Turning American citizens against one another

According to blogger Scott Adams, there is a new reason to vote for Hillary: your personal safety!

Some of you watched with amusement as I endorsed Hillary Clinton for my personal safety. What you might not know is that I was completely serious. I was getting a lot of direct and indirect death threats for writing about Trump’s powers of persuasion, and I made all of that go away by endorsing Clinton. People don’t care why I am on their side. They only care that I am.

You might have found it funny that I endorsed Clinton for my personal safety. But it was only funny by coincidence. I did it for personal safety, and apparently it is working. Where I live, in California, it is not safe to be seen as supportive of anything Trump says or does. So I fixed that.

Again, I’m completely serious about the safety issue. Writing about Trump ended my speaking career, and has already reduced my income by about 40%, as far as I can tell. But I’m in less physical danger than I was.

...The backdrop to all of this racial tension is that Trump was winning the persuasion war by making citizens afraid of external threats from illegal immigrants and terrorists. That was a strong formula because people respond to fear.

But Clinton’s team – including social media and the liberal-leaning mainstream media – responded by defining Trump as a literal Hitler. A Hitler-like leader in your own country is even scarier than external threats. Persuasion-wise, it is a winning formula for Team Clinton, even though the case is built on confirmation bias, not fact. (Trump has never mentioned race in a negative way.)

So now we have a situation in which Team Clinton has scared citizens into thinking the threat to their lives is mostly domestic, coming from Trump, Trump supporters, and anyone who looks like them. People who are scared will act. And we see those actions now in terms of violence against police, violence against Trump supporters, and death threats to bloggers such as me. And we already have one attempted Trump assassination.

So far, Trump has showed a willingness to annihilate any professional politician that gets in the way. And he’s annihilated professional reporters and news organizations that got in his way. And he’s tough on non-citizens. But Trump hasn’t tried to turn American citizens against each other. Clinton has, and successfully so.

You can blame Trump for Trump University, and for his uncivil language. You can blame Trump for lots of stuff. But the police shootings and the recent uptick in domestic racial violence are mostly Clinton’s doings to win the election. And it is working. Unless Trump finds a way to counter Clinton’s racial persuasion, he will lose in November.

I expect Trump to go full-attack after the conventions. It would take the world’s greatest persuader to redefine Trump in a way that he can win the election. But as it turns out, Trump is probably the world’s greatest persuader. That’s why I predict he will win in a landslide. Unless someone kills him first.

Read more here.

Helping Big Food quash the competition

Should GMOs be on your already long list of concerns? Julie Gunlock, author of the book From Cupcakes to Chemicals, How the Culture of Alarmism Makes Us Afraid of Everything and How to Fight Back, writes in the Wall Street Journal that GMOs should be off your list of things to worry about.

Radical environmental groups initially led the charge against GMOs, but today, some of the most vocal and influential anti-GMO activists are found on mommy blogs and parenting, cooking, and so-called health-and-wellness websites — all of which are popular with moms.

These seemingly innocuous sources regularly pin a variety of ailments on GMOs: from food allergies and stomach ailments to obesity, infertility, autism, and even cancer.

The latest analysis, which examined more than 1,700 separate studies on GM food, was conducted at the University of Perugia and published in the September issue of Critical Reviews in Biotechnology. The researchers found no instances of harm, to humans or to animals, caused by GM food, nor did researchers find any evidence that GM food is toxic or allergenic. Researchers also debunked the claim that GM crops damage the environment. This is only the latest study among hundreds of independent studies with similar findings.

Moms aren’t hearing the whole story and should be aware of the enormous costs associated with these regulations. For example, a dozen states are considering bills to label GM food. That may sound harmless, but labeling mandates will lead to fewer food choices for consumers and will harm the very businesses many of the anti-GMO activists claim to defend: the small farmer and upstart food producer. GMO labeling might be doable for large food manufacturers, but for businesses just starting out, medium-sized food companies, and small-scale farmers, the costs of these new regulations could be crushing. That’s right: Anti-GMO labeling laws will help Big Food by quashing the competition.

Please read more here.