Two hallmarks of Mr. Trudeau’s government since it took power 10 months ago have been admitting Syrian refugees and promising action on climate change.
While he raised both of those issues in his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau also used the occasion to underscore another two of his favorite themes: optimism and internationalism.
.. Instead, he used much of his time to challenge other politicians for, in his view, exploiting anxiety.
“Fear has never created a single job or fed a single family,” Mr. Trudeau said. “People want their problems solved, not exploited.”
How to Turn Anxiety Into Excitement
Trying to calm down during a bout of anxiety is likely futile. Instead, try saying: “I am excited.” Because anxiety and excitement are both arousal emotions and have similar symptoms, it’s easier to get from one to the other than to completely shift gears into calmness. In this short video, staff writer Olga Khazan explores this theory with Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School who has researched this phenomenon, and tests it out for herself at karaoke.
The Donald Trump-Roger Ailes Nexus
Ailes determined that politicians could not risk losing voters in thickets of complication and prescription; they had to speak the language of “kickers”—evocative descriptive phrases—and constantly repeat them. He eventually became Nixon’s consigliere for television.
.. Nixon delivered a speech intended to heighten the fears of the delegates in the arena and of the “forgotten” majority of Americans at home—“the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators,” the “decent people,” who worked and saved and paid their taxes. His speech, pitched largely to white working-class voters anxious about law and order, was meant to make them even more anxious, more resentful, more tribal
.. It was from the start a reflection of Ailes—his swaggering personality, his resentments and furies, his misogyny and ethnic prejudices, his quest for personal power. At each stage of his career, he has helped amplify the reactionary memes of the moment: Willie Horton, Whitewater, Travelgate, Monica Lewinsky, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Benghazi, “the war on Christmas.”
.. And, just as Ailes may have counselled, there was no attempt at building a nuanced case or offering realistic solutions. There was only the assurance that Trump was the panacea. Give him power and everything will change magically and “fast.”
.. Ivanka Trump introduced her father by reminding the Convention of the tremendous “sacrifice” he had made to take a leave from his business to run for office.
Epidsode 207: “Confident Pluralism” with John Inazu
Skye: I’m no longer surprised by the number of Christians who take pride in being afraid. (26 min)
The millennials have a distaste for the national power politics like the church took in the 1980s and 90s.
That activism was for the church rather than society/others.
When Christians have had power, they have used it for bad ends (30 min)
What do you do when you encounter hypersensitive people who are not confident, who want to be fully accepted/embraced? (47 min)