Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Zelandakh]

This one seems easy Winston - it is a feeling of disenfranchisement. When people think that things are going wrong and that the mainstream politicians are not working for them, they look around for anything else. Some will go protesting, others will join a movement that promises them solutions. Trump is just the latest in a long line. The people are not being self-centred, they are feeling desperate. And in the case of the current Republican base, many would prefer any way of hurting the perceived alienating force than to side with them against someone who, from their point of view, at least spoke their language even if the results were less than optimal. The answer is not to give up on them as deplorable, self-centred or lacking empathy but rather to find a way of bringing them back on the boat. If the Dems have any sense they will raise a sizeable sum (over and above what is already being done) and allocate it to regeneration and retraining programs in those regions that have been hardest hit by manufacturing moving overseas. It may not be enough but it is at least a start. The "we are better than you" attitude though - not good. That is just reinforcing what they already think of liberals and what they stand for.

[Winstonm]

This one seems easy Winston - it is a feeling of disenfranchisement. When people think that things are going wrong and that the mainstream politicians are not working for them, they look around for anything else. Some will go protesting, others will join a movement that promises them solutions. Trump is just the latest in a long line. The people are not being self-centred, they are feeling desperate. And in the case of the current Republican base, many would prefer any way of hurting the perceived alienating force than to side with them against someone who, from their point of view, at least spoke their language even if the results were less than optimal. The answer is not to give up on them as deplorable, self-centred or lacking empathy but rather to find a way of bringing them back on the boat. If the Dems have any sense they will raise a sizeable sum (over and above what is already being done) and allocate it to regeneration and retraining programs in those regions that have been hardest hit by manufacturing moving overseas. It may not be enough but it is at least a start. The "we are better than you" attitude though - not good. That is just reinforcing what they already think of liberals and what they stand for.

 

That may have been true in 2016. It doesn't explain continued support after 3+ years of Trump up close. The best explanation I've seen is white privilege.

[Chas_P]

The best explanation I've seen is white privilege.

You guys really are amusing. You should consider The Gong Show.

[thepossum]

I don't really feel totally qualified to comment on the USA situation but at a very broad level I don't think you can get much more self-interested white privilege on display than from many "liberals". They hate having their privileged positions and expectations challenged, having to even justify conditions. And they are still generally as white as you can get

[Winstonm]

I don't really feel totally qualified to comment on the USA situation but at a very broad level I don't think you can get much more self-interested white privilege on display than from many "liberals". They hate having their privileged positions and expectations challenged, having to even justify conditions. And they are still generally as white as you can get

 

No doubt white privilege is undercounted by liberals. The difference is in the authoritarian nature of the right wingers who also fear the loss of white privilege.

[thepossum]

No doubt white privilege is undercounted by liberals. The difference is in the authoritarian nature of the right wingers who also fear the loss of white privilege.

 

Lets not start again on who the authoritarians are

[Winstonm]

Here is something that Bill Barr said last night in a speech:

 

Indeed, aside from the importance of not fully decoupling law enforcement from the constraining and moderating forces of politics, devolving all authority down to the most junior officials does not even make sense as a matter of basic management.

my emphasis

My understanding of this is that Barr is saying the DOJ should be constrained and moderated by political whims.

[kenberg]

There are times that I think the Dems are tone deaf. I am going to speak of white privilege but first a review of defunding the police.

 

When the idea of defunding the police came up I wrote against it and Winston explained that nobody really wanted to defund the police. Well, some do, but those who don't should not use that slogan. There are a lot of people who normally vote D but who do not want the police defunded. Sure, I know JB does not favor defunding but the Dems have managed to create an image as the party that favors defunding the police.

 

Now about white privilege. I am white and the first thing that comes to mind when I see white privilege decried is wondering just which of my privilege's need to be scrapped. I can't think of anything that I plan to do today or tomorrow that I would like to see disallowed.

 

I am not at all saying that there are no problems to be addressed. I am saying that Dems sometimes show a remarkable ability to phrase things in a manner that is very unlikely to draw wide support.

 

 

[Winstonm]

Lets not start again on who the authoritarians are

When I use the term "authoritarian" it is in the sense of its use by social psychology. This is one quick definition but there are more in-depth discussions available.

 

Definition. The authoritarian personality describes a type of person who prefers a social system with a strong ruler—the authoritarian person is comfortable being the strong ruler but if the individual is not the strong ruler then he or she will demonstrate complete obedience to another strong authority figure.

 

You will note that this definition has nothing to do with political sides, which is why I wrote about right-wing authoritarians. And, for what it's worth, social psychology has found that authoritarian personality is more often associated with what we in the U.S. call right wing.

[Winstonm]

There are times that I think the Dems are tone deaf. I am going to speak of white privilege but first a review of defunding the police.

 

When the idea of defunding the police came up I wrote against it and Winston explained that nobody really wanted to defund the police. Well, some do, but those who don't should not use that slogan. There are a lot of people who normally vote D but who do not want the police defunded. Sure, I know JB does not favor defunding but the Dems have managed to create an image as the party that favors defunding the police.

 

Now about white privilege. I am white and the first thing that comes to mind when I see white privilege decried is wondering just which of my privilege's need to be scrapped. I can't think of anything that I plan to do today or tomorrow that I would like to see disallowed.

 

I am not at all saying that there are no problems to be addressed. I am saying that Dems sometimes show a remarkable ability to phrase things in a manner that is very unlikely to draw wide support.

 

 

 

Ken,

My understanding of "defund the police" is that it is a sloganized (meaning usually insufficient) phrase for redirecting police funds to better solve community problems. The emphasis is that all community difficulties are now handled by the police: mentally ill person out of control? Call the cops. Traffic violation? Cops. Husband and wife conflict? Cops.

 

My understanding is that defund the police is an appeal to redirect those resources to other ways to handle those things which are questionably now handled only by the police. The slogan should be: redistribute the funds that now go only to the police to use for more effective community solutions. But that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

 

At least, that is my understanding and I hope it helps.

[y66]

I am saying that Dems sometimes show a remarkable ability to phrase things in a manner that is very unlikely to draw wide support.

Surely you're not suggesting that what some message-challenged Dems say, what the majority of Dems say and what many Reps say Dems say are one and the same.

 

Here is my favorite member of Congress, Abigail Spanberger's campaign statement on racial justice. No message-challenged wording there. She ends all of her letters to her constituents with

 

I will always put the people of Central Virginia above party politics. Thank you for the privilege of serving you, and please call my office if we can assist you. You can reach us at (804) 401-4110 or (202) 225-2815.

which, I hope, other Dems in public office or seeking office are smart enough to emulate.

[y66]

Early voting started today in Virginia. The deed is done.

[kenberg]

Ken,

My understanding of "defund the police" is that it is a sloganized (meaning usually insufficient) phrase for redirecting police funds to better solve community problems. The emphasis is that all community difficulties are now handled by the police: mentally ill person out of control? Call the cops. Traffic violation? Cops. Husband and wife conflict? Cops.

 

My understanding is that defund the police is an appeal to redirect those resources to other ways to handle those things which are questionably now handled only by the police. The slogan should be: redistribute the funds that now go only to the police to use for more effective community solutions. But that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

 

At least, that is my understanding and I hope it helps.

 

I posted because I think packaging, ie slogans, count. And I think the way they are going about it will cost votes, maybe quite a few votes. There is an advertising mentality that leads people to claim more than there actually is. This can backfire. An exercise program that helps me stay in some sort of reasonable shape is attractive. One that promises to have me jumping four foot hurdles after I do cartwheels would scare the crap out of me. I realize the analogy is not perfect here. But if you, or someone, has to explain to me that of course it's just a slogan and of course I should not take it literally, I think they should re-think the slogan.

[Winstonm]

I posted because I think packaging, ie slogans, count. And I think the way they are going about it will cost votes, maybe quite a few votes. There is an advertising mentality that leads people to claim more than there actually is. This can backfire. An exercise program that helps me stay in some sort of reasonable shape is attractive. One that promises to have me jumping four foot hurdles after I do cartwheels would scare the crap out of me. I realize the analogy is not perfect here. But if you, or someone, has to explain to me that of course it's just a slogan and of course I should not take it literally, I think they should re-think the slogan.

 

I agree. Bad word usage. At the same time, compelling the police to handle all community problems is unfair to the police - and the community.

 

Perhaps the slogan should simply be: Let's rethink policing.

[y66]

You’ve probably heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but you may not have heard of Derek Kilmer. Kilmer grew up in a timber region in Washington State that had seen many of its logging jobs disappear. First at Princeton, then getting a Ph.D. at Oxford, he studied how towns recover from deindustrialization. He went back home to help his community recover economically and now represents that community in Congress.

 

Kilmer is the chairman of the largest ideological group among House Democrats, the New Democrat Coalition. The New Democrat Coalition is a caucus for moderate and center-left House Democrats. It has 103 House members, of whom 42 are the up-and-coming freshmen who brought the Democrats their majority. Its self-declared priorities are “pro-economic growth,” “pro-innovation” and “fiscal responsibility.”

 

You may not have heard of Kilmer or even the New Democrat Coalition. The media wing of the Republican Party wants to pretend that A.O.C., the Squad, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the Democratic Party because it wants you to think Democrats are a bunch of socialists.

 

Progressive Twitter is far to the left of the actual Democratic Party and it also emphasizes A.O.C., Sanders and Warren because that’s what makes its heart flutter. Even the mainstream media pays far more attention to the Squad than to Kilmer or moderates like Abigail Spanberger.

 

This week a thoughtful scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Danielle Pletka, fell for the mirage. She wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she disdained President Trump but said she would have to vote for him because the Democrats have moved so far left.

 

Pletka’s essay kicked up a storm, but usefully raised the question: Where exactly is the Democratic Party?

 

The professionals who actually run the party do not fall for the mirage. Nancy Pelosi understands that her job is to manage a group that includes both A.O.C. and the New Democrat Coalition’s members.

 

House Democrats began this Congress with nine bills that were their top priorities. They were about such things as infrastructure spending, lower prescription drug prices, voting rights, gerrymandering and democracy reform, and rejoining the Paris climate accords.

 

The Green New Deal and so-called Medicare for all were not on the table. Pelosi was promoting ideas a majority of the House Democrats could agree on, and these ideas are not radical left.

 

Joe Biden has the same approach. Biden was arguably the most moderate of the nearly 30 Democrats who ran for president in the past year. The team around him, the folks who would presumably lead his administration, are Clinton/Obama veterans and not exactly a bunch of left-wing woke activists: Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, Jake Sullivan, Jeff Zients and Bruce Reed, one of the leaders of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council.

 

They understand they are leading an extremely broad coalition and have done an excellent, underappreciated job of incorporating both moderate ideas and ideas from the Bernie Bros.

 

To the extent that Biden’s gone “left,” it’s mostly in areas where the moderates agree: quadrupling federal spending on low-income housing assistance, making community college free.

 

A Biden administration would not be further left than the Democratic voters out in the country or their representatives in Congress. Those voters are not mostly the urban gentrifiers who propel the left; they are mostly the “somewhat liberal” suburbanites and Black moderates who gave Biden the nomination.

 

In 2018, those voters massively rejected almost all of the nearly 80 Sanders-like insurgents the left put up to challenge more moderate incumbents in primaries. This year, with only three exceptions, they’ve done the same. This week Senator Chris Coons of Delaware held off a Medicare-for-all, Green New Deal challenger 73 percent to 27 percent.

 

If you ask whether the Democrats shifted too far left, my answer is: The party has gotten more ideologically diverse, but there is a large, strong center that will keep it in the political mainstream.

 

But there is a prior and more important question here: Are the Democrats a political party?

 

You might have thought that the Democratic and Republican Parties are different versions of the same thing, but that’s no longer true. As Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution has noted, the G.O.P. is no longer a standard coalition party. It’s an anti-political insurgency that, even before Trump, has been elevating candidates with no political experience and who don’t believe in the compromise and jostle of politics.

 

Right now, Republicans are a culture war identity movement that suppresses factional disagreement and demands total loyalty to Trump.

 

The Democrats are still a normal political party. In 2020 they rejected the “base mobilization” candidates who imagine you can magically create a revolutionary majority if only you go purist.

 

Biden is a man who doesn’t do culture war, who will separate the cultural left from the political left, reduce politics back to its normal size and calm an increasingly apocalyptic and hysterical nation.

 

The Democratic Party is an institution that still practices coalition politics, that serves as a vehicle for the diverse interests and ideas in society to filter up into legislation, that plays by the rules of the game, that believes in rule of law. Right now, it is the only major party that does that.

[y66]

From Bloomberg:

 

Wall Street is losing faith that Congress will rescue states and cities that have seen tax collections tumble. BofA analysts, who earlier predicted that the federal government would extend as much as $400 billion of aid by the end of September, said their expectations of a stimulus package by the November election were "fading." Barclays strategists made a similar call.

There is no way Trump and McConnell will not pass some kind of bailout for airlines and the hotel industry that also gives the stock market a boost before October 3rd. If that requires bailing out states and cities that are on the ropes, it can't be helped.

[Winstonm]

From the WaPo

 

Three years into the Trump administration, American democracy has eroded to a point that more often than not leads to full-blown autocracy, according to a project that tracks the health of representative government in nations around the world.

 

The project, called V-Dem, or Varieties of Democracy, is an effort to precisely quantify global democracy at the country level based on hundreds indicators assessed annually by thousands of individual experts. It's one of several ongoing projects by political scientists that have registered a weakening of democratic values in the United States in recent years.

 

V-Dem's findings are bracing: The United States is undergoing "substantial autocratization" — defined as the loss of democratic traits — that has accelerated precipitously under President Trump. This is particularly alarming in light of what the group's historic data show: Only 1 in 5 democracies that start down this path are able to reverse the damage before succumbing to full-blown autocracy

 

 

Three years into the Trump administration, American democracy has eroded to a point that more often than not leads to full-blown autocracy, according to a project that tracks the health of representative government in nations around the world.

 

"The United States is not unique" in its decline, said Staffan I. Lindberg, a political scientist at Sweden's University of Gothenburg and a founding director of the project. "Everything we see in terms of decline on these indicators is exactly the pattern of decline" seen in other autocratizing nations, like Turkey and Hungary, both of which ceased to be classified as democracies in recent years.

 

 

Each year, the V-Dem project asks its experts to rate their respective nations on hundreds of measures of democracy, such as the presence of legislative checks on executive power, freedom of personal expression, the civility of political discourse, free and open elections, and executive branch corruption, among others.

 

 

The United States is backsliding on all of those measures. "Executive respect for the Constitution is now at the lowest level since 1865," said Michael Coppedge, a Notre Dame political scientist and one of the project's chief investigators. "Corruption in the executive branch is basically the worst since Harding."

 

 

Warren G. Harding, whose administration was tainted by corruption and scandal, is routinely ranked among the nation's worst chief executives.

 

Trump, for instance, has repeatedly floated the idea of staying in office longer than the constitutionally mandated two terms. The businesses he owns have profited from repeated presidential visits, and federal courts are currently weighing whether he has violated the Constitution's prohibition against accepting payments from foreign governments. And several current and former members of his inner circle — including Stephen K. Bannon, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone — have been arrested or indicted since he took office.

 

 

Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, said that "experts rate U.S. democracy as getting worse on average," but there are considerable differences in "how they characterize the severity of the decline we've experienced and what they expect in the future."

 

 

Nyhan says he is most concerned about Trump's repeated attacks on the integrity of U.S. elections. Trump recently said that "the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged," for instance, and habitually casts vote-by-mail efforts as inherently fraudulent. Both beliefs are false.

 

Nyhan is co-director of Bright Line Watch, a group that routinely surveys hundreds of political scientists to issue periodic assessments of the health of democracy in the United States. Those assessments show a post-2016 decline in democratic performance similar to V-Dem's data.

 

 

"Democracy depends on both sides accepting the results of free and fair elections and willingly turning over power to the other side if they lose," Nyhan said. "We've never had a president attack our electoral system in this way."

 

 

Lindberg refers to presidential attacks on the pillars of democracy as "dictator drift," and says it's a common feature of authoritarian leaders around the world.

 

 

"That's Erdogan in Turkey," he said. "That's Lukashenko in Belarus. That's Orban in Hungary. That's a slew of African dictators."

 

He's concerned about the rise of a sort of "sultanistic" power structure in the GOP, where the party largely abandons its core principles to support whatever the leader wants. The telltale sign of that, he said, was the GOP's decision to not create a 2020 platform. Instead, it issued a resolution saying, among other things, that "the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda."

 

 

"They just line up behind Trump," Lindberg says. "That should ring some serious alarm bells. You have a sort of head of a family clan, without a program other than 'we support this person.' "

 

 

Coppedge is particularly concerned about the possibility of election-related violence. "What I most worry about is a scenario with the incumbent president declaring victory before all votes are counted, and his followers believing any additional mail-in ballots are invalid and taking to the streets."

 

 

"I do think there is going to be some election violence," he added, "and I hope it won't be widespread or long-lasting."

 

Lindberg is also deeply troubled by the president's history of endorsing violence against his perceived political opponents. "This is the precursor of civil war," he said. "Imagine that Trump loses by a margin that's not convincing to all his supporters. He refuses to leave the office and encourages his supporters to 'go out and defend the Constitution.' "

 

 

Nyhan says that while these "worst-case scenarios remain unlikely," we are in "unprecedented times" and should "remain vigilant."

 

 

Coppedge recommends people concerned about these outcomes get involved in the electoral process to help make things better. "Volunteer to become a poll worker, or help some get-out-the-vote effort, or work with a political party to encourage turnout to make sure your side wins by a clear margin," he said.

 

 

"I think that the chances are in the medium term, the long run things are going to work out," he said. "But I think it's going to be a bumpy ride between now and January."

 

 

Lindberg is less optimistic.

 

 

"If Trump wins this election in November, democracy is gone" in the United States, he says. He gives it about two years. "It's really time to wake up before it's too late."

 

 

 

 

 

[shyams]

The opposite of "operation deny Merrick" will now be set into motion by Mitch McConnell.

 

In contrast, I would suspect that delaying the confirmation will help Trump in that more Republican voters will turn up to vote just so that they can win the Judge of their liking.

[barmar]

Now about white privilege. I am white and the first thing that comes to mind when I see white privilege decried is wondering just which of my privilege's need to be scrapped. I can't think of anything that I plan to do today or tomorrow that I would like to see disallowed.

No one is saying that white people shouldn't be able to do ordinary everyday things. The problem is that non-white people can't do many of those same things.

 

If you're stopped by a cop for speeding or running a red light, you don't cringe in fear. It's just a minor inconvenience in your day.

 

You probably haven't taken advantage of all the white privilege that's available to you. If someone who happens to be black is bothering you, you could call the cops and they'll haul them away; if the positions were reversed, it most likely wouldn't be possible.

 

You went to college. I know you worked hard to get there and paid your way, but if you were black it would have been orders of magnitude harder.

 

When you bought your first house, you knew that the banker deciding whether to give you a mortgage would just look at your financial qualifications, you wouldn't have built-in biases to overcome.

 

It's really hard for us white people to appreciate all the things we can do because of white privilege. They're just ordinary things we take for granted. But black and brown people can't assume these things.

 

No one wants to take away your ability to get a mortgage, they just want non-whites to have the same easy life.

[barmar]

I agree. Bad word usage. At the same time, compelling the police to handle all community problems is unfair to the police - and the community.

 

Perhaps the slogan should simply be: Let's rethink policing.

Unfortunately, once a slogan has caught on, it's really hard to undo it.

 

It's also really hard to come up with something "catchy" that accurately describes what you want. You can't fit all the nuances into 3 words.

 

We saw it before with "Black Lives Matter". The opposition jumped on this, disingenuously interpreting it as meaning only black lives matter, when what's really meant is that black lives also matter. They ask why white lives don't matter, but that's not what the BLM protesters are saying -- the status quo is fine for white people, black people just want an end to all the problems that imply that they don't matter.

 

It's not a zero-sum game -- improving the lives of people of color doesn't mean that white people have to lose something. But that's not what many privileged white people think. Consider the speech that was given at the RNC, when someone (Pence?) talked about protecting the suburbs from those people moving in and lowering your property values. That was the justification for red-lining decades ago, but we were supposed to be long past that.

[pilowsky]

Unfortunately, once a slogan has caught on, it's really hard to undo it.

 

It's also really hard to come up with something "catchy" that accurately describes what you want. You can't fit all the nuances into 3 words.

 

We saw it before with "Black Lives Matter". The opposition jumped on this, disingenuously interpreting it as meaning only black lives matter, when what's really meant is that black lives also matter. They ask why white lives don't matter, but that's not what the BLM protesters are saying -- the status quo is fine for white people, black people just want an end to all the problems that imply that they don't matter.

 

It's not a zero-sum game -- improving the lives of people of color doesn't mean that white people have to lose something. But that's not what many privileged white people think. Consider the speech that was given at the RNC, when someone (Pence?) talked about protecting the suburbs from those people moving in and lowering your property values. That was the justification for red-lining decades ago, but we were supposed to be long past that.

 

This is a particular problem for 'concrete' thinkers. Something that there is no shortage of in Bridge and Chess players where everything is often just Black and White - so to speak.

The best player in the room can often have great difficulty in understanding nuances. In medical school, interviews were introduced to try to enrol more good students that had 'tolerance of ambiguity' and 'empathy' as well as the ability to solve difficult puzzles.

The people that can do the super clever stuff are still in high demand, but they tend to gravitate to areas of medicine where interpersonal skills are less in demand. Horses for courses.

 

Trump is a businessman. He works in real estate. Interpersonal skills are a negative asset in that field. I just read Fear (Woodward's 1st book) the most astonishing part is the shame-faced ease with which Trump lies to fit any required position. Nothing matters at all - just the sale. Hitler had a deeper respect for the people than Trump on that basis.

[Zelandakh]

is probably the most honest political video you will see this year.

[kenberg]

is probably the most honest political video you will see this year.

 

Or maybe any year.

[kenberg]

Unfortunately, once a slogan has caught on, it's really hard to undo it.

 

It's also really hard to come up with something "catchy" that accurately describes what you want. You can't fit all the nuances into 3 words.

 

We saw it before with "Black Lives Matter". The opposition jumped on this, disingenuously interpreting it as meaning only black lives matter, when what's really meant is that black lives also matter. They ask why white lives don't matter, but that's not what the BLM protesters are saying -- the status quo is fine for white people, black people just want an end to all the problems that imply that they don't matter.

 

It's not a zero-sum game -- improving the lives of people of color doesn't mean that white people have to lose something. But that's not what many privileged white people think. Consider the speech that was given at the RNC, when someone (Pence?) talked about protecting the suburbs from those people moving in and lowering your property values. That was the justification for red-lining decades ago, but we were supposed to be long past that.

 

I agree.

We are at a moment of choice. How do we see life?

 

I will again go back to my adolescence.

My high school math teacher often found me very frustrating but he was instrumental in my getting a scholarship to college.

When I got it, my high school Spanish teacher (Fresh and Soph years) made it clear she thought I should not have gotten it. She felt I had largely wasted my chances in school. I understood her thoughts on this and appreciated the clarity. A clear expression of disappointment can be very useful.

Now, many years later, I still see this as a fine example of the two sides of a coin.

 

We should provide opportunity. Is there anyone who thinks that we should not? Advocating for opportunity will attract support. And it is simple reality that sometimes opportunities are wasted.

We need to provide doors that can be opened, preferably opened without using a battering ram. The individual benefits directly and society benefits as well. But not everyone will walk through that door. So a variety of doors would be good.

 

I think Biden can credibly advocate along such lines. A key part is that it really does not have to be us versus them. Not a zero sum game, as you say. We all benefit when a person sees how to make a decent life for himself and his family. Yes, his or her family, of course. We all benefit, anyone can see that. And some people are very hard to help. That has to be accepted too. Adolescence is a turbulent time and I was no sure thing. But opportunity is the key. And I think there are a lot of votes in that message. And second chances are a very good idea.

 

Perhaps this seems simplistic but sometimes simple is the way to go.

 

And I really do think we are at a moment of choice in this country.

[y66]

My high school math teacher often found me very frustrating but he was instrumental in my getting a scholarship to college. When I got it, my high school Spanish teacher (Fresh and Soph years) made it clear she thought I should not have gotten it. She felt I had largely wasted my chances in school. I understood her thoughts on this and appreciated the clarity. A clear expression of disappointment can be very useful.

That's quite an achievement for an 18 year old to appreciate that kind of criticism. A lot depends on how it's handled by both parties. I used to think accepting constructive criticism was the hardest thing. Now I think giving it is harder.