5 trends that are changing both modern media and the country

The initial response to the internet age was a panic by some in print media that their product was going to go down and be replaced by blogs and less well accredited news sources. Then it turned out that the world wasn't ready for that yet and established, print media maintained its place by simply moving online.

Now however, media IS experiencing a major shift away from where it's been with alternative types of sites and even reporting growing in size and influence. There's even conspiracy theorizing out there right now that Trump is already "pivoting" away from trying to win the 2016 election and is instead looking to leverage his tremendous levels of support into building a media empire and establish the alt-right/nationalist voice as a permanent fixture in American political discourse.

I tend to think he may very well do that but still be looking to also win the election. He's capable of delegating and multi-tasking, after all. What's more, Trump has no chance in this election without new, alternative media outlets helping him out because the traditional ones are almost entirely in the tank for Clinton and the establishment. It would make sense for him to craft an emerging alt-media for use in this election or a future one.

The 2016 election proving to be a turning point in American politics in several regards but changes to the media structure is one of the big themes worth exploring. Here are five trends that are shifting how media works in the modern world and how that impacts the country's future.

1. The Establishment's major advantage is in access not quality

As a career journalist let me tell you how I go about researching and learning about the football teams I write about. First I go to the team site and/or the beat writers for direct access to the coaches and roster and try to figure out who comprises the team. I fill out a depth chart and take notes of stats and scheduling notes.

Then I go watch the film for myself and do all of the contextual analysis of what the players are doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how they project to an upcoming season or game. I don't go to the coaches for that information because A) they don't like to reveal those types of details and B) I have very limited access to them.

The beat writers have access to the coaches but they don't have the information I need because A) the coaches don't give it to them and the writers can't push limits with the coaches or they lose access, B) the beat writers don't know what I know. They couldn't answer many of my questions or know to ask them in the first place because they don't have the understanding of the game's schematics that I do.

The blogosphere has deeply broadened the pool of people that can do analysis and research and opened up opportunities for people to speculate and analyze that aren't beholden to maintaining access or friendly relationships with the people they are writing about.

Sometimes that means that bloggers go after people with unfair and inaccurate pieces...sometimes it means that they go after people with fair and accurate pieces that no one else would have written.

In my own experience I can tell you that I've written things that hardly anyone else in my market would have written due to knowledge I uniquely possess. Sometimes it's something that the University of Texas coaching staff would like to see someone write and sometimes it's not. Either way, they don't really have much choice in the matter like they do with the established media.

2. Monetization is hard and much of the media is unprofitable and subsidized

Donald Trump loves to refer to the New York Times as "the failing New York Times" for a reason besides the fact that they are his enemy and branding opponents as "losers" is one of his favorite pastimes. He's actually right that their business model is not proving to be financially profitable.

What many people don't realize is that much of the political media world out there is heavily subsidized by "the ruling class" or wealthy elites who like to influence American politics. Incidentally, these same people tend to favor open borders (cheaper labor and greater influence over the population!) and view Donald Trump as one of the worst things to ever happen to American politics because of his preference for border security.

Check out some of the established conservative media outlets that have been very strongly against Trump such as "The National Review" and look into their finances. You'll find that many of them are backed by big money and aren't even profitable outlets. Glenn Beck has been desperately trying to pivot "The Blaze" towards more moderate positions recently in order to find wealthy people that will buy him out due to the companies' financial struggles. Positions that seem to be virtuous on the surface are often actually guided by financial interest.

You also often hear people at RedState.com or theweeklystandard.com rail against figures like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh for "lacking the moral courage to stop Trump in the primary." Seriously, just google "Red State" and "Limbaugh" and you'll find article after article ripping him along those lines.

The real difference is that Limbaugh and Hannity depend on rank and file, working class listeners/viewers for their income while sites like Red State are subsidized by the wealthy elites. So when Hannity or Limbaugh noticed a groundswell of support for a guy like Trump, they understand that if they want their bread to stay buttered they'd better get out in front.

It's hard to make money online unless you have extraordinary traffic, something really good to sell beyond content, or content that is very difficult to come by. That latter is not the case for most in political media, you need either to be wildly popular or subsidized by powerful interests. Hannity and Limbaugh rely on popularity, Red State can lean more on what their backers want...to a point.

Established conservative outlets be like...

3. There's a growing preference for obvious bias over non-obvious bias

People love to find the echo chamber. If you're a conservative, clinging to hope that the Republicans can win this election, what sort of sites are you likely to traffic? Probably the ones that explain why this is still a realistic belief. I'm not sure Rasmussen does scientific polling anymore or just finds ways to manipulate their polls to sell to Republicans that want good news.

On the other side, Vox.com exists to carefully and comfortingly explain how whatever is happening in the world actually fits into the progressive narrative about how the world works.

We all seek these out. What happens every time something big and terrible happens in the world? You see everyone processing it out in real time on Facebook and explaining how this terrible event fits into their preferred political narrative while, really when you think about it, disproving the opposite side's narrative in dramatic fashion.

This is bad news for Establishment centers like the New York Times that have forever painted themselves as objective when in reality they are not. One of the good critiques that post-modernism brought to the thinking world is the realization that bias-free, objective thinking is not possible.

One of the results of the growth of blogging and online media platforms is that people are now more free to choose the clearly biased media outlets. If you're looking for someone that will sell a political narrative you are comfortable with then you may want some options besides the established media. Especially if they are capable of proving equally adept at it.

Conversely, wealthy elites can still find it quite easy to get their preferred narratives out because they can afford to subsidize a website like "the National Review" and attempt to shape the narrative without worrying about whether it will sell successfully or not. 

Just find an existing opinion tribe that you think you can manipulate in a few key areas and then build a site with writers telling them what they already want to hear while pushing a few key points to get what you want. College-educated opinion tribes are some of the most ripe for manipulation in this fashion because they are smart enough to convince themselves that this isn't what's happening.

4. The nation is increasingly diverse, so the opinions are as well

There are tons of niches to be filled in online media today. People tend to converge towards uniformity in opinion and outlook but only within a community. For instance, I've known several people that held unique, thoughtful political opinions before they were actually really interested in politics.

After they started becoming more interested in politics they'd read up on various websites and gradually their opinions would converge towards more mainstream ideologies or narratives. It's just a natural process and I've seen it happen on both sides. Semi-conservatives that had doubts or reservations about different conservative ideas became rank and file conservatives after reading thoughtful conservative commentators. Conservative people that favored Obama for one reason or another in 2008 and then gradually talked themselves into much of the modern progressive narrative after seeking out pro-Obama media and conversation.

There are pros and cons to this process. On the negative side, it snuffs out some original thinking in favor of whatever narrative/opinion shaping that is coming from the online sites, which again are often tools of influence for wealthy elites. However, it also snuffs out some dumb, poorly thought out ideas and promotes unity, which is a big positive.

The monkey wrench is that while people will tend to converge towards uniformity within their opinion tribe or community of the political sphere, there are increasingly large numbers of communities within the United States.

There is a TREMENDOUS divide right now between young, college-educated Evangelical Christians who are very suspicious of Donald Trump and older, working class Evangelical Christians that make up some of his strongest supporters. I'm in the former group and I regularly see or hear people saying things like "who are these Trump supporters that are voting for him?? I don't know ANYONE that likes him!!!"

Well, those people aren't in the world that you've formed by seeking out political discussion within the college-educated/evangelical community. They're in their own sphere of the internet wondering where these Republican holdouts are that keep preventing Trump from getting past the 45% threshold in the polls. Resentment on both sides is growing.

5. The diversity and insulation of opinion tribes might not a good thing for the future of the U.S.

It's easy to forget that a "state" is actually supposed to be a sovereign political entity and that "The United States" indicates that a diverse collection of political entities is looking to actively work together to form a single government and nation.

So while all of the trends above can lead to some very interesting developments in the political world where people throw away pretense of bias, welcome communal thinking, and empower non-establishment communities due to new options...none of that necessarily leads to a more United collection of states.

Another thing that is easy to forget is that less than 200 years ago there were diverging opinion tribes within this country that found their differences were strong enough to cause a highly destructive war.

Did you know that 1/4 of the Southern male population of fighting age was killed in the Civil War? Did you know that another 1/4 of that same population was permanently maimed by injuries? No Americans ever sacrificed more for any cause then did the American South for independence in the Civil War. Second place goes to the American North in the same conflict.

That happened when the U.S. consisted of the northern, industrial-based white Americans, southern, agricultural-based white Americans, and enslaved black peoples. Today in the U.S. there is an even larger number of discrepant people groups with disparate interests and priorities. Online media is making it easier for everyone to find their own opinion tribes and websites rather than all having to grudgingly accept a compromised, established media narrative that is formed largely from wealthy elites.

It's possible that this could lead to division and even conflict within the country. Note how confident everyone is on Facebook that their own preferred political narrative is the most noble, just, and true view while the others are deeply flawed and even evil...don't think that could lead to people being willing to come to blows if there's future division on issues that effect their lives?

To get back to the idea of Trump's "Alt-right media empire" and the nationalist voice gaining strength in American politics...that's going to happen whether Trump is a part of it or not. That's an opinion tribe that is gaining enough strength that people can profit from the traffic. What's more, many wealthy elites will probably hop aboard and join the movement so they can have influence.

Very interesting times we live in.

Hillary's flawed strategy for defeating Donald Trump

It's essentially the exact same strategy attempted by the Republican establishment which proved wildly ineffective (although I at one time bought in and thought it would work). That strategy is to play to college-educated voters who feel the current system of American politics is working for them and don't believe Trump is a serious presidential candidate worth taking a risk on.

These people are generally clustered in suburbs and cities and there's definitely a fair number of them. These were the people that were voting for Rubio or Kasich in the Republican primary and also swelled the ranks of people that ultimately propelled Clinton past Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

You can see the evidence of this being her strategy based on her recent selection of Virginia senator Tim Kaine as her VP and in the ways in which she's attacked and countered against Donald Trump.

Kaine is another establishment Democrat with a neo-liberal approach to foreign policy (he's backed free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and the ability to pander speak in spanish to the Latino voters that they'll be counting on. He's also a fairly boring persona that won't upstage Clinton while allowing the campaign to double down on presenting voters with an option to continue business as usual with experienced leadership.

Her attacks on Trump have centered around labeling him as a racist, an authoritarian, and a dangerous mad man who will expose the country to grave risks due to his volatile nature and lack of experience. These are all attacks that will appeal to college-educated folks who perceive of themselves as being above racism and unwilling to take risks when things are going well enough.

Like in the GOP primary, I don't think that's a very strong strategy for the following reasons...

Problem One: Rebuilding the Obama coalition

The first problem with this strategy by Clinton is that the Obama coalition that propelled the Democrats into power back in 2008 was much broader than "risk-averse, college-educated voters."

Besides Bush losing traction with voters, the GOP also got swamped in 2008 by the fact that Obama brought a ton of new voters into the electorate so that whereas in 2004 we saw 121 million people vote, 2008 featured 129.3 million voters and 2012 still saw 126.8 million voters.

Even if McCain or Romney had enjoyed the appeal of Bush they still would have been trounced by Obama's ascendant coalition.

What Obama did so successfully was fire up the massive population of millennial voters entering the electorate and win their support with massive margins. Those millennial voters recently went for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and generally view Clinton very unfavorably.

Now wikileaks is releasing all of these Democratic National Committee emails indicating that the party conspired to stop Sanders and is filled with the kinds of corruption that Sanders was decrying during the primary.

So here's a closer view of the efforts by the Clinton campaign to get millennials to come out in large numbers again and vote for her over Donald Trump:

via GIPHY

Problem Two: Pointing and shrieking at Russia isn't a viable defense

One of the best ways to unite a diverse collection of people is to pit them against a common enemy. Investigations into the DNC leaks have suggested that Russia is behind the hack and that they are now releasing the data in an attempt to hurt Clinton and assist Trump. The Democrats have been keen to try and make this the prevailing narrative, "look how Putin is interfering in American politics!!!!!"

Of course, the Russians didn't write the emails where DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz conspired with fellow Democrats and media to stop Bernie Sanders, nor the emails where the party planned to reward big donors with government appointments. Sanders voters who feel cheated by the current American political system don't really care if they only know about the corruption thanks to Putin, the problem here is that the system seems rigged against them.

Trump is playing average Americans against the nation's ruling elites, Clinton is trying to unite them back behind the ruling elites and against the Russians.

But Russia just isn't viewed as being this horrifying opposing power anymore. Check out this Gallop survey on how Americans perceived Russia back in February. There will be some that are outraged that Russian interests are playing a role in the American election and there will be some that view Russia as having increased moral credibility due to their willingness to battle ISIS directly (at least nominally) and to expose DNC corruption.

Problem Three: Terrorism and national defense

The margins of victory that Clinton will need amongst college-educated voters to take down Trump's coalition is going to have to be pretty sizable. It's worth pausing to note that what Trump has essentially done is unite the two factions that fought each other in the Civil War, working class whites in both the North and the South, into one big party. That's likely to result in some pretty big voting numbers and 538 already has projections showing what kind of electoral map that's likely to produce in November.

That leaves this remaining problem for Clinton, which is overcoming the hurdle of her own hawkish foreign policy preferences combined with her weakness on rule of law issues. Do you know who loves feeling secured by the rule of law? College-educated folk living in suburbs or gentrified, urban locales.

Clinton's warm embrace the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which has started to come across more negatively amongst security-loving suburbanites after a rash of shootings that victimized police officers, is a problem for her. It may help her maintain Obama's large margins of victory with black Americans but potentially at the cost of losing margins with other demographics.

Then there's the terrorism issue, which wasn't a major part of the 1992, 1996, 2008, or 2012 elections and isn't an area where Clinton has a great record to sell.

Between Clinton and her husband:

-They fell on the side of Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs back in the late '90s, which had some negative results for the Serbs.

-She supported the takedown of Saddam Hussein in Iraq as a N.Y. senator, a secular dictator who kept terrorism at bay in that state.

-She initiated the takedown of Muammar Gaddafi, a secular dictator who kept terrorism at bay in Libya.

-She wants to allow more refugees from Syria into the United States.

-She favors more open borders.

Clinton's policy preferences, like those of the rest of establishment in either party, have demonstrated a clear pattern of creating greater disorder and empowerment of radical Islam abroad combined with fewer safeguards from allowing that disorder or ideology to spread domestically. They're often so caught up in playing political chess with Russia that they forget that Americans are much more concerned with the blowback of failing to address radical Islam than they are oil prices in the Balkans.

College-educated voters may not see Trump's protectionism as being necessary or helpful but many of them may feel that a Trump presidency has a greater chance of keeping them safe from the threats of increased crime or domestic terrorism. This is why the force of Trump's convention speech was assuming the mantle as the "law and order candidate."

Clinton is trying to terrify voters into believing that Trump is the next Hitler, Trump is looking to terrify voters into believing that Clinton will allow disorder to spread across the United States. When you turn on the news at night, which of those two scenarios seems more likely?

The upshot is that her play for winning big margins with that demographic is probably not strong enough to generate the needed margins of victory. Combine that with her utter lack of appeal to millennial voters and the likely decreasing margins there and you have a recipe for a Democratic disaster in November.

The end of Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz understood the potential of the "doomsday scenario" well before much of the rest of the Republican party. The GOP has long desired to be able to play offense on the electoral map and not rely on surviving from attacks in Ohio and Florida every four years and the strategy for doing so has always been obvious from a mathematical perspective.

The problem has commonly been diagnosed as the GOP lacking Hispanic votes in a nation where Hispanic share of the population is on the rise. However, that analysis can be demonstrated to be fatally flawed by simply examining the "turn Texas blue!" attempts by Texas Democrats. Hispanic population surges are largely focused in places where Republicans aren't really at any risk of losing ground politically, like Texas, and the reasons are twofold.

One is that Hispanics simply don't vote in great numbers. I remember sitting in a Texas history class at UTSA back in 2005 with a professor who was a seasoned veteran of in-state politics that had a wife who was the city manager of San Antonio. Amongst our required reading was a book called "the life and times of Willie Velasquez" who was a Chicano leader that made it his mission to register Latinos to vote. Simply getting his people to the polls was a very difficult struggle in the effort to improve their lot in life.

This reality has been largely lost on white liberals nationally that have perceived immigration as a pathway to electoral dominance and perhaps conveniently ignored by establishment Republicans pushing for an outreach campaign to Latino voters and immigration policies that happen to benefit the major corporations that love to donate to their campaigns.

Anyways, the last effort to take down Texas Republicans was in the 2014 gubernatorial election when the insulated Democrats in Austin put forth Wendy Davis as their candidate. I'm not sure why they thought that a Ivy-league educated blonde woman famous for standing up for abortion was going to be a hit with the Hispanic voters they were counting on but it backfired spectacularly.

The Republican Greg Abbott crushed Davis 59.3% to 38.9%. Hispanic voters only went to Davis by a 55-44 margin, which is nothing compared to the 71% that Obama got nationally, and Texas turnout was low.

The other reason the emphasis on Hispanic voters approach doesn't work is that down south, the Republicans generally get support from both evangelicals and working class white families (obviously in many instances, there is considerable overlap whereas in the north they are more distinct). With white voters over represented at the polls and marching behind a single banner politically they are pretty hard to beat.

Getting aggressive with the electoral map doesn't require that Republicans do a better job of reaching out to a group that is more naturally inclined to the Democrats and naturally disinclined to participate in the first place.

The key is uniting white working class families across the entire US with evangelical voters. That was Ted Cruz's plan but Donald Trump is the one that actually pulled it off.

Trump is now continuing to try and build that coalition, ultimately choosing Mike Pence to try and shore up the evangelical community rather than looking to project more strength by choosing Gen. Flynn.

As for Cruz, he accepted an opportunity to speak at the Republican National Convention and he had a major choice ahead of him. He could either

A) Make peace with the coalition of voters he had intended to represent and champion by nominally endorsing Trump and then biding his time to see if it became necessary to wait him out or else try to fully hop aboard later.

B) Try to make peace with the establishment by refusing to endorse Trump.

It seems that Cruz thought that if he used lawyerly terms like "don't stay home in November" and "vote your conscience" perhaps he could fool the voters into believing he was still on their side but it didn't work. The "Lyin Ted" moniker had already ruined any chances of that. He was booed off the stage by the delegates.

Meanwhile, Cruz has no realistic shot of making real headway with the establishment either, who largely despise him and will only use him as a tool to the extent that he's useful. He might have been useful for appealing to anti-establishment voters before but certainly not now.

By refusing to acknowledge the choices of the very group of people he hoped to champion, Cruz has now eliminated his chances of successfully running for president in the future. Either Trump will win and he'll be left bitterly watching from the sideline or Trump will lose and voters won't forget Cruz's part in helping to take him down. His best chances at major relevance now are as a career Senator or perhaps finding his way to the Supreme Court where his disagreeable nature would likely be perceived as less of a liability.

American evangelicals have just lost a talented and effective politician, machiavellian and ambitious as he may have been. The 2016 election continues forward like a wrecking ball through the status quo political landscape.

"The world turned upside down"

That was the name of the tune that the British allegedly played when General Cornwallis' army was surrendering to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781. The most powerful empire around the world had just been defeated by their own colonies and a rather irregular army in a shocking upset.

Now, 235 years later, it's pretty common for the established powers to go down when battling natives on their own soil.

The U.S. military is regularly going down when battling "4th generation" forces (fighters that aren't affiliated with a state but with a tribe or cause) despite tremendous advantages in money, technology, and resources.

In the political world, the whole weight of the U.K. political establishment and the European Union was unable to prevent "Brexit," which was essentially the native English people choosing British sovereignty over globalized governance over and against the wish to remain by Scotland, North Ireland, and immigrant-heavy London.

The struggles of the United States political establishment to win victories against the local upstart, nationalist outsider has also been stark. It started with Trump beating Jeb Bush (choice of the party elites) senseless in the polls and early GOP primaries.

The most stark example was when Trump went into South Carolina, which was expected to be an establishment "firewall," and ripped Jeb's brother George for "failing to stop 9/11" and incurring a firestorm of anger and hatred from virtually everyone in the Republican party.

Many expected for this to be the moment where Trump finally faltered. Instead he won South Carolina with 32.5% of the vote in a crowded field. Second place was basically a tie between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz who had 22.5% and 22.3% respectively. Jeb got 7.8%, zero delegates, and was forced out of the race in humiliating fashion.

Now we come to the general election. It's common for insiders like the 538 bloggers to regularly mock Trump for failing to raise money, or for establishment friendly conservative pundits to caution that without support from the nation's elites that Trump can't win a general election against Clinton.

In general, the common wisdom is that you can't win a battle for the country without major dollars. Everyone is still operating under the same underlying assumptions that the Pentagon has about warfare.

"You can't beat the U.S. military with home made bombs and rusty AK47s!!!"

Well apparently you can, and in an age of DVR and increased skepticism towards the ruling elites, it's very much in question whether dropping ad bombs across the airwaves is actually that useful.

In fact, judging by recent swing state polls and campaign spending, there's some question about whether taking enormous campaign donations from the wealthy and using them on ads is beneficial at all:

In modern warfare between a foreign state and a 4th generation opponent, having superior weaponry and being able to drop bombs safely from a distance is actually a major weakness. Why? Because it's seen as bullying, it turns the local resistance into an underdog that the natives root for, and it ties the bomber in with the very political establishment that people don't trust.

Victory for the establishment has to come in the form of them maintaining control over an area and they can't control the area if they are seen as illegitimate bullies.

The same is now true for American politics. Voters on either side are not confident that the ruling elites in either party are actually acting in the everyday man's best interest. Clinton's Wall Street cash grabs and massive spending tends to underscore the fact that she's the choice of the elites and that the last thing they want is for Trump to win.

What happens if everyday Americans increasingly see Trump as the only true, American option and Hillary as the figure head for an oppressive elite?

The world has been turned upside down and the factors that used to determine elections don't quite matter as much anymore.

Potential VP General Flynn and what conservative pundits can't seem to understand

Donald Trump is rumored to be heavily considering retired General Michael T. Flynn as his VP choice. The retired general, in his own words, believes that combating radical Islam is THE issue of our times as a Western civilization and says Obama's administration pushed him out for insisting on this viewpoint.



You could definitely see why Trump would be drawn to a figure like this, it's basically doubling down on his potential advantage over Hillary Clinton in the general election as the candidate who can make Americans feel safer. What's more, it's an effective counter to the Clinton camp attack line that Trump is unstable and likely to push the US into a disastrous military conflict.

Given the Clintons' own predilection for disastrous overseas ventures then juxtaposed with a respected, former Democrat General who was appointed head of the Defense Intelligence Agency by Barack Obama himself, Flynn would be an effective political foil to much of the Clinton strategy.

And that background is basically all you need to understand why Republican and Democrat establishment figures are highly opposed to the eventuality of Flynn being named VP.

The Democrat case, always easily explained by reading a Vox.com article "explaining" Gen. Flynn, makes a Hillary case for why he'd be awful on Trump's ticket by pointing and shrieking at the following facts:

1. Flynn is an "alarmist" in describing radical Islam as America's main enemy!

Of course, most Americans would probably at least sympathize with that view if they don't buy it whole sale. Multiple terrorist attacks on American soil in the span of a few years combined with the rise of radical Islam worldwide will tend to have that effect.

2. Flynn is sympathetic to Russia!

The establishment on either sides' repeated attempts to cast Russia as America's ultimate foe in these times always makes me chuckle. As though the memory of the Cold War was still so strong that Americans were more likely to view white Christians as the main enemy rather than Muslim middle easterners. We'll get back to that identity issue in a moment but suffice to say that Americans are much more worried about being blown up by radical Islamists than they are anything that Putin might get up to.

3. Flynn butted heads with Obama and the Pentagon establishment!

Flynn felt alone in ascribing the threat level to terrorism that is now probably taken for granted amongst Americans if not the White House. Obama and the Pentagon didn't like that...I think the more Americans learn about Flynn's battle with the military establishment and commander-in-chief the more they'll come to respect him and the angrier they'll grow with the latter. Especially if he's given a platform as a VP to broadcast how his concerns over America's strategy for combating terrorism were overruled.

4. Flynn believes in sending troops into the Middle East!

This one is actually somewhat alarming to me as well. I'm glad one of the presidential candidates is looking at listening to someone who understands that the West's conflict with radical Islam is a serious one but I favor more of a defensive, Byzantine approach to this problem then a Templar crusade strategy.

The Republican establishment is also furious about Trump potentially ignoring the "need for party unity" and choosing a(nother) lifelong Democrat to run by his side.

Consequently they (and many liberal pundits as well) are making a big case out of Flynn's pro-choice positions and ambivalence towards protecting traditional marriage.

Here are the two big factors conservative pundits are missing here.

1. Social conservatives don't really have much of a choice in this election.

Hillary Clinton will make several liberal appointments to the Supreme Court and push through any socially liberal legislation that gets through congress if she's elected president. There are no doubts here, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster for the conservative cause and likely lead to a long-standing super majority of liberals on the Supreme Court.

Libertarian Gary Johnson would likely be a disaster for social conservatives here as well, besides the consideration that he has a zero percent chance of winning an election.

Trump has at least promised to make conservative judicial appointments and even released a list of names he was considering to help give evangelicals some peace about electing him. Could he betray them? Possibly. Is the selection of socially moderate/liberal/ambivalent General Flynn an indication he would betray social conservatives? Probably not, Flynn's focus on the ticket would be military and defense reform and honestly I don't think Flynn cares about much else.

There aren't any real options here for social conservatives other than to make some kind of hopeless protest vote or else ride with Trump and hope for the best. Staying home or switching their vote to Hillary would be to deal themselves a defeat in the culture wars that would take at least a decade to overcome.

2. The 2016 election is about tribal identity and identity is much stronger than any other issue on the table.

Trump's play overall has been about nationalism and the conservation of Western civilization itself. The Orlando attacks and the way he sought to rally the LGBT community with the evangelicals already in his fold was indicative of how Trump is looking to move beyond the "conservative vs liberal" battle for supremacy over American politics and instead assert the need for first maintaining America as a traditional Western nation.

Conservative pundits think that conservative voters care first and foremost about being told what they want to hear on social issues because that's been the tactic of most every major Republican candidate for the last several elections. In fact, tribal identity as Americans in a Western nation is a much, much stronger motivator and the major reason why Trump won the primary despite being shaky on several traditional Republican issues.

Many typical American voters are concerned that their country is going away. There's no point in squabbling with liberals over everyday politics if globalization turns America into a true multicultural state that isn't primarily defined by Anglo-American values. In that event, ultimate victory in the culture wars is completely hopeless. What's more, if conservative leaders aren't going to protect them from seeing their communities flooded by potentially radicalized immigrants as they've seen happen in Europe then self-preservation kicks in.

In terms of politics and building an appealing "America first" identity brand for the election, I think Flynn would be a remarkably effective VP choice for Trump. The GOP establishment knows it and are desperate that Trump not be successful in rebuilding the party into something where they are marginalized. His victory in the 2016 election would be the worst kind of disaster for Paul Ryan and the establishment wing, worse than Clinton winning. The Democrats know Flynn would be effective as well for his ability to elucidate their failures in combating radical Islam and are just as desperate to see this stopped.

Meanwhile the Doomsday scenario is becoming increasingly likely with every emerging national trend.

Four accurate depictions of human struggle in the grim Hunger Games series

Not even the nation's young females are holding back from consuming entertainment that presents grim, violent possibilities for the world's future these days. Dystopian, young adult epics have been all the rage these days and "The Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins has unquestionably been the most successful.

I'll admit I read the entire trilogy, although I thought it really went downhill after book one. That said, after seeing the first movie I was pretty confident that the follow-up films were going to be much stronger than the book sequels because it's a story that translates better to film. Sure enough, it did.

Of course, they pulled in a remarkably strong team of film people and actors to put it together. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Woody Harrelson did awesome work in this series to say nothing of how the series hit the jackpot by casting Jennifer Lawrence in the lead role.

I finally saw Mockingjay part II the other night and wanted to give some thoughts on the series' themes.

Don't read if you want to avoid spoilers*

Theme 1: Elites on the inside, poor out to the burbs

For several decades in the US the phenomenon of "white flight" led to the inner city featuring decay while urban sprawl and suburbs began populated by most of the nation's wealthier citizens. However, through the process of gentrification you're now seeing wealthy white people reclaim cities and drive poorer black folk out to the suburbs through pricing.

"Our prices discriminate so we don't have to."

Ironically, many of the nation's most liberal cities are the worst offenders of this phenomenon with San Francisco, New York, and Austin some notable examples. Even Oakland is getting there as people who want to live in San Francisco but can't quite afford to get in are settling for Oakland and turning it into a hipster depot.

One of the central themes of the Hunger Games is how the ruling elites live in the city with its well maintained infrastructure and impressive architecture while the poor dregs of society are cast out to the suburbs and controlled with the brutal bread and circus "Hunger Games" process.

Collins was really on point here with her sense of where things are headed, you wonder if liberal white Americans are pausing to consider if their current policies are leading to a similar type of dystopian future in which the nation's minority groups are on the outside looking in. Obviously it'd be nice to avoid that kind of result.

Theme 2: The moral level is the strongest in war

The depictions of the politics of warfare in "Mockingjay" parts I and II" are really some of the best I've seen at the movies. It's a tad ironic, given that it's a young adult series with a female hero aimed largely at a young female audience. Clearly Collins also has a strong grasp of the emotional side of war, the power of rhetoric, the effectiveness of "soft power," and the supremacy of morals in a fight.

As William S. Lind put it in his grid for evaluating actions in war:

The moral level of war trumps the mental AND the physical.

A smaller group of people with more to fight for will generally beat the larger group with less motivation because war and struggle is difficult and doing what it takes to win requires serious dedication and emotional commitment.

Throughout the entire series the "Mockingjay" affects tremendous change by being an example and a hero to people that gives them the fight they need to overcome the resources of the capital and the brutality of President Snow.

Of course Catniss barely cares about all of that, she's just doing what's natural to her, which makes it all the more powerful and effective.

You see this in politics all the time, the people who can be charismatic naturally always demolish the people who have an affected, corporate feel to their rhetoric and appeals.

If you haven't seen Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) break down the differences in Trump and Clinton in persuasion this appearance on Bill Maher's program was surprisingly effective at communicating what's going on:

When I heard Adams was going on Maher's show I figured he'd be shouted down by Bill's typical snarky condescension but he wasn't. Maher must respect Adams, perhaps because he's a fellow atheist, but I digress.

Theme 3: Fairly traditional gender roles

It's hilarious that whenever women are responsible for creating excellent entertainment products they usually don't adhere to feminist-approved depictions of gender but generally draw their female characters pretty realistically and do the same for the men. Better emotional awareness, imo.

It's with liberal male authors that you see the most ridiculous female characters as they draw the most ridiculous portraits of what women really look like while intending to create "strong female characters" that generally just behave like men.

Catniss is entirely believable as a strong female character. She needs emotional support in her life, she is routinely bested in physical combat when she can't rely on shooting people from a distance (it's ridiculous in films when we're asked to believe that 5'6" 100 pound models could realistically take down a pack of 6'2" 240 pound male goons), and her motivations are purely feminine.

The reason that Catniss works is because her skill in the midst of dystopian horror is simply figuring out how to survive and stand tall. That's what real feminine strength looks like, not aping James Bond's detached approach to murder or emotional connection, or Bruce Wayne's explosive strength and ability to take a punch.

Theme 4: From revolution to revulsion

The one place where the movie series failed was in the depiction of President's Coin descent from ideologue purist to power-hungry totalitarian. They do a good job of setting that development up in the movie, but there's no character development for Coin that explains how and why she ended up succumbing to the temptations of power.

It's a shame, because everything else about the series was really artfully done and captures what real life characters and motivations look, and we've seen people go from ideologues to control-obsessed totalitarians all too many times in the course of human history.

However, Snow and Coin were both a little bit cartoonish in this regard. Snow is portrayed as the ultimate machiavellian but he's just a little too comfortable in his own shoes as a brutal dictator. In real life such people would be at much greater pains to justify themselves to everyone. I guess you could make the same complaint of most villains in film though.

Meanwhile Coin, she just flips a switch at some point off screen and becomes something similar. The movie focuses on developing how Catniss figures out that she needs to be stopped rather than ever showing a hint at what's happening in Coin's soul. It's a shame, because it makes the film's climax and twist less effective.

My favorite depiction in modern entertainment of the human tendency to overthrow evil only to succumb to the same temptation and fall just as hard remains this scene from "The Office"

Truly the quest for power over other humans is just an attempt to wield something out of our control and often ultimately useless.

We have to learn from Catniss or Captain America and effect change in other people through virtuous example, not cynical attempts to exercise control directly. After all, that's how our Lord did it.

3 powerful themes from "Captain America: Civil War"

I think Captain America 3: Civil War may have been the strongest film yet in the Marvel universe. It's a tough call given how tremendously entertaining "the Avengers" was and how quirky and brilliant "Guardians of the Galaxy" turned out to be. Nevertheless, it was great and it got better on reflection.

I was clued in to two brilliant reviews of "Civil War," both by Devin Faraci who does good work over at Birthmoviesdeath.com. I recommend them both for the way they help you process and understand the movie and also because Faraci explains things in a way that make it easier to offer my own thoughts on the movie.

Don't read these or anything below if you are looking to avoid spoilers*

The first explains why Civil War is in fact a Captain America movie, continuing the tale of friendship and loyalty between Steve Rogers and his pal Bucky.

The second explains the importance of Spider-Man's role in capturing one of the main themes of the film: which is taking personal responsibility vs looking to pass it off.

I noticed three major themes that gave this blockbuster some real punch. As I noted with Guardians of the Galaxy, sometimes the blockbusters made for mass audiences have deeper and more powerful truths than the more artsy films nominated for Oscars.

Theme 1: Taking real responsibility

America today is filled to the brink with people who feel the weight of responsibility and are trying to pass it off through processes that aren't actually helpful or wise, much as Iron-Man did. I've got an everyday example that I think will drive this point home: The bureaucratic processes at your job.

Y'all know what I'm talking about. The way modern institutions work is as follows:

1. Something goes terribly wrong due to oversight or moral failure on the part of an employee.

2. The company promises to make sure this will never happen again.

3. The company institutes bureaucratic process and documentation to protect themselves in the future without actually decreasing the chances of future problems.

4. The new process overloads employees in paper work and leads someone to commit a different oversight or moral failure.

5. Company promises to make sure this will never happen again...

If you've worked for any heavily regulated business like the medical field or education you know what I'm talking about and even if you don't this style of problem solving is probably pervasive enough that you still know exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the sin of Iron Man in "Civil War" he's not looking to actually own the problem and own the solution, he's looking for bureaucratic solutions that can absolve him of guilt. Just like your HR department.

Theme 2: A system is only as good as the people involved

We could just as easily call this section "why ideology is useless." The Captain's concluding monologue included the line,

"My faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down. Which is why I can't let them down either."

The essence of Captain America's character in the Marvel films has always been about moral leadership. He was chosen for the serum because he had enough character to be trusted not to abuse the power. Defeating the Nazis (or Hydra I guess) couldn't just be about wielding power but had to be balanced with caution, and that caution centered around who was allowed to wield the power.

American political debate generally centers around policy prescriptions and the underlying ideologies. When a policy or government works or doesn't work then people on both sides will rush to explain why the opposing ideology was to blame or how their own ideology shouldn't take the fall for this particular failure.

It's all a smokescreen, ideology matters considerably less than who's wielding power and the character and motives of the people at the top.

Take a look at the wide variety of different political systems in place in the Bible and tell me when God affirms or disapproves of leadership because of their ideology. He doesn't, because he's much more concerned with what they're doing and why they're doing it.

Theme 3: Greater love hath no one than this...

The way Captain America challenges us to consider moral authority as the primary qualification for leadership and power is a very worthy message. Civil War does a great job pitting that qualification against the notion of trusting instead in bureaucracy or ideology.

The problem anyone will point to as a justification for siding with #TeamIronMan is that humans aren't worthy of that trust. That's why we have the law, bureaucratic oversight, and ideologies, so that humans can be guided to the proper course of action.

But as the Captain intuitively understands and demonstrates, these are are ultimately untrustworthy. Being relational beings, what humans need above all other things is an example...

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being borne in the likeness of men. 

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

We don't really have a choice but to respond to Christ-like self sacrifice and service. It's inherent to mankind to respond and trust ultimately in that example. The message of the Captain America series is ultimately that of the gospel, and almost certainly unintentionally so.

That's the power of Jesus' example, that "at his name every knee should bow," it's simply not possible to point to higher truth without pointing to him.

Everyone loves Iron Man, he's hilarious and he's flawed in a way that makes it easy to connect to him. Either you think you're like Iron Man or you wish you were, that's what makes him the perfect antagonist to have to respond to the Christ-like example of the Captain.

I know these are ultimately just silly superhero movies but they still represent our ideals and ourselves as we'd like to see them or they couldn't resonate. Rather than chasing some kind of grim, violent depiction of the world where we can feel safe to fail to aspire to any higher examples, Captain America instead points us to the cross.

That's why his weapon is actually a shield and that's why these Marvel films are some of the most enjoyable and powerful movies coming out these days.