Speaking of whataboutism, last week Pierre Thomas asked Lindsay Graham whether he supported the Orange Carbuncle’s big lie. IMMEDIATELY he responded that Hillary Clinton questioned the results of the 2016 election. Crickets. You think Pierre might have mentioned to Lite Lindsay that Hillary conceded the day after the election. But no. It made me nauseous. I used to think Chuck Todd was the biggest pushover. But then Kristen Welker told Rona (Romney) McDaniel that it was an honor to interview her after a stream of lies and deflections. I give up. Thanks for the opportunity to get this off my chest.
Thanks for reminding me of Sia! 'Snowman' is my favorite of hers.
Have we talking about the Repub party's great love of free speech and how that is demonstrated by only allowing speech in their candidates that is MAGA approved? Nancy may have been too strong a leader for some Dems (squad), but I doubt she literally policed every Dem's speech. Fuck the Republican party that has allowed extremist & stupid to take over.
"The Bulwark is home to a fairly broad spectrum of political views. We’re pretty good with nuance. And we’re great at understanding what we don’t know and where our epistemic blind spots are."
Ehhhh, kinda.
Re: the conflict in Gaza, I've repeatedly pointed out that every single Bulwark contributor with the exception of Will Saletan has been conspicuously silent about Israeli misdeeds and about the disproportionate impact of the counter-attack on Palestinian civilians (both in Gaza and the West Bank, even though Palestinians in the West Bank had nothing to do with the Hamas attack).
I've pointed this out at least 1-2 x a week for the last two months in the comments section. JVL actually replied to one of them and said that IF it could be proven that Israel was engaging in collective punishment (a war crime) by cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel to the entire civilian population of Gaza he would call out that malfeasance.
Problem with this reply by JVL was that Israel openly and proudly announced the above (obviously not using the words "collective punishment" as that is an unambiguous war crime, but proudly advertised the substance of the conduct) as of October 8, 2023 (at least 1-2 weeks prior to JVL's response).
I've yet to see or hear (in a podcast) anything from JVL since, actually living up to his commitment to call Israel out for this specific conduct.
It's therefore kinda difficult for JVL to proudly state that Bulwark contributors are aware of their "epistemic blindspots", when JVL in particular has repeatedly ignored people pointing out this particular pro-Israeli bias (not just by me, but by many many other commentators).
It's also a little bizarre given that his respected colleague Will Saletan has repeatedly raised these same concerns about the Israeli government's conduct in this war. So I would ASSUME that JVL has read and/or listened to at least some of Saletan's content over the last two months. At this point even calling JVL's approach to Israel willful blindness would be a stretch.
I think they have stepped back from this topic. I am no expert on this subject or war/conflict in general, I just feel that the world should have learned by now other "default" actions besides "they came onto OUR LAND and killed x people, so we're gonna go onto THEIR LAND and kill double." Etc. We should all have a general respect for life & want to see conflicts resolved in ways that allow innocent people to start over & heal, instead of create deeper hate and despair. The current leadership in Israel does not bode well for resolution.
It's so very disappointing that this response is so predictable that I literally called it on October 8.
I did the math to show that October 7, 2023 wasn't just Israel's 9/11, it was faaaaar worse on a per capita adjustment, it was closer to 15 x 9/11 which is devastating. But I also cautioned that restraint was crucial so Israel didn't make the mistake of invading Iraq for no reason, or the various other abuses of human roghts that followed (e.g folks have been in GITMO without trial and/or charges even laid, for over 2 decades).
And I also used the example of using air strikes which kill entire wedding parties, etc. which rather than help Israeli security, make it more perilous (effective recruiting tool).
And thank you, I'm glad someone is reading my posts!
Horrendous fact is that last week, Palestinian Gaza resident death numbers hit 20k. I did the math, means that over the course of 74 days, Gaza has been hit with the per capita equivalent of 13 x 9/11's EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Which gets us to this absolutely horrendous figure: 74 x 13 = 962
Meaning that as of last week, Palestinians in Gaza had experienced the equivalent of 962 September 11's.
I think Springsteen’s crowds are waaaay bigger than Trump’s. Bigly hudge (is that how he spells huge? Best as I can approximate how he says it, tho notice how he never says it anymore?).
Thanks for the morning songfest. I’m going to be rockin’ all day long!! Cuz Santa Claus is comin’ … to town! 🎵
"The Bulwark is home to a fairly broad spectrum of political views."
Which are, unfortunately, embraced by a small minority of voters. On one hand, the claim that one is either a full-blown MAGA or "radical leftist" (of which "RINOs" are apparently the worst kind) is an absurd caricature. But sadly the great majority of voters do favor one of those stereotypes. In part that is forced by the 2-party system - this "RINO" will be voting straight blue as long as MAGAs have any significant power. But it's also because the great majority of voters vote more on emotion than reason, and thus refuse to see that sometimes (nearly always in my 52 years of voting) one must make hard, uncomfortable choices, and not succumb to the feel-good "sales pitches" of politicians who care only about their own instant gratification, not the long-term health of our country.
I often want to say (scream) that I'm not anti-Republican but anti-Trump. But as the case of Majewski and Riedel shows, perhaps some in the party might suggest that there is no difference: To be anti-Trump is to be anti-Republican. The question of our time then is, "How do we fix this?"
The GOP is like a windshield with a crack in it. At some point the crack is too big to be repaired, and the windhield needs to be replaced. Sadly, I think we have passed that point.
Again we're back to the freedom of speech debate. The $10K Ford Lightning "anecdote" is either a lie, a logical extension of political speech and campaign embellishment, or both at once. There is no clear legal line between the freedom to express an opinion and the point at which it becomes fraud, denying voters the opportunity to make informed choices on candidates and issues. Hence, after a few cycles of Fox News and Newsmax, people who can't by a house because of interest rates but then buy a boat as consolation feel deprived, decide the economy is tanking and blame Biden. There oughtta be a law...
One of my colleagues told me that she had to pay 160 dollars for fillet minon for 8 people this year for the Christmas dinner. It was 50 dollars a year ago, she said. The inflation is terrible and we are all ruined because of Biden according to her. I don't eat much red meat, but I know you could not buy fillet minon for 8 people just for 50 bucks a year ago. It seems thay these MAGA people, Fox news and GOPs think it is acceptable to lie to make their point? Facts are just inconvenient for them.
George Will got me interested in baseball because of his superlative Men At Work, never mind his politics, which I don’t share. I think he might revise his stance on The Boss were he to revisit it today, but the mental picture of him at the concert in a double breasted blazer and bow tie was sublime. Thanks for the share, JVL.
A few (lengthy) comments (lengthy because this is a real sore point with me)….
Note: I have no journalism background and no affiliation with any media company. So my takes on the inner workings of the media can certainly be taken with a grain of salt. And I don’t mean to imply that the mainstream media doesn’t have some bad apples or never does something wrong. But I believe that they tend to self-correct for the reasons that I give below. It isn’t 100% to 0%, but it’s nowhere near 50 – 50.
1) There is a bad and a worse side to this issue. The bad side can be summed up by the phrase “both sides do it”. When I hear someone say that I assume that they don’t have anything relevant to add to the conversation and just want to move on. But it is also an admission of laziness. It’s just easier to say that than to actually think about how accurate it might be (the degree to which “both sides do it” is not nearly the same for all issues).
But whether born of apathy or laziness, “both sides do it” is an attempt to create a false equivalency between the conservative and “other” media (basically any major news organization not named Fox or OANN or Gateway Pundit or Newsmax). But there is certainly no equivalency to be found.
Every news organization is going to have some bias. It’s not possible to be alive and not have some bias. So if you watch MSNBC and Fox, you will see both of them cover stories that make the “other side” look bad. And they both occasionally make factual mistakes. But there is one huge difference between these two sides. The folks in the “other” media may be biased, but they don’t make stuff up (or so severely twist reality that it might as well be made up).
And why should this be? I believe it’s because of two reasons. The people who work at the “other” media have an internal compass that requires that they be as honest as they can be. It’s what is expected of them. They really care about getting it right, even, as JVL has pointed out, down to the small and sometimes seemingly irrelevant details. They have journalistic integrity.
On the other hand, I have heard Hannity twice say that he isn’t a journalist, he’s a talk-show host. I’ve never heard him answer what that means. Does it mean that we aren’t supposed to take anything he says seriously? Does it mean that he doesn’t bother to try to present an accurate picture? Whatever it means to him, it sure doesn’t sound much like journalistic integrity. And Glenn Beck’s catchphrase is “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment”. One has to wonder where the “entertainment” ends and the “enlightenment” begins.
The second reason is because of their audiences. I believe that, by and large, consumers of the “other” media want a reasonably accurate story. And they will hold those providing inaccurate or patently false stories in low regard (as they should). They will lose significant credibility. And they might very well lose their jobs.
The conservative media folks look at things differently. They know their audience and they know that their audience isn’t all that interested in facts or a true telling of the tale. They know that their audience just wants someone to repeat some conspiracy theory. The “facts” that are used to back up the story don’t matter all that much. All that matters is that someone has made them feel good by attacking the election or Biden or Clinton or The Deep State or the DOJ or the FBI or George Soros or ….
Two examples come to mind. The first one is the defamation lawsuit e-mails in which the nabobs at Fox (Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson) knowingly broadcast a story that they themselves didn’t believe (and when I say “didn’t believe” I mean they thought it was nuts). And those same e-mails documented their worry about losing viewership. But their concern about lost viewership wasn’t because they were afraid that their audience would find out they were lying to them. It was because they weren’t lying ENOUGH to them. They knew that they needed to up their game by lying even more (remember Carlson trying to get some Fox staffer fired because she “fact checked” (in this case a euphemism for “telling the truth) some tweet from Trump).
The second example is Chris Stirewalt whose duties at Fox included making accurate election predictions and beating the competition. And he was fired for (wait for it) making an accurate election prediction and beating the competition. And that was because his prediction angered Trump and the Trumplicant base (the fact that he was right didn’t enter into the equation). So when faced with a choice between truth and placating their viewers, Fox chose journalistic dishonor (as did their viewers).
I guess I could throw in JVL’s example of David Asman saying that a Ford F-150 Lightning could be had for $10K. Why would he say that? Because a large part of Fox’s audience either doesn’t like electric vehicles per se or doesn’t like them because Biden is pushing them. And if Biden is for something, they must be against it. And people like Asman must cater to them. For Newsmax is always waiting in the wings.
And his promise to provide the telephone number of the person who could back up the $10K claim reminds me of Jenna Ellis’s response to Rusty Bowers’ request to see the evidence of voter fraud that she and Giuliani claimed they had: “I didn’t bring it with me”.
These examples show that Fox isn’t a “news” network; it is a “narrative” network.
What this boils down to is this: the “other” media folks care first and foremost about getting the story right. Impact on their audience is a secondary concern. And they have the force of their audiences to help keep them in line. Conservative media has it backwards. They care more about the audience impact and less about getting the story right. And they have the force of their audience pushing them in the wrong direction.
The worse aspect of this issue is the fact that most of the conservative media viewers believe that it is the conservative media that is the source of truth and light, and it is the “other” media that is lying to us. It used to be SOP on either Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s show to hear callers claim that he is “the only one telling us the truth”. It’s “Alice-in-Wonderland” journalism.
2) A lot of the above applies to politicians as well as the media and their audiences. Just as with the media, both Republicans and Democrats will spin things to make themselves look better. But the major difference is that the Democrats don’t just make stuff up. Last week, JP reported that Jim Jordan claimed that Devon Archer didn’t say that Joe Biden had nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s businesses – a claim that is contradicted by the official transcript of Archer’s testimony. Think that Jim Jordan didn’t know that was a lie? Or that he will lose any credibility with the Trumplicant base because he lied?
But a guy like Riedel who tells the truth – that can’t be allowed.
and all of what you describe tells us why we dont hear the democrat messaging that Sarah and others are looking for. Where do they do it? And how does boring, true stuff overcome sensational, arousing, untrue comments?
One of the most distressing parts of the Trump era to me is that it represents the triumph of emotion over logic. The idea that emotional stories carry more weight is not new ("if it bleeds, it leads") but Trump has taken it to a new level. And as long as the cult of Trump remains, there is simply no reaching the true cultists. And Fox et. al. isn't going to help bring any real information to those folks. They are a lost cause. I continue to hope that the marginal Trump supporter (the "I'll-hold-my-nose-and-vote-for-Trump" person) can be persuaded next year with the pertinent data.
Any and all Republicans are more than happy to speak out in support Trump vile message. Yet Democrats done seem fazed by their narrative. Where is Jeffries, Pelosi, AOC, Schumer…?
Why isn’t there an investigation into the missing top secrets binder? Where is Merrick Garland? Except Jack Smith’s appointment…crickets…no admonishment to the Speker for opening abetting the criminals at the capital by advocating blurring their faces…isn’t that the crime of aiding and abetting?
Why wasn’t Jordan not censured(at least) for not complying with a house subpoena to come before the Jan 6 committee? Why is Louis DeJoy still post master general…allowing him to subotage our mail service? As Tucker would say:’Just Asking.”
Thanks so much for including George Will’s column about Bruce Springsteen. As someone who came of age listening to Pat Boone, Elvis and The Platters (and later the early Beatles), I was too busy raising kids and grading papers to listen to music during the Springsteen era. I definitely appreciate the exposure to someone who is truly one of America’s music icons.
Speaking of whataboutism, last week Pierre Thomas asked Lindsay Graham whether he supported the Orange Carbuncle’s big lie. IMMEDIATELY he responded that Hillary Clinton questioned the results of the 2016 election. Crickets. You think Pierre might have mentioned to Lite Lindsay that Hillary conceded the day after the election. But no. It made me nauseous. I used to think Chuck Todd was the biggest pushover. But then Kristen Welker told Rona (Romney) McDaniel that it was an honor to interview her after a stream of lies and deflections. I give up. Thanks for the opportunity to get this off my chest.
Thanks for reminding me of Sia! 'Snowman' is my favorite of hers.
Have we talking about the Repub party's great love of free speech and how that is demonstrated by only allowing speech in their candidates that is MAGA approved? Nancy may have been too strong a leader for some Dems (squad), but I doubt she literally policed every Dem's speech. Fuck the Republican party that has allowed extremist & stupid to take over.
"The Bulwark is home to a fairly broad spectrum of political views. We’re pretty good with nuance. And we’re great at understanding what we don’t know and where our epistemic blind spots are."
Ehhhh, kinda.
Re: the conflict in Gaza, I've repeatedly pointed out that every single Bulwark contributor with the exception of Will Saletan has been conspicuously silent about Israeli misdeeds and about the disproportionate impact of the counter-attack on Palestinian civilians (both in Gaza and the West Bank, even though Palestinians in the West Bank had nothing to do with the Hamas attack).
I've pointed this out at least 1-2 x a week for the last two months in the comments section. JVL actually replied to one of them and said that IF it could be proven that Israel was engaging in collective punishment (a war crime) by cutting off food, water, electricity, and fuel to the entire civilian population of Gaza he would call out that malfeasance.
Problem with this reply by JVL was that Israel openly and proudly announced the above (obviously not using the words "collective punishment" as that is an unambiguous war crime, but proudly advertised the substance of the conduct) as of October 8, 2023 (at least 1-2 weeks prior to JVL's response).
I've yet to see or hear (in a podcast) anything from JVL since, actually living up to his commitment to call Israel out for this specific conduct.
It's therefore kinda difficult for JVL to proudly state that Bulwark contributors are aware of their "epistemic blindspots", when JVL in particular has repeatedly ignored people pointing out this particular pro-Israeli bias (not just by me, but by many many other commentators).
It's also a little bizarre given that his respected colleague Will Saletan has repeatedly raised these same concerns about the Israeli government's conduct in this war. So I would ASSUME that JVL has read and/or listened to at least some of Saletan's content over the last two months. At this point even calling JVL's approach to Israel willful blindness would be a stretch.
I think they have stepped back from this topic. I am no expert on this subject or war/conflict in general, I just feel that the world should have learned by now other "default" actions besides "they came onto OUR LAND and killed x people, so we're gonna go onto THEIR LAND and kill double." Etc. We should all have a general respect for life & want to see conflicts resolved in ways that allow innocent people to start over & heal, instead of create deeper hate and despair. The current leadership in Israel does not bode well for resolution.
I have enjoyed your posts.
It's so very disappointing that this response is so predictable that I literally called it on October 8.
I did the math to show that October 7, 2023 wasn't just Israel's 9/11, it was faaaaar worse on a per capita adjustment, it was closer to 15 x 9/11 which is devastating. But I also cautioned that restraint was crucial so Israel didn't make the mistake of invading Iraq for no reason, or the various other abuses of human roghts that followed (e.g folks have been in GITMO without trial and/or charges even laid, for over 2 decades).
And I also used the example of using air strikes which kill entire wedding parties, etc. which rather than help Israeli security, make it more perilous (effective recruiting tool).
And thank you, I'm glad someone is reading my posts!
Horrendous fact is that last week, Palestinian Gaza resident death numbers hit 20k. I did the math, means that over the course of 74 days, Gaza has been hit with the per capita equivalent of 13 x 9/11's EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Which gets us to this absolutely horrendous figure: 74 x 13 = 962
Meaning that as of last week, Palestinians in Gaza had experienced the equivalent of 962 September 11's.
I think Springsteen’s crowds are waaaay bigger than Trump’s. Bigly hudge (is that how he spells huge? Best as I can approximate how he says it, tho notice how he never says it anymore?).
Thanks for the morning songfest. I’m going to be rockin’ all day long!! Cuz Santa Claus is comin’ … to town! 🎵
I think it's actually "yudge".
"The Bulwark is home to a fairly broad spectrum of political views."
Which are, unfortunately, embraced by a small minority of voters. On one hand, the claim that one is either a full-blown MAGA or "radical leftist" (of which "RINOs" are apparently the worst kind) is an absurd caricature. But sadly the great majority of voters do favor one of those stereotypes. In part that is forced by the 2-party system - this "RINO" will be voting straight blue as long as MAGAs have any significant power. But it's also because the great majority of voters vote more on emotion than reason, and thus refuse to see that sometimes (nearly always in my 52 years of voting) one must make hard, uncomfortable choices, and not succumb to the feel-good "sales pitches" of politicians who care only about their own instant gratification, not the long-term health of our country.
I often want to say (scream) that I'm not anti-Republican but anti-Trump. But as the case of Majewski and Riedel shows, perhaps some in the party might suggest that there is no difference: To be anti-Trump is to be anti-Republican. The question of our time then is, "How do we fix this?"
My view is that there is no difference between being anti-Trump (anti MAGA) and anti-Republican. The GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary of MAGA/TFG.
The GOP is like a windshield with a crack in it. At some point the crack is too big to be repaired, and the windhield needs to be replaced. Sadly, I think we have passed that point.
Again we're back to the freedom of speech debate. The $10K Ford Lightning "anecdote" is either a lie, a logical extension of political speech and campaign embellishment, or both at once. There is no clear legal line between the freedom to express an opinion and the point at which it becomes fraud, denying voters the opportunity to make informed choices on candidates and issues. Hence, after a few cycles of Fox News and Newsmax, people who can't by a house because of interest rates but then buy a boat as consolation feel deprived, decide the economy is tanking and blame Biden. There oughtta be a law...
There are definitely laws against lying about Ford! It's just that nobody is going to enforce them.
Love the Pitch Perfect reference in the foot notes, JVL. 😍
Thank you!
Thanks for the George Will article. Love The Boss!!!
One of my colleagues told me that she had to pay 160 dollars for fillet minon for 8 people this year for the Christmas dinner. It was 50 dollars a year ago, she said. The inflation is terrible and we are all ruined because of Biden according to her. I don't eat much red meat, but I know you could not buy fillet minon for 8 people just for 50 bucks a year ago. It seems thay these MAGA people, Fox news and GOPs think it is acceptable to lie to make their point? Facts are just inconvenient for them.
George Will got me interested in baseball because of his superlative Men At Work, never mind his politics, which I don’t share. I think he might revise his stance on The Boss were he to revisit it today, but the mental picture of him at the concert in a double breasted blazer and bow tie was sublime. Thanks for the share, JVL.
David Frum's piece in The Atlantic made this very point....about the "Undernews" that builds and supports the bigger lies.
A few (lengthy) comments (lengthy because this is a real sore point with me)….
Note: I have no journalism background and no affiliation with any media company. So my takes on the inner workings of the media can certainly be taken with a grain of salt. And I don’t mean to imply that the mainstream media doesn’t have some bad apples or never does something wrong. But I believe that they tend to self-correct for the reasons that I give below. It isn’t 100% to 0%, but it’s nowhere near 50 – 50.
1) There is a bad and a worse side to this issue. The bad side can be summed up by the phrase “both sides do it”. When I hear someone say that I assume that they don’t have anything relevant to add to the conversation and just want to move on. But it is also an admission of laziness. It’s just easier to say that than to actually think about how accurate it might be (the degree to which “both sides do it” is not nearly the same for all issues).
But whether born of apathy or laziness, “both sides do it” is an attempt to create a false equivalency between the conservative and “other” media (basically any major news organization not named Fox or OANN or Gateway Pundit or Newsmax). But there is certainly no equivalency to be found.
Every news organization is going to have some bias. It’s not possible to be alive and not have some bias. So if you watch MSNBC and Fox, you will see both of them cover stories that make the “other side” look bad. And they both occasionally make factual mistakes. But there is one huge difference between these two sides. The folks in the “other” media may be biased, but they don’t make stuff up (or so severely twist reality that it might as well be made up).
And why should this be? I believe it’s because of two reasons. The people who work at the “other” media have an internal compass that requires that they be as honest as they can be. It’s what is expected of them. They really care about getting it right, even, as JVL has pointed out, down to the small and sometimes seemingly irrelevant details. They have journalistic integrity.
On the other hand, I have heard Hannity twice say that he isn’t a journalist, he’s a talk-show host. I’ve never heard him answer what that means. Does it mean that we aren’t supposed to take anything he says seriously? Does it mean that he doesn’t bother to try to present an accurate picture? Whatever it means to him, it sure doesn’t sound much like journalistic integrity. And Glenn Beck’s catchphrase is “The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment”. One has to wonder where the “entertainment” ends and the “enlightenment” begins.
The second reason is because of their audiences. I believe that, by and large, consumers of the “other” media want a reasonably accurate story. And they will hold those providing inaccurate or patently false stories in low regard (as they should). They will lose significant credibility. And they might very well lose their jobs.
The conservative media folks look at things differently. They know their audience and they know that their audience isn’t all that interested in facts or a true telling of the tale. They know that their audience just wants someone to repeat some conspiracy theory. The “facts” that are used to back up the story don’t matter all that much. All that matters is that someone has made them feel good by attacking the election or Biden or Clinton or The Deep State or the DOJ or the FBI or George Soros or ….
Two examples come to mind. The first one is the defamation lawsuit e-mails in which the nabobs at Fox (Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson) knowingly broadcast a story that they themselves didn’t believe (and when I say “didn’t believe” I mean they thought it was nuts). And those same e-mails documented their worry about losing viewership. But their concern about lost viewership wasn’t because they were afraid that their audience would find out they were lying to them. It was because they weren’t lying ENOUGH to them. They knew that they needed to up their game by lying even more (remember Carlson trying to get some Fox staffer fired because she “fact checked” (in this case a euphemism for “telling the truth) some tweet from Trump).
The second example is Chris Stirewalt whose duties at Fox included making accurate election predictions and beating the competition. And he was fired for (wait for it) making an accurate election prediction and beating the competition. And that was because his prediction angered Trump and the Trumplicant base (the fact that he was right didn’t enter into the equation). So when faced with a choice between truth and placating their viewers, Fox chose journalistic dishonor (as did their viewers).
I guess I could throw in JVL’s example of David Asman saying that a Ford F-150 Lightning could be had for $10K. Why would he say that? Because a large part of Fox’s audience either doesn’t like electric vehicles per se or doesn’t like them because Biden is pushing them. And if Biden is for something, they must be against it. And people like Asman must cater to them. For Newsmax is always waiting in the wings.
And his promise to provide the telephone number of the person who could back up the $10K claim reminds me of Jenna Ellis’s response to Rusty Bowers’ request to see the evidence of voter fraud that she and Giuliani claimed they had: “I didn’t bring it with me”.
These examples show that Fox isn’t a “news” network; it is a “narrative” network.
What this boils down to is this: the “other” media folks care first and foremost about getting the story right. Impact on their audience is a secondary concern. And they have the force of their audiences to help keep them in line. Conservative media has it backwards. They care more about the audience impact and less about getting the story right. And they have the force of their audience pushing them in the wrong direction.
The worse aspect of this issue is the fact that most of the conservative media viewers believe that it is the conservative media that is the source of truth and light, and it is the “other” media that is lying to us. It used to be SOP on either Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s show to hear callers claim that he is “the only one telling us the truth”. It’s “Alice-in-Wonderland” journalism.
2) A lot of the above applies to politicians as well as the media and their audiences. Just as with the media, both Republicans and Democrats will spin things to make themselves look better. But the major difference is that the Democrats don’t just make stuff up. Last week, JP reported that Jim Jordan claimed that Devon Archer didn’t say that Joe Biden had nothing to do with Hunter Biden’s businesses – a claim that is contradicted by the official transcript of Archer’s testimony. Think that Jim Jordan didn’t know that was a lie? Or that he will lose any credibility with the Trumplicant base because he lied?
But a guy like Riedel who tells the truth – that can’t be allowed.
and all of what you describe tells us why we dont hear the democrat messaging that Sarah and others are looking for. Where do they do it? And how does boring, true stuff overcome sensational, arousing, untrue comments?
One of the most distressing parts of the Trump era to me is that it represents the triumph of emotion over logic. The idea that emotional stories carry more weight is not new ("if it bleeds, it leads") but Trump has taken it to a new level. And as long as the cult of Trump remains, there is simply no reaching the true cultists. And Fox et. al. isn't going to help bring any real information to those folks. They are a lost cause. I continue to hope that the marginal Trump supporter (the "I'll-hold-my-nose-and-vote-for-Trump" person) can be persuaded next year with the pertinent data.
Any and all Republicans are more than happy to speak out in support Trump vile message. Yet Democrats done seem fazed by their narrative. Where is Jeffries, Pelosi, AOC, Schumer…?
Why isn’t there an investigation into the missing top secrets binder? Where is Merrick Garland? Except Jack Smith’s appointment…crickets…no admonishment to the Speker for opening abetting the criminals at the capital by advocating blurring their faces…isn’t that the crime of aiding and abetting?
Why wasn’t Jordan not censured(at least) for not complying with a house subpoena to come before the Jan 6 committee? Why is Louis DeJoy still post master general…allowing him to subotage our mail service? As Tucker would say:’Just Asking.”
Thanks so much for including George Will’s column about Bruce Springsteen. As someone who came of age listening to Pat Boone, Elvis and The Platters (and later the early Beatles), I was too busy raising kids and grading papers to listen to music during the Springsteen era. I definitely appreciate the exposure to someone who is truly one of America’s music icons.
The song contest today is like watching Colorado School of Mines vs. Kutztown. Inspiring on Kutztown's part, but the outcome was never in any doubt.