The Chinese Finger Trap Problem

Sometimes the Harder You Argue, The Worse Your Position Becomes.

Have you ever seen or heard of “Chinese Finger Traps?”¹ You used to see them a lot years ago and they were common prizes at fairs and carnivals. The concept is fairly simple; you put your fingers in the two holes on each end and then try to pull them out. The problem is that the harder you try to pull your fingers out, the tighter the finger trap gets. To actually get out of them, you have to relax, push your fingers IN and then twist it as you withdraw them.

I thought about those a lot this last week as the left went into an uproar about how CNN, one of the largest cable news channels and a major media outlet, had the leading contender for the Republican Party nomination on in a Town Hall this last week. If that were it, nobody would think twice about it; it’s newsworthy, it’s right around the same time they started doing town halls with Democratic Party candidates in 2019 and it’s typical coverage. No, what got them all up in a froth was that the person was former President Donald J. Trump, and they were so dead set against it that they aimed their furor not just at Trump, but at CNN for even having him on.

I’m not going to rehash what was said about it, I’m sure you heard enough of it. I think Anderson Cooper actually came kind of close to what I think about the whole thing, even if the format was a mess.

Now, everyone has an opinion. I get that. I also understand not everyone agrees with mine. But my twitter feed, email inbox and DMs were inundated with mostly liberals complaining about my thoughts on the topic, and they were far from nice. Here’s but a few comments:

• “TAKES A MAGA NAZI TO KNOW ONE. NO WONDER YOU WANT TRUMP ON CNN.”²

• ‘I can’t believe you want Trump to invade all of our TVs again. You’re just a Republican stoge [sic] like the rest of them”

• “CNN AND Chris Licht are just fascist wannabes. Now that they got rid of Tucker they want to steal the FOX audience.”³

• “Apparently, you’re fine with a rapist, fascist, insurrectionist orange turd being allowed to ridicule Kaitlin Collins and propagandize to the country. Typical White Male.”

Does anyone think these persuaded me or convinced me to agree with them at all? Does getting clubbed over the head over and over and over again ever work with making that person say “You know, you are right, I now see the light and agree with you wholehearedly!” Of course not. It just made me dislike die-hard liberals more.⁴

These pretty much provide the flavor, but the bulk of them were far worse, probably not (worth being) repeatable and immediately deleted. But the sentiment I got from all of them were:

• Liberals want to retreat back to their comfort zones, are completely fine with any news detrimental about Trump, but absolutely abhor the idea of him being on a legitimate news channel;

• They value CNN only so far as they agree with content, but anything they disagree with they are quick to discard (so much for “unbiased journalism”).⁵

• They would rather stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich than be told he has a snowball’s chance in hell of being President again, and will go after anyone harshly if they reiterate the odds of being anything that isn’t non-zero.

• They are willing to go after ANYONE who doesn’t align with their worldview.

But what got me thinking about finger traps was how they went after CNN. Fox viewers have been fed a diet of right wing paranoia and conspiracy about the “liberal media” forever, so that I get. But here we have liberals wanting to retreat back to their media sphere, and antagonistic toward anything newsworthy that might invade it and provide a bigger context to what is going on in the country. They're afraid of anything outside their control and would just rather shout it down or hide. To make clear:

Liberals and Republicans sit and scream harder and harder at anything that doesn’t fit their worldview. It’s so subjective it’s galling. They’ll tug and tug and tug, and yell at the trap, yell at the other hand and yell at God himself about how they got into the thing. They’ll yell LOUDER, as if that’s any help. They’ll blame anything else. They never seem to realize that one of the things that fires up the other side is watching them get all excited, angry and riled up about something, which only pulls on it harder; its political schaenfraude that drives so much animosity and energy in politics today. Anyone other than people on your side will never listen to you and all you’re doing is alienating them (who you’ll need if you ever want to win an election again).

Every time a liberal screams the words “Fascist” or “dictator” or “Nazi” or a MAGA yells “Socialist” “Communist” or “bleeding heart” they are just yanking harder and harder on that trap. It’s something I implied here:

In truth, the solution is simple, you need to calm down, push in, and move closer to where everyone else is. At that point, you can make a reasoned plea for your position (and be heard), maybe make a concession to objectivity and then slowly pull your hand out of the trap. It’s not hard.

As for Trump, the best way for liberals to deal with him is to ignore him. Don’t believe me? Ask any Republican why they like Trump and the invariable answer is that “He drives liberals crazy.” If you can’t ignore him (it’s hard, I know) then just laugh at his stupidity and ridiculousness. Mock him like Obama did at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner all those years ago. But getting excited and frustrated and angry is actually what he (and right wing media world) actually wants. Don’t put your finger into that trap.

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PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

One variation on the Chinese finger trap has uses in orthopedic medicine—namely, providing even pressure to the patient's digit(s) and at the same time immobilizing the joints—and serves a similar purpose as a traction device. Its development goes back to Austria in 1870 when Dr. Steinberger, a dentist at the Rudolfsspital in Vienna, reported the discovery of his doctoral student Schmall, who got the idea to use the toy ″Mädchenfänger" (girl catcher) for the extension of fingers and arms. The principle was adapted for the use in surgery, and already in 1873 termed "Schmall'sches Extensionsgeflecht".

Another variant is the towing sock. It uses the same principle to seize the end of a cable to be pulled through a tube or tunnel.

Parachute lines are often assembled using finger traps where the line is looped back into itself or another line.

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PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner

After completing this piece, I looked it up on Wikipedia looking for ideas to post in the “Obscure Fact” section, and instead found all of these references:

“The Chinese finger trap is a common metaphor for a problem that can be overcome by relaxing, i.e. not trying too hard to solve it. The gag has been used in a number of films and television productions, such as the Stan Laurel short Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925); the Our Gang short Moan and Groan, Inc., where they are referred to as Japanese handcuffs (1929); "Romance on the Range" (1942); "The Beast with Twenty Fingers" episode of Dobie Gillis; the "This Little Wiggy" episode of the American show The Simpsons in 1998; the "Fore, Father" episode of the show Family Guy in 2000; the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Unfortunate Cookie"; the Milo Murphy's Law episode "Murphy's Lard" (in which the title character Milo is revealed to have a phobia of them); The Addams Family in 1991; the 1987 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Last Outpost", in which Data is stumped by the device; and the Bob's Burgers episode "Midday Run". The trap was featured in the book series The Heroes of Olympus, most notably The Mark of Athena, the joke a source of humor and a solution in the climax. The trap is featured in the Eric Andre film Bad Trip, and more recently, in the Apple TV+ series Severance where it is one of the rewards given to employees for productivity.”⁶

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Outstanding Tweet

I have yet to find any good tweet, pro or con, about the Trump Town Hall. so in that case, we’re going with the greatest video of all time, Leeroooyyyyy JEnnnnnkins.

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Footnotes and Parting Thoughts

Let me know what you think of the page. Please share and comment!

1. I’ve also heard them called “Chinese Finger Cuffs” as well. I’m not sure if there is a “non-ethnic” term for these (and before you say “finger cuffs” or “finger traps” those are actually different things) but if you know of one, let me know.

2. I am not a republican by any means, and if you ‘ve read anything I put out, you know I hate MAGA.

3. The bit about Chris Licht trying to steal Fox share actually may be true, but he’s far from a fascist and bringing FOX viewers out of the right wing media bubble would be a good thing.

4. And just so we are on the same page, I lean center-left. 40 years of conservative governance has left many of our communities hollowed out and programs beneficial to society have withered with neglect. To bring back the balance, I believe that what can be fixed with many problems in our current society are more liberal solutions. But to paraphrase Gandhi talking about Jesus and Christians, “I may like some liberalism, but I hate liberal activists very much.”

5. To be sure, there’s a lot of dumb content on CNN (looking at you “Searching for Italy/Mexico” and “The 2010s”). There’s a lot of smugness too. But in comparison to MSNBC and FOX, there is no comparison—CNN is closer to the objective, mainstream position than either of those two networks, who try to cater specifically to subjective political audiences.

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_finger_trap