Category: Political issues

What in the name of Zeuss just happened?

There is much that could be said about whatever form of madness it was that happened during last night’s Biden-Trump debate. But the thing that matters most is that the media have made up their hive mind. What Trump is, what Trump has done, and what Trump intends to do no longer matters. The media, in ecstasy from the smell of blood, have found their victim, and it is Biden.

I wrote this to a friend this morning:

“I did not watch the debate last night. I am horrified at what I am reading this morning, a media ghoul feast like I’ve never seen before. The media being what it is, and the American people being what they are, I can’t imagine how Biden and the DNC can reverse this kind of press (and it must be nine times worse in the TV media). The media will do the Republican party’s work for them from here on, and Russia here we come. Everything other than Biden’s age will be drowned out; Trump’s age and what he is and what he has done doesn’t even matter anymore. We’re now in a manic psychic-epidemic mode, led and fed by a hyperventilating media, doing to Biden, and to history, what we did to Jimmy Carter, revising him into a failure. Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for president would be a guaranteed way to lose. Nobody likes her, including me; she was a mistake in 2020. The only person who has the political ability to do what would need to be done in a mere four months is Gavin Newsome. Lots of people must have stayed up all night in Washington gaming out a plan, or at least I hope they did. Biden did great during the state of the union speech three months ago, while Trump has been rambling about sharks and not remembering people he has known for years. I don’t understand this. But it was clearly the miracle straight from hell that Republicans needed to sell Hitler to the American people. The media will be fine with it, because doomscrolling will bring back the 2016-2020 glory years. God save us.

“I feel like the world just got turned upside down. Yesterday I did something I hadn’t done in ages. I stopped at a greasy spoon and had a (terrible) breakfast. There was a group of old farmer guys talking. In the previous two election years, they’d have been angry, repeating Fox News talking points. Yesterday there wasn’t a bit of that. They were laughing, having a good time, and not a bit of anger, talking about cows, broomstraw, and how people used to know their neighbors. I was pulled toward the conclusion that Republicans simply have not been able to stir up enough rage and provide enough fear-inducing talking points to get the deplorables to bother to vote in November. Now I’m afraid that has all changed.”

There are sane voices (including Biden’s). But sane voices will be drowned out in the media stampede. This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter this morning:

“It went on and on, and that was the point. This was not a debate. It was Trump using a technique that actually has a formal name, the Gish gallop, although I suspect he comes by it naturally. It’s a rhetorical technique in which someone throws out a fast string of lies, non-sequiturs, and specious arguments, so many that it is impossible to fact-check or rebut them in the amount of time it took to say them. Trying to figure out how to respond makes the opponent look confused, because they don’t know where to start grappling with the flood that has just hit them.

“It is a form of gaslighting, and it is especially effective on someone with a stutter, as Biden has.”

Who knows at this point how the Democratic Party will respond. Democrats versus a depraved Republican Party is one thing. But Democrats versus a depraved Republican Party and a depraved and savage media is another.

Update:

A few media watchers get it right, but pretty much no one pays attention to them. Dan Froomkin at Press Watch: “CNN fails the nation.”

We Americans need the Guardian now

The U.S. edition of the Guardian has been a part of my daily news-reading rounds for years. I probably should have subscribed long ago. Today I did it.

The reasons for subscribing to the Guardian have continued to add up. I will list them, because I think the reasons are important to all Americans in these times, not just me.

Loss of confidence in the Washington Post

Whether you read the Washington Post or not, the Post’s problems are important, because the Post’s influence is huge in setting the agenda for the American media. The Washington Post has been losing money. To try to stop the bleeding, the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (who also owns Amazon) has brought in a bunch of British Tories who used to work for Rupert Murdoch’s news and propaganda operation. Not only that, the Washington Post knew about Samuel Alito’s right-wing MAGA flags more than three years ago, but decided not to write about it until the New York Times broke the story recently. The Post’s response to being caught in such a MAGA-friendly catch-and-kill was slimy, as was the Post’s reaction to a near rebellion in its newsroom about the recent changes in management. If you’d like to know more about the implosion at the Washington Post, I recommend two articles, both from Dan Froomkin’s Press Watch: “Beware the Tory Takeover of the Washington Post,” and “Will Lewis must go. The Washington Post publisher’s actions cast doubt on his newsroom’s credibility.” Dan Froomkin, by the way, is an old colleague of mine. We both got our start in newspapers at the same newspaper forty years ago.

Loss of confidence in the American mainstream media

I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, “All the news that’s profit-friendly.” Once again, Dan Froomkin does a fine job of shredding the New York Times’ political coverage: “New York Times editor Joe Kahn says defending democracy is a partisan act and he won’t do it.” I will continue to read and subscribe to the New York Times, as well as the Washington Post. The important thing is to keep in mind that both newspapers go way too far in treating right-wing gaslighting as though it’s something to be taken seriously. They claim, of course, that that’s what the principles of journalism require. I say horsewash. It’s what corporate management requires. Truth is the standard of journalism, not both-sides “balance.”

Europe is more important to Americans than ever

Yesterday, members of the European Union voted for members of the European parliament. This provided the best picture yet of the political situation in Europe post-Brexit and post-Ukraine. (Britain, of course, withdrew from the European Union in 2020, but all of Europe is dealing with the regressive forces that led to Brexit.) The same political winds that blow in Europe also blow here in the United States. Sometimes Britain and the U.S. move in the same direction. Think Thatcher/Reagan, and Blair/Clinton. Britain will have a parliamentary election on July 4. The Tories are expected to get their asses handed to them for 14 years of misrule. Wouldn’t it be nice if there’s something predictive there for the fate of the American Republican Party in November?

Europe: A quick comparison

The mainstream media, as I have regularly complained, is always quick to flatter right-wing power and terrify liberals. Consider this headline in the New York Times today: “Conservative Dominance and Other Takeaways from the E.U. Elections.” There is more nuance if you read on. But the Guardian, by contrast, emphasizes that the situation is complicated and doesn’t play the fear card to scare liberals. The Guardian doesn’t downplay the fact that Denmark, Hungary, and Poland did not move to the right. I don’t know enough to try to analyze what the vote means in smaller E.U. countries that get little attention — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta. I do think it’s safe to say, though, that countries that have experienced right-wing, anti-democratic, authoritarian governments learn some lessons that other countries might have to relearn — France and Germany, for example.

Three editions of the Guardian

The Guardian has a U.S. edition, a U.K. edition, and a European edition, all three of which are of great interest and all three of which are included in a subscription. (There also are Australia and International editions.) American publications don’t cover Europe very well. Where coverage overlaps, comparison is always revealing. I have access to the Times of London through Apple News, but I’m even more skeptical of the super-Tory Times of London’s political coverage than that of the New York Times. The Times of London’s coverage of Scotland is incredibly snarky and condescending. Again, comparison is always revealing. I should not neglect to mention that you can get full access to the Guardian by merely registering, but there will be ads and a promotion for subscriptions on every page. Paid subscribers bypass that. Not to mention that the Guardian deserves all the support it can get. The Wikipedia article on the Guardian describes how the Guardian pays for itself. Hint: It’s not owned by a billionaire.

Information isn’t free

I’m becoming increasingly resigned to the cost of information. I’ve complained that, at my stage of life, the biggest expenses now are insurance and property maintenance. What I pay for books and subscriptions seems to get higher every year, but I’ll deal with it.

Update

For what it’s worth, it’s interesting to take note of what financial markets thought of this election. Share prices in most European countries fell. The stock of two big French banks was down more than 5 percent. Britain’s pound rose to its highest level against the euro in almost two years. The U.S. dollar rose to almost 93 euro cents. French and German bonds weakened. None of these changes are exactly dramatic, but it would appear that the rich don’t think that the prospect of more right-wingery will make them richer.

Don Jr.’s sick dreams


Source: Wikimedia Commons

After the Trump guilty verdict yesterday, we got all the batty outpourings of Republican rage that would be expected. Axios wrote, “A profound sense of rage — and an insatiable thirst for revenge — is permeating virtually every corner of the Republican Party in the wake of former President Trump’s historic conviction.”

Trump himself, for the cameras, went through the motions of displaying rage, but am I the only person who got the impression that an addled Trump only half understands what just happened? One person in particular, though, totally gets what happened. That’s Donald Trump Jr.

“Such bullshit,” Junior said. “The Democrats have succeeded in their years long attempt to turn America into a third-world shithole. November 5 is our last chance to save it.” Junior’s rage is real. If you’ve watched any of his podcasts (I’ve watched only snippets), he works himself into a deranged, spit-flinging lather.

There is a psychotic, and genuine, hatred in his rage. He is a fiend and probably was born that way. Remember the photos of Don Jr.’s and Eric’s African safari in 2012? According to one report, “In one of the photographs, Donald Jr. displays a smug grin while holding the sawed-off tail of the dead elephant, knife in hand.”

Despite the show of Republican rage, you can be sure that, behind closed doors, Republicans know that Trump’s days are numbered. The problem for MAGA world now is how to keep the movement going. Several people have tried to get anointed as the new Trump, Ron DeSantis in particular. DeSantis failed. Nikki Haley, actually, has the best numbers. But though Haley might be suitable to lead a somewhat chastened establishment GOP, she is not at all suitable to keep the MAGA cult going after Trump is out of commission. A very common way for authoritarian strongmen to keep the regime going is have a family dynasty. Think Juan and Isabel Perón, or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

Don Jr.’s dream — I would even say plan — is to be the new Trump.

I have a prediction. In the coming months, no matter what the courts do or don’t do to Trump, and no matter whether or not Trump’s mental state becomes an issue, look for the Trump family to do everything they can to shift MAGA loyalty to Don Jr. as Trump Sr.’s hopes fade.

Donald Trump Jr. will run for president in 2028. The mainstream media again will fall for it, and another Trump will get another free ride in the media because of all the hits and ratings.

MAGA wants revenge, and Don Jr. is the only mutant with any hope of providing it.

All the news that’s profit-friendly


Source: Wikimedia Commons

For those of us who aim to be both well-informed and conscientious in our politics, it’s important to know that most sources of political news are corrupted by money and self-interest. For example…

When I read a few days ago that Nikki Haley has said that she will vote for Trump, my first reaction was, “Aha. As I suspected and expected, she’s now setting herself up to get the nomination when Trump either drops out or the Republicans dump him.” To me it seemed obvious all along that Haley’s intention was to set herself up as the only alternative to Trump. She succeeded, and she continued to get about 20 percent of the primary vote even after she said that she was no longer running.

But of course, that’s not what the political media reported. What the political media reported was that Haley had thrown in the towel, humiliated by getting a mere 20 percent support, making Trump indomitable and Trump 2024 inevitable. Trump-is-inevitable is one of the most profitable political memes of all time. It gets ratings and clicks on both sides of the political spectrum. It allowed the Washington Post and the New York Times to survive the steep decline of the newspaper industry. On the right, the Trump-is-inevitable meme flatters the idea of right-wing righteousness and right-wing power. On the left, the terror of it bolsters doom-scrolling. I’m not even going to mention cable news here because I don’t watch cable news and because I assume that neither does anyone else who aims to be both well-informed and conscientious in their politics.

We can trust the New York Times and the Washington Post (and even cable news!) on a great many subjects — culture, sports, entertainment, food, weather, and even, for the most part, international events. There is only one area in which the mainstream media absolutely cannot be trusted. That’s politics, because politics is so closely connected with media profits, with the job security of the mediocre herd of people who work in the political media, and with the attention that the political punditry can draw, preferably from “both sides.” This is why the media will make a very big deal out of a poll that shows Trump leading the horse race but bury a poll that shows the opposite. The formula is ridiculously simple and transparent: Flatter Republicans, scare the hell out of liberals.

Not until today did I read anything supporting my view that Nikki Haley is cleverly unfolding her strategy for positioning herself as the only alternative to Trump when Trump implodes. It’s no surprise that this came from the daily newsletter of Heather Cox Richardson. Richardson is a liberal historian. Though no doubt she is monitored by some elements on the right who want to know what the liberal intelligentsia are thinking, Richardson does not need right-wing clicks or ratings, either to boost profits or to support a sham of objectivity and impartiality. Richardson wrote, in this morning’s newsletter:

“There are two ways to look at Haley’s capitulation. It might show that Trump is so strong that he has captured the entire party and is sweeping it before him. In contrast, it might show that Trump is weak, and Haley made this concession to his voters either in hopes of stepping into his place or in a desperate move to cobble the party, whose leaders are keenly aware they are an unpopular minority in the country, together.

“The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war. The last of the establishment Republican leaders who controlled the party before 2016 are trying to wrest control of it back from Trump’s MAGA Republicans, who have taken control of the key official positions. At the same time, Trump’s MAGA voters, while a key part of the Republican base, have pushed the party so far right they have left the majority of Americans—including Republicans—far behind.”

If anyone has seen, either in a mainstream media news item or an opinion piece, the ideas that Heather Cox Richardson relates so concisely above, then I will stand corrected. But I haven’t seen it in anything I’ve read. My view is that this is one of the things that the mainstream political media cannot say, because it would weaken the Trump-is-inevitable meme that profits depend on.

Now we get into a gray zone in which everything is murky because of probabilities, the likelihood of unforeseen developments, and even the actions of the state and federal courts, some of which have been corrupted by Republicans, including Trump, who appointed three members of the current Supreme Court.

So…

I still am strongly of the view that Trump will not be on the ballot in November. How can he be, because he is a criminal, because he is one of the most hated people in the world, because his faculties are failing so fast that he can’t follow a teleprompter, because his memory is shot, and because he is so out of it that he can’t stay awake in court and farts loudly at the defense table. We still don’t have the smoking gun (it will have to be caught on video) that will force the mainstream media to report that Trump is increasingly senile. Only a smoking gun on video will do, because Trump’s increasing senility does not support the Trump-is-inevitable meme. The political media will do everything they can to avoid having to write about Trump’s mental state.

On the other hand, writing about Biden’s age does support the Trump-is-inevitable meme. I’m not going to try to predict what the verdict will be New York, because there is always the chance of a jury fluke in such a politically charged case. But, if there is any justice, the jury will convict Trump on 34 felony counts, because it was entirely obvious, even before we heard the evidence in court, that Trump is guilty as sin.

Here is a kind of scientific real-world test of my view that Trump is doomed. On May 15, it was reported that Biden and Trump have agreed on two debates, the first of which is to be on CNN on June 27. In my view, Trump’s handlers know that Trump is by no means fit to appear in a live debate with Biden. According to my view, it was extremely clever of the Biden campaign to get Trump to agree to such a debate. The Biden campaign knows that Trump’s mind is shot. Scheduling a debate can only be a win for Biden. By far the most likely outcome is that Trump will come up with some lie to explain why he is backing out. If such a debate did happen, then Trump would get slaughtered on live television. If the June 27 debate actually happens, then I’m wrong and will have to do some rethinking.

If Republicans were smart — they aren’t — they would find a way to get Trump to withdraw before the Republican National Convention (July 15-18 in Milwaukee). If establishment Republicans fail to accomplish that, and if Trump drops out (or is somehow forced out) after the convention but before voting begins in November, then Republicans will be stuck with elevating their vice presidential choice to be the candidate for president. You can be pretty confident that Nikki Haley and establishment Republicans are secretly working to get Haley chosen as Trump’s running mate, instead of the bat-shit crazy Republicans who are at present jostling for the job (such as Kristi Noem, who boasted of killing a dog, confirming that the cruelty is the point). Getting Trump and the crazies out of the way by July 18 is Republicans’ best hope.

To believe the mainstream media is to believe that Donald Trump, who has never won a majority of the popular vote and who lost, big, in 2020, has somehow been made even more powerful and popular in spite of everything that has happened in the last four years. This could be true only if voting Americans are even more deceived now than ever. It’s certainly true that the mainstream media are working alongside the right-wing media to maximize deceit. Deceit has been as profitable for the mainstream media as it has been for the right-wing media. On the right, it’s about billions of dollars in profits. For the mainstream, sadly, it’s about survival.

It seems the mainstream media don’t think far enough ahead to consider what would happen to their profits if MAGA ever got back into power and had four more years to create in America a Russian-style kleptocratic economy, a Russian-style police and military, a Russian-style judiciary and justice department, and a Russian-style media.

Update 1:

A new viral podcast, “Shrinking Trump,” has become a must-listen. The mainstream media have, of course, ignored it, viral or not. Two prominent clinical psychologists talk about Trump’s mental condition.

Update 2:

The Washington Post knew in January 2021 about the Alitos’ upside-down American flag. They sat on the story, claiming that they believed the explanation that Alito’s wife gave. Note that the New York Times first reported this on May 16, while the Washington Post is just now admitting, on May 25, that it caught the story and killed it. Why did it take the Post so long to admit this? Also, you can be sure that the Washington press corps — a herd — all know each other and drink together. If Post reporters knew about the flag in January 2021, then it’s a good bet that Times reporters found out about it too. It’s juicy talk at Washington watering holes, but it’s not something that we mouth-breathing common folk need to know.

The rottenness of the political media still continues to shock me, though it is something that I have understood for many years.

Update 3:

The Washington Post is starting to catch hell for suppressing the Alito flag story. The Post deserves all the contempt and ridicule that it’s going to get.

Forbes: Washington Post Had—But Passed—On Blockbuster Alito Flag Story In 2021.

DailyKos: Washington Post sat on Alito flag story for 3+ years

Update 4:

From Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter this morning (May 29, 2024):

‘Last November, Matt Gertz of Media Matters reported that ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News provided 18 times more coverage of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s comment at a fundraising event that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables” who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” than they provided of Trump’s November 2023 promise to “root out the communist, Marxist, fascist and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

‘CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC mentioned the “deplorables” comment nearly 9 times more than Trump’s “vermin” language. The ratio for the five highest-circulating U.S. newspapers was 29:1.’

A John Rawls recipe book

Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like? Daniel Chandler. Penguin Random House, 2023. 404 pages.

As the jacket blurb says, this book about the philosophy of John Rawls aims at “dragging his theory of justice down from Harvard’s ivory towers and into the streets with the people.”

For those already familiar with Rawls (unfortunately not many people), this book will be redundant. But Chandler does lay out Rawls’ theory of “justice as fairness” in lay language rather than in the dense language of moral and political philosophy. Chandler includes real-world examples of where some of Rawls’ ideas actually have been put to the test, and he proposes ways of bringing justice as fairness into the theory and practice of good politics.

Chandler is an economist and philosopher at the London School of Economics.

A scene from Mississippi

I apologize for being just another person out to make a political point from what’s happening on university campuses. But I do think that everyone needs to see this video. It was shot May 3 at the University of Mississippi. According to news reports, counter-protesters — mostly white males — greatly outnumbered the protesters. I can’t determine the original source of the video, but it appears to be nonprofessional video shot with a phone. Many news organizations have used the video.

My political comment would be: Let’s keep this in mind when Republicans tell us that universities are liberal indoctrination centers where conservative students dare not express an opinion.

Russia’s strategy


The Kremlin. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian. Her daily newsletters are a must-read every day, in my opinion. But today’s newsletter is a must-must-must read. Its subject is Russian disinformation, to which we are far more exposed than we usually realize.

Richardson writes:

“This means that the strategy that matters most for the Kremlin is not the military strategy, but rather the spread of disinformation that causes the West to back away and allow Russia to win. That disinformation operation echoes the Russian practice of getting a population to believe in a false reality so that voters will cast their ballots for the party of oligarchs. In this case, in addition to seeding the idea that Ukraine cannot win and that the Russian invasion was justified, the Kremlin is exploiting divisions already roiling U.S. politics.”

She is referring to a rather long piece posted on March 27 by the Institute for the Study of War, “Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success.” This piece, too, is a must-read. It’s not just about Russia and Ukraine. It’s about the sea of propaganda in which we all are immersed: “The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.”

We might ask: But what about the Institute for the Study of War? It’s an American think tank. According to the Wikipedia article, it’s funded mostly with corporate money. It claims to be nonpartisan. Is there any reason why we — as Heather Cox Richardson clearly does — should have more confidence in the output of the Institute for the Study of War (which Russia would say is American propaganda) than in the Kremlin’s output?

I have two friends, one of them American and one of them Danish, who take Russia’s side on Ukraine. I believe that they’re deceived by Russian propaganda. They believe that I’m deceived by American propaganda. But even if, for the sake of argument, we were to suppose that Russia’s case and the Western case are equally valid, there are still very rational reasons why I, as an American, should choose the Western case.

I’m an American citizen. I am subject to American, rather than Russian, law. If I ever get entangled with a court, whether as a plaintiff or as a defendant, that will be an American court, not a Russian court. In my working years, I made my living in the United States, and now that I’m retired my income depends on the American economy, not the Russian economy. When I was 19 years old, I was subject to being drafted into the American, not the Russian, army. I have an American passport, not a Russian passport. If World War III should start in my lifetime, I will need to count on American defenses for my survival, not Russian defenses.

Not by any means does this mean that I think that Putin is just as likely to be right about Ukraine — or about anything, really — as those of us in the West. Even if Putin’s perspective were saintly and golden, as an American it would still be rational for me to prefer American interests. Yes, as my American friend and my Danish friend like to remind me, the United States has made terrible mistakes. I certainly don’t deny that, and I even would claim that, as a liberal, my conscience has been cleaner, and my sight clearer, than the opposition’s when America has been wrong. Fortunately, though, it seems pretty clear in this particular case that the West can make arguments that are more sound and more just, and that it’s Russia that is trying to deceive us.

The post-truth era indeed


AI image by DALL-E 3

Google for the term “post-truth era” and you’ll find a great many hits, many of them in the most august of publications. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, The Atlantic ran a piece with the headline “We’re already living in the post-truth era.” This morning, in a review of an HBO documentary about Alex Jones, the Washington Post writes “A new HBO documentary about the right-wing conspiracy theorist behind Infowars explores the mainstreaming of ‘grift’ in a post-truth era.”

The irony is that, even as the mainstream media write about the post-truth era as though they had nothing to do with it, they deny their own ongoing guilt — providing an unlimited amount of space and air time for the repetition of disinformation, as though intentional disinformation is just another side of the story and something to be taken seriously. And thanks, of course, for all the hits and ratings.

It’s encouraging that there does seem to be some limit on how far media people are willing to go. Executives at NBC News must have been surprised at the blowback over their hiring of the Republican disinformation agent Ronna McDaniel as an “analyst.” Even Chuck Todd, who was notorious for allowing Meet the Press to be used as a platform for the unchallenged dispensing of right-wing disinformation, suddenly acknowledges that McDaniel has been gaslighting us.

But even if the blowback causes Ronna McDaniel to lose her sinecure at NBC News (it was reported that she’s getting a retainer of $300,000 a year), we’re still all on our own in a post-truth era.

It’s nothing new that NBC News provides a platform for right-wing gaslighting. What’s new is that with Ronna McDaniel they made it so brazenly obvious.

Television and cable news are a zone where it’s not safe to go without gas masks for protection from the gaslighting. Even those print publications with the most respected of names allow themselves to be used by people with agendas, agendas that are often disguised. For example, The Atlantic regularly prints articles by people who have accepted money from the Koch network, and The Atlantic even has Koch people on its staff. We mustn’t forget that the new publisher of the Washington Post used to work for Rupert Murdoch. We learned a great deal about the New York Times after James Bennet was forced out as editorial page editor. Members of the Koch network spilled a lot of ink about that. Their version of the story was that a bunch of young new “woke” members of the New York Times staff were intolerant of conservative voices on the editorial page. I see it differently. It’s that those young “woke” members of the New York Times staff haven’t normalized, as so many older journalists have, providing a free platform for right-wing disinformation and gaslighting. Conservative voices are one thing (Liz Cheney, for example), but intentional disinformation is something else.

The New Republic, in a blurb this morning about a new podcast, writes, “The revolt among NBC personalities is extraordinary — and could force a real debate about all the ways the media enables Donald Trump and MAGA.”

I wish I could be that optimistic. Even after Trump is in prison, I’m afraid the media will look for ways to keep the MAGA bonanza (of hits and ratings) alive.

Update: This evening, NBC News announced that they have reversed their decision, and NBC won’t be taking on Ronna McDaniel after all. Now we will get to see whether the mainstream media and its pundits can explain and defend the principles that justify its existence.


Ronna McDaniel. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The arc of justice


U.S. marshals escort Ruby Bridges to school. New Orleans, Louisiana, November 1960. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

–Theodore Parker, 1810-1860

We could say that we believe in the arc of justice, but that would be a useless statement, because our beliefs, whatever they may be, have no effect on the reality outside our own minds. Even if our beliefs guide our actions in the real world, the effect is weak and indirect. As much as we might like to, we can’t change the world simply by wishing and by thinking. Beliefs may indirectly lead to change, especially when lots of people hold similar beliefs and act in accord with them. But beliefs alone don’t change anything. I’ve had a saying about this for many years: You can believe until you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t change anything.

But we can make an if-then proposition that I think is sound and reasonable. It’s this: If there is such a thing as the arc of justice, then to stand in its way, inevitably, sooner or later, is to be found wrong. Not only does that mean that one’s thinking was wrong. It also means that, at some point in the future, one will enter into a state of shame for having stood in the way of the arc of justice.

We could cite many examples of this proposition, from Rome to the present. Religion’s track record is especially damning. For example, the largest Christian denomination in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, militantly supported slavery during the 19th Century. During the 20th Century, it supported racial segregation. In 1995, though it took 150 years, it apologized for its history. Even after the apology, some of the meanest people in the country remain in control of the Southern Baptist Convention and still stand in the way of the arc of justice. But at least, as the arc of justice moved on, church people had to admit that they were wrong. It’s because of the arc of justice that we don’t burn people at the stake anymore, or put people like Oscar Wilde in prison, or hang people for stealing a crust of bread, or beat our children.

Over the centuries, moral error after moral error by the church, in spite of its claim to speak for God, shows that the arc of justice — and this should be no surprise — is and always has been more powerful than religion. Not only that, looking toward the future, religion weakens as the arc bends toward justice. The arc bends. To the degree that it is ossified and refuses to bend, religion inevitably breaks. Church people see the decline in church membership as a moral emergency. I see it as moral progress.

As liberals, this is where our confidence can come from, as well as our optimism. It can be the basis of a politics. It’s why I say that the entire spectrum of conservatism, from dishonest both-sides centrism to the neo-Nazis, is wrong, wrong-headed, and causes harm. And for many people, merely to stand in the way of the arc of justice is not enough. They work to reverse moral progress and roll back the clock.

Theodore Parker, a theologian, is sometimes referred to as a heretic. He saw long ago that the church is not an instrument of moral progress. Rather, far more often, it has been the opposite. I can’t take seriously the claim that religion has ever been on the leading edge of the arc of justice. Classical philosophy, if the church had allowed it to evolve rather than repressing it, would have brought far more light to the Dark Ages than the church ever did. The Enlightenment might have come sooner, had there not been so much resistance. It is ideas, and an expanding concept of justice and fairness, that lead the arc of justice toward greater justice.

The Enlightenment, of course, brought a revolution in moral philosophy. Still, for a hundred to two hundred years, utilitarianism was the state of the art in ethics — the idea of the greatest good for the greatest number. There are still utilitarians, but ideas about justice and fairness have expanded. I am among those who see utilitarianism as obsolete after John Rawls’ justice as fairness (1971). The course of the arc of justice in our time, I believe, is best described by John Rawls’ justice as fairness. As Theodore Parker says, our sight, in any era, may reach but little ways. But from what we can see now, the arc of justice is bending in the direction described by John Rawls.

Rawls’ philosophy may be complex and a challenge to read, but its key idea boils down to something simple, and, to most minds, obvious: We cannot justify being unfair to anyone (usually the poor, the stigmatized, and the weak), even if others want to gain (usually wealth and privilege and power) from that unfairness. This idea is steadily being integrated into liberal politics. Meanwhile, the interest of conservative politics in wealth, privilege, and domination increasingly finds so much fairness threatening. Most people have never heard of John Rawls. Still, as though by magic, Rawls’ philosophy is in the Zeitgeist. Conservatives feel it as clearly as liberals feel it, which is why they are in such a panic to resist it. It puts wealth, privilege, and power in a different light, light that is not to conservative liking.

Thomas Piketty caused quite a stir in 2013 with Capital in the Twenty-First Century. His second book, A Brief History of Equality, got less attention. But in this second book Piketty argued that there has been a steady improvement in equality since 1780, and he explains why he is optimistic about future progress. Given that millions have died since 1780 in the struggle against domination, Piketty’s optimism may seem misplaced. But I think he is right, because even when those who crave domination win, they don’t — can’t — win for long. Just ask the enslavers of the 19th Century, or the Nazis of the 20th, or the racists of the Civil Rights era. In a decade or two, ask Putin. Ask Trump, once the courts are done with him.

We have just been through one of those times, when those who work together to block and reverse the arc of justice get the upper hand. This is what happened when, in 2016, Donald Trump was installed in the White House by wealthy elites whose domination is threatened by fairness, aided by “populist” subjects who were all too easy to deceive.

Now the arc of justice is catching up with them. For some, prison. For others, only shame. Still, some of them are so hardened that will never feel any shame for the ugliness of their actions and their ideas. But the children of the future, from what we already can see now from the direction in which the arc of justice bends, will see things differently.

Of course Haley won’t drop out


This photo came from Facebook. The sign was posted here in my rural red county, which voted 77 percent for Trump in 2016 and 78 percent in 2020. Apparently someone thinks the sign is funny.

The insanity of the political media herd is on full display this morning after yesterday’s Republican primary in South Carolina, where the vote was 59.8 percent Trump and 39.5 percent Nikki Haley. A headline in the New York Times says, “After South Carolina, Trump’s March to the G.O.P. Nomination Quickens.” Most of the stories this morning wonder why Haley won’t drop out after such a “decisive” win by Trump.

The answer is obvious. It’s a total no-brainer. The reason Nikki Haley won’t drop out is that she knows that Trump is as good as ruined. But for reasons that are cowardly if not intentionally deceptive, the mainstream media won’t say it. Trump’s financial house of cards is soon going to come crashing down because of the half billion dollars he now owes to the state of New York. He is facing prison sentences for state crimes in New York and Georgia, and for federal crimes in a trial in Washington. It’s possible, if the state of New York has to seize Trump’s properties and determine how much equity, if any, he has in his properties, that we’ll find out who owns Trump’s debt. The media keep reporting, as though it’s true, that Trump said in a court filing that he has $400 million in cash. Who could possibly represent that as believable other than our mainstream media?

The New York Times doubles down on its deceit. In “Five Takeaways from Trump’s Big Win Over Nikki Haley in South Carolina,” the Times makes these points: One, “It was a home-state failure for Haley.” Two, “Voters looked past Trump’s legal woes and political missteps.” Three, “To win a Republican primary, you need Republican voters.” (That’s a ridiculous point, because, to win a general election, you need voters who aren’t Republicans.) Four, “Haley isn’t giving up her case that Trump can’t win.” And, five, “All that’s left is the delegate math, and money.”

That’s all that’s left?

It’s irksome for me to believe that the New York Times would print such misdirection. The only reference to Trump’s “legal woes” is that Republicans “looked past” it. I admit that, for the sake of my blood pressure, I did not read every word of every lame story in the mainstream media this morning about the South Carolina primary. In what I did read, though, I didn’t find any reference to the obvious point that the reason Haley won’t quit is that she expects to get the nomination after Trump goes down.

What the political media should have reported this morning is that the Republican Party is divided. Somewhere between 26 percent and 40 percent of Republicans in South Carolina don’t want Trump. Nikki Haley is way head of the other alternatives to Trump. That is a big deal, and it’s only February. Haley’s numbers will grow as the courts take Trump apart. The big question is, how many of those Trump-forever Republicans would turn out to vote for Haley in November, and how many would just stay home to register their rage?

Here in North Carolina, early voting for the March 5 primary started February 15. I monitor the Facebook group of the Republican Party in my county. They are complaining because turnout for early voting is low. I believe that’s because they are increasingly demoralized, and some are having second thoughts about Trump. They’re also at each other’s throats over local issues, mostly related to the schools. (They don’t want any schools to close, but they also don’t want to pay enough taxes to keep them open. Their response to this problem is Trump-style rage and blame, aimed at other Republicans, because Republicans run the county.)

When the results of the North Carolina primary election are known on March 5, we’ll learn a lot from how many Republicans and unaffiliated voters in North Carolina turn against Trump. In North Carolina, registered Democats cannot vote in the Republican primary. Unaffiliated voters get to choose the Democratic ballot, Republican ballot, or Libertarian ballot. There are seven options on the Republican ballot for voting against Trump: Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ryan Binkley, Chris Cristie, and “no preference.”

Why do the mainstream media want us deceived? The answer, as I see it, is: Clicks and ratings. There is only one political picture that gets everybody to click, Republicans as well as Democrats. In that picture, Trump is unstoppable, Haley is finished but won’t admit it, the courts are forgotten, Democrats are blind, and the earth is flying out from under President Biden’s feet. The headline at Russia Today is “Trump Crushes Last Republican Rival.” A headline at The Atlantic is “How Donald Trump Became Unbeatable.”

As I see it, there are three important things to keep in mind about our political media. They are not geniuses, they are a herd, and their job security depends on clicks and ratings.