemorable - except for his proud admission about wearing a Trump tie - and Fiorina was the dullest I recall seeing her in any of the debates so far.

Carson and Trump, the two front runners, were both ok, sometimes pretty good, but they often seemed more like bystanders than full-fledged participants in this economic debate.   Someone tweeted - I think it was Farhad Manjoo - that if "if you knew nothing about the polls and watched this you wouldn’t believe Trump and Carson were leading."  I've got to agree.

And so it goes.   Trump will have a chance to rekindle some of his fire on Saturday Night Live this weekend.   He'll need that, because he certainly didn't have all that much tonight.

PS: I thought Lindsey Graham was far and away the best in the junior GOP debate tonight, and was better than at least half the contenders in the main debate tonight.

Second GOP Presidential Debate: Trump Fails on Immunizations

I'll preface my analysis of the second GOP Presidential debate - three hours, just concluded on CNN - that I'm not a Republican, and this undoubtedly influences my views of who scored and who did not in a Republican debate.   Nonetheless -

It seemed to me that Trump did not do all that well tonight.  He was more conciliatory, true, and perhaps that helps him, but he once again spoke only in generalities.  And at times - for example - in the discussion of immunizations and autism - he seemed outrightly ignorant, insisting there was sort of a connection, even though Ben Carson, an MD, patiently and repeatedly explained that there was not, or none statistically and scientifically demonstrated.

As Trump does on most of these issues, he conflated at least two different issues - one, whether immune injections cause autism, and, two, whether the immunization shots can be spaced out, or not given all at once.   Drs. Carson and Paul may agree with the latter, but not the former - and Trump tried to sweep his ignorance under the rug by saying he, too, agreed with that, but somehow that still meant there was a connection between immunizations and autism.

The other candidates, with varying styles and intensity, all talked knowledgeably about a variety of issues.  Rand Paul was especially good on the dangers of unconstitutional wars, and Chris Christie on the opposite side of that argument, on the need for a strong and aggressive defense.   These two also spoke very well on opposite sides of the recreational drug legalization issue (I agree with Rand Paul).

Christie was also good in his denunciation of the personal skirmishing between Trump and Fiorina.  I thought Jeb and Fiorina were both strong and articulate in taking Trump on.    But of the two - Jeb and Fiorina - I thought Jeb had far more substance in his positions.

We'll see what the polls say in the next few days.  But I'd be surprised if there wasn't some slippage for Trump - a dangerous prediction, I know.

First 2016 GOP Presidential Debate: My Ranking of the Performances

Continuing my tradition of reviewing the Republican Presidential Debates (and Democratic Debates), which goes back to 2007,  here's my take on what happened on Fox News in Cleveland tonight.

First, as a preamble, I thought the 5pm appetizer debate, consisting of the seven contenders whose polling numbers didn't qualify them (by Fox's standards) for the main event, was one of the most boring political debates I've ever seen.   Sad to say, that debate made pretty clear why those seven candidates polled so poorly.

But on to the debate of 10, which took place from 9 to 11 tonight, I'll appraise this by ranking the performances from worst to best, on all the issues:

10. Ben Carson, neurosurgeon was amiable enough, but clearly out of his depth.  I'll be amazed if his polling numbers don't dip below one percent in the weeks ahead.

9.  Gov. Scott Walker, who was seen in reaction shots agreeing enthusiastically with whatever Carson was saying, didn't do very well himself.   I can't think if a single surprising or memorable point he made.

8. Sen.  Rand Paul came on strong with an attack on Trump at the beginning, and had a few good moments, but let Gov. Christie get the better of him in an exchange about hugs - Paul slammed Christie for hugging Obama, Christie responded that the hugs he most remembered were those of 9/11 victims.  This reprised, in effect, the exchange about national security between Ron Paul (Rand's father) and Giuliani in 2007, except tonight Christie did much better than Giuliani.

7. Gov. Huckabee had some strong moments - his best his joke at the end, in which he talked scathingly about someone leading in the polls with no valid ideas, whom we expected to be Trump, but turned out to be Hillary - but for the most part Huckabee looked and sounded tired.

6. Sen. Ted Cruz was clear and dynamic, but I can't think of an original or commanding idea expressed by him.

5. Christie had a surprisingly good debate, getting the best of Paul, as I said above, but also making powerful points about his success as Governor of New Jersey (and, fortunately for him, no one brought up Bridgegate).

4. Gov. Jeb Bush, as second in the polls after Trump, had more than anyone other than Trump to lose. He accounted well for himself  - spoke well, and came across as the compassionate conservative, especially on immigration, which is where he wants to be.

3. Sen. Marco Rubio came across as the man of the future - showing an understanding of the digital age - as well as compassionate and savvy on a variety of issues.   He was well-spoken, genial, and incisive.

2, Donald Trump held his own, including even in his answer to Megyn Kelly's question about the vicious and demeaning things he's said about women, and later defending his declared bankruptcies in response to a question from Chris Wallace.   For someone with zero experience debating and running in elections, Trump, whatever you may think of his views, stood strong up on that stage.

1. Gov. Kasich was the biggest surprise of the night.  He was powerful without being belligerent, and like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio displayed what seemed like a real compassion for humanity.

So there you have it - an honest appraisal, without reference to my own political views, which are mostly in disagreement with everyone on the stage (I voted twice for Obama).