It was Prof. Mayer’s head-exploding op-ed for USA Today that made me start thinking about how often alleged “authorities” stick their whole legs down their own throats. Unlike the late Cleveland Amory’s misfire regarding the Pythons, Mayer’s “expert” analysis of the current 2024 Presidential election scenario qualifies as malpractice, an abuse of authority triggered by an epic case of the Bias Makes You Stupid Disease. It is also another of what promises to be an accelerating stampede of panicked outbursts from the Trump Deranged in the news media and academia.
The headline signals this guy’s lack of perspective and objectivity immediately: “How Biden Can Save America From Trump’s Return To The White House: Drop Out of the Race.” The claim that Trump is an existential danger to democracy is a dishonest, despicable Democratic party talking point concocted on the theory that fear-mongering is the party’s best chance. It did the same thing in 2016, you may recall: I’ll never forget speaking with a formerly rational lawyer friend in Massachusetts who was near tears after the election, terrified for her year-old baby’s future, certain that the Orange Devil would start World War III. Funny: in four years, Trump didn’t get the U.S involved in any wars at all. Biden, however…
The screed continues with equally batty analysis, denial and gaslighting:
- “Biden could announce, anytime this summer, that he’s out. He could use the same logic that got him the nomination in 2020. He sincerely and accurately believed that he was the Democrat with the best chance to beat Trump. Now, he is one of the few national Democrats who could get Trump reelected.”
What? Where did this guy that idea? The reason Biden got the nomination in 2020 is because it was obvious that even in the throes of an economic collapse from the pandemic, the alternatives to Biden were likely to lose to Trump. He continues, “If Democrats were to nominate Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, he’d beat Trump like LeBron James posting up Kevin Hart. There are many others, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. Trump would look old and unhinged next to their youthful competence and sober characters.” That’s hilarious! I doubt that one in a hundred non-Pennsylvania voters know who Josh Shapiro is. Mayer directs directs the George Mason masters and PhD program in political science, and that’s the quality of his analysis? He actually believes the Democrats, as anti-Semitism roils their party, will nominate a pol named Shapiro?
Nobody who watched the 2020 candidate debates thinks Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar are Presidential material; I don’t think either is Postmaster General material. Gretchen Whitmer proved herself to be a fascist during the pandemic. Mayer proves the opposite of his own point by showing how weak the Democrat’s bench behind Biden is.
- “[W]hile Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls worse against Trump than Biden does, would have been a serious threat to take the nomination in open primaries, there is no chance a convention of Biden delegates would select her. They want to beat Trump too badly to take that risk.”
Harris cries “Racist!” and “Sexist!” at the drop of a hat: having to reject her in an ugly convention fight would sink the Democratic chances faster than the “Hood” went down after it was hit by the “Bismark’s” shelling. Who is this guy, and what is he doing teaching political science?
- “Biden has had, by most standard measures, a pretty successful presidency. But he’s being blamed for high inflation, the U.S. troops withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza”
A Presidency that oversees a huge increase in inflation, unprecedented illegal immigration, a collapse in trust in the government and law enforcement and foreign policy disasters on multiple fronts isn’t a “pretty successful Presidency” by any standards unless you are Jill Biden, Rob Reiner, or Joy Behar. Nobody lets them teach political science. Joe’s being blamed for the U.S. troops withdrawal from Afghanistan because he unilaterally withdrew the troops from Afghanistan!
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“An open Democratic convention would make great TV. Modern conventions are scripted and boring affairs that struggle to get viewers. An open convention with delegates rooting for Harris, Whitmer, Shapiro and others would be amazing TV. The nation would be spellbound by great floor speeches, unexpected endorsements from politicians and celebrities, rallies, music and marches.”
Again I must ask, who is this idiot? Even as it is, the Democratic National convention this summer threatens to be a repeat of the disastrous 1968 convention, also in Chicago. That was great TV too, and it lost Hubert Humphrey the election to a politician at least as unpopular as Donald Trump. I’ll add history to political science as among the disciplines Mayer isn’t qualified to represent, much less teach.
I wonder what he thinks of Monty Python?
Ethics Alarms 
“A Presidency that oversees a huge increase in inflation, unprecedented illegal immigration, a collapse in trust in the government and law enforcement and foreign policy disasters on multiple fronts isn’t a “pretty successful Presidency” …”
You are forgetting that the Democrats hate America. They have for at least 40 years. He is correct that, for Democrats, all the things you listed are the characteristics of a ‘pretty successful Presidency’. Why did they hate Trump? Well, I have things to do in the next 10 years, so lets go with ‘He actually likes the US’. It wasn’t the only reason, but after the ‘He didn’t get permission from the ruling class’ and ‘He isn’t a member of the ruling class’, ‘Liking America’ probably the #3 reason. Why do you think Democrats treat MAGA as a forbidden hateful concept? They hate America.
All the things that you see as terrible, they see as wonderful. For them, today’s San Francisco or Seattle or Portland, or Detroit…is what the US deserves.
Amen, Brother.
I’ve actually been predicting for some time that Democrats would change candidates, most likely at their convention. I think they’ll most likely go for Gavin Newsome, or else tap a Hollywood celebrity with little or no political experience but big name recognition. Whitmer is a possibility -yes, she went full fascist during the pandemic, but to them that’s a selling point.
So why spend months beclowning themselves by pretending Biden isn’t senile, that his policies are successful, that he’s really popular (no matter what those pesky voters think)? To shut down the primaries. That’s really the only reason I can see. The DNC wants to hand-pick the candidate. At their convention, they can manage that – they make the rules. You can rest assured an “open” convention would be anything but. How is this democratic? It’s not, but again that’s a feature, not a bug to them.
Hey, I could be wrong. Predictions are tricky that way. But I couldn’t help but so far the DNC messaging has been turning exactly that way on approximately the right timetable.
My wife and I had a long weekend drive (1100+ miles) returning from the kids’ place to mull over a lot of things. She predicted that Joe Biden would be replaced at the Convention, and I told her she was crazy…then after more thought and discussion, I revised my answer to she was not crazy.
But such a move is perilous. The Republican Party leadership – if it’s smart, which is a legitimate question – could try to make a lot of political hay out of such a move. I can see ads now: the Democratic party, which labels Republicans as “threats to democracy”, rejects the will of millions of caucus/primary votes and dictates to its constituents the party candidate. Sure, the DNC already does that (especially in 2016 and 2020), but never in a move so blatantly “third-world” in nature.
If such a move were to happen, I predict it will involve a “sudden illness” that briefly incapacitates the President…probably a “minor stroke.” That makes the most sense given the President’s already decrepit mental condition. It will be presented such that the President has to rest for a few days, but is still fully capable to perform his duties as C-i-C. This prevents VP Harris from making any move. It will be announced that President Biden will serve out his term, but has decided not to seek re-election due to health concerns. This announcement also garners an immediate outpouring of sympathy from Democrats (and a few Republicans)…and anyone who smells a phony rat is instantly tarred and feathered as a “heartless hater of a political icon, clearly worn from years of tireless, dedicated service to his country.” This may also chop my previous thoughts of GOP “hay-making” off at the knees.
In addition, I would wager a significant “hush money” payment (now isn’t THAT a saucy twist of irony) from the DNC to the Biden family to secure its buy-in, along with all charges against Hunter quietly fading away.
What’s still nebulous involves VP Harris. What happens with her? If the Party wants Biden out, I have to believe they want Harris out even more.
Just my thoughts, chew carefully before swallowing…
This guy’s actually IN a Monty Python. He’s the guy who gets rejected by the guy in the Department of Funny Walks with a chirpy, “Sorry, we’ve already got that one.”
Why would a university professor want to pose for a photo looking like Bill Murray?
I was wondering who would comment on that photo. Thanks. I had to wrestle myself to the floor to resist doing it myself.
As an inveterate wearer of hats due to lack of hair and an abundance of sun exposure as a child, I have a hard time understanding why so many guys enthusiastically wear bad hats.
What? Where did this guy that idea? The reason Biden got the nomination in 2020 is because it was obvious that even in the throes of an economic collapse from the pandemic, the alternatives to Biden were likely to lose to Trump.
I think that quote is the only part of his analysis that Mason got right.
To paraphrase FDR, you can take on my credentials, my arguments, my biases…but when you criticize my HAT…oh hell no!
🙂
Thanks for the critique. Let me respond to some of the better points. First, yes, Biden was picked in 2020 because he was the best…THEN. And for the record, the Democrats picked him over many people of color, so the argument that they will automatically be forced to pick Kamala is wrong, particularly if it is at a Convention. If Biden gets out because he’s polling behind Trump, I very much doubt a convention made up of Biden supporters will pick someone polling lower than Biden. They want to WIN. True, she’s a sitting VP now, and if she runs, there will be awkward dances and it could all go wrong. But I think it’s a risk worth taking for the Ds.
So why isn’t Biden best now? Because of our polarized political environment, the hatred against him is epic. He’s accused of everything under the sun, from corruption to (in these very comments) “hating America.” Well. This takes care quite nicely of the “nobody knows Josh Shapiro argument” which is factually true, but blind to how the modern media environment works. Trump understands that. The old rules are dead. Yes, an unknown dark horse with zero national name recognition would be a disastrous convention pick…in 1988. Today, it would be riveting. And yes, Dems would have no trouble picking a Jew. A few would be uneasy, but most of them already did that with Sanders in 2016. Also, as shown by Schumer’s hard speech on Bibi–a Jewish D can actually say things that non-Jews can’t get away with.
Successful presidency? Passing infrastructure, stimulus, the chip bill, through a deeply polarized Congress? Incredibly low unemployment? Record high stock market? The international alliance he has assembled in defense of Ukraine, including South Korea and Japan? It’s amazing, and will be studied for years. It surely hasn’t been without poor policy choices, political errors, Hunter Biden, and other mistakes, but compared to the daily shitshow that was the Trump administration, this is a remarkably competent WH.
Let the roasting begin! 🙂
Thanks, Professor, for a vigorous and good humored rebuttal, if not one I can buy. Still, valuable discourse, and it speaks well for you, George Mason, and your integrity. Kudos.
Hey, we aren’t disagreeing about matters of fact, and that’s refreshing. Nothing I said is certainly true–it’s all opinion and quite subjective. I may well be wrong. A convention nominee might be terrible. We might find out awful things about the candidate because they didn’t go through vetting by the media. Threesomes, pet abuse, eating pizza with a fork, other unforgivable things might come out about Shapiro. And there would definitely be GOP attacks on the “boss” or elite selection of a candidate. The Dems would have to have messaging to respond. But taking a quick spin through the archives here, it seems to be very anti-Biden, saying he is incompetent, senile, corrupt, hates America etc. So, for the good of the nation, if for no other reason, shouldn’t people who think like that want Biden to be replaced by someone better? After all, any major party nominee except the most awful starts out with a minimum 40% chance of winning the election. I remember I had Dem friends in 2016 who swore they were going to vote for Trump in the VA Republican primary because he was so awful that he would guarantee a Hillary victory. I told them that was a really bad idea, because if you truly think Trump is an idiot, bigot, etc (fascist wasn’t yet the word of choice for DJT), you should hope that someone better is the nominee. Because he just might win…(I’m not a great prognosticator–I was on TV saying HRC would almost certainly win. But in March 2016, I knew he had a chance.)
I also erred in not acknowledging that USA Today requires its opinion columns to be edited down so that a 7th grade drop-out could read them. I’ve noticed this with other usually erudite and nuanced pundits and writers: their essays in that publication are oddly simplified, prosaic, out of character. It would probably be best if I ruled USA Today pieces exempt from critiques that may be based on the restrictions of the platform
This is very true, and much of the hate mail I’ve received from the left and the right (and of the 60+ op-eds I’ve written over the years, this had the most hate emails. Either this piece is more topical/shitty or the internet is getting more toxic?) could be answered simply by me saying “if I’d written a 1500 word essay, I’d have included your historical counter example/potential downside/nuanced complication” USA Today is barely getting by, and the op-ed world is so different than when I wrote my first one in 1996. Back then, I could get paid 200 or 250 by the Detroit News for an oped. Today, I can’t get 150 from USA Today or the Hill or Politico. Content is everywhere, and of little value. Platforms are omnipresent. So USA Today has its niche and that is quite short tart observations without excess history or nuance. Get ready for AI written op-eds, I’m sure it’s already here.
Yes, what can be done about this, Jeremy (if I may call you that)? We want the middle-of-the stream readers of a publication like USA Today to read and learn from opinions by scholars and other credentialed experts, but to get these to that audience they have to be stripped of nuance, precision of language and crucial references, greatly reducing their informative value while misrepresenting the authors.
I’m not sure it’s as bad as all that. I don’t feel misrepresented by the piece. I think to a certain extent it has always been this way. The moral panic new technology inevitably induces must be resisted. When I wrote for the New York Daily News 15 years ago, it was a different approach than Politico. It reminds me of writing a textbook. You need to have a level of complexity appropriate to your audience. But yes, if the entire space of media gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, that’s bad. Sometimes when I read the Federalist Papers, it still stuns me that it was published in a newspaper. But an elitist would observe that literacy rates were lower, and fewer people consumed the media on a weekly basis. And even back then, there were broadsheets, the Twitter of the day, that were far less complex, simpler grammar, ideas, and vocabulary.
Oh, and I’m Jerry to friends, Jeremy is what I publish under.
I’d say USA Today is a special case. Many years ago I would read it on the road (it was free at hotels) Then I didn’t see the paper for about ten years, and was shocked at how much it had been dumbed down and stripped of content in the interim. It makes the NY Post look like the Federalist Papers! Communicating on complex topics and difficult controversies using simple language is an art, and one that it is difficult to master if one is not called upon to do it frequently. One of the most remarkable aspects of Clarence Darrow’s courtroom oratory is how he used language his mostly blue collar, working-class jurors could understand while presenting extremely sophisticated concepts and arguments (as in the Ossian Sweet case). I get complaints for using cultural references my ethics classes don’t understand, and these are all graduate degree-holders.
I had the exact same experience with USA Today. Picked it up one day after a long time away, it was always an inadequate substitute for the Wpost or the NYTimes, my jam, but its news coverage in the last 10 years is just so basic as to be almost unbearable. BUT but but but….still better than getting your news from FB or Twitter as so many do. USA Today still tries to be objective, and that’s important. Nothing human can escape bias, but giving up is worse than occasionally failing.
Nothing human can escape bias, but giving up is worse than occasionally failing.
Aptly put, Jerry. I’ll have to recite that every day.
And smart people like you should definitely know better.
Thank you Jerry! I agree and have been pretty shocked that Jack doesn’t know better either.
It’s been extremely puzzling.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “…we aren’t disagreeing about matters of fact, and that’s refreshing. Nothing I said is certainly true–it’s all opinion and quite subjective.”
That’s exactly what I thought when I read your USA Today piece and why I didn’t comment on it, after all everyone is welcome to their opinion but not their facts.
Trump was successful on some things and Biden was successful on some things, defining a successful presidency is quite subjective. All presidents are successful in one way or another where almost every success they have in the 21st century is attacked as some kind of demonic evil by the opposing side. Every success has an stringent opposition, it’s a no win situation for all presidents.
I get the sense that you really dislike Trump, so do I. I’ve never voted for Trump and I’ve stated that “it would take an unpredictable act of God, an extraordinary turn of events, for me to vote for Trump in the 2024 general election and the same can be said for Biden”. I’m an independent that leans Conservative. Now that that’s out of the way, I have a statement and a couple of questions based on that statement.
STATEMENT
Trump was POTUS for four years and the sky didn’t fall as the Democrats predicted, the United States survived a Trump presidency just fine. What I observed in those four years of a Trump presidency is that when the Democrats could have easily been the adults in the room, they chose pure divisional politics, flushed their ethics and morals down the porcelain God, headed down a path that has the tell tale signs of hating what makes the United States of America what it is, and leaning heavily towards some irrational form of totalitarianism. It’s been observed that a wide swath of the 21s century loudest Democrats and their progressive army of activists seem hate the United States of America, yes they literally hate (feel intense or passionate dislike for) the USA. They hate that the 1st Amendment applies to everyone, they hate ethical journalism, they hate the concept of innocent until proven guilty, they hate the justice system and anyone or anything that supports it and insert their cancel culture to destroy those they disagree with , they seem to hate civility, they hate the police, they hate anyone that opposes their ideology, they hate a Constitution that dares to allow others to oppose their ideology, they hate that our basic freedoms and Liberty allow some people to make more money than others, they hate that those they oppose have any rights – they project a belief in rights for me but not for thee, they hate the fact that equal opportunity doesn’t equate to equal outcomes, they hate our system of education and seem to what to indoctrinate students, they hate that all our history (both good and bad) make us what we are today, they hate the status quo, they hate, Hate, HATE. Their hate is a malignant cancer to our society, our way of life i.e. our culture, and our country and their “ends justifies the means” anti-American ideology viewpoints are growing like a cancer across the entire spectrum of our society. The moderates in the Democratic Party seem to be taking a back seat and keeping quiet while they let the loud mouth activists push their agendas right over the proverbial cliff and the heart of the Democratic Party is following them. The political left has shown us its pattern of propaganda lies within their narratives so many times, especially since 2015, that it’s beyond me why anyone would blindly accept any narrative that the political left, their lapdog Pravda-USA media, their woke consumed bureaucracy, or their activist supporters actively push. In a nut shell; when the political left could have done the right thing after Trump was elected, instead they chose pure hate and an ends justifies the means tactic. So now here we are, the where the left actively suppresses the truth or calls it a conspiracy theory and they push truth-be-damned false propaganda narratives. A Representative Democracy cannot survive these unethical and immoral tactics.
Remember I’m also welcome to my opinion. 😉
QUESTIONS
What would you recommend the political left do if Trump happens to be elected again?
Do you think they should repeat the same kind of pure divisional politics, more flushing of their ethics and morals down the porcelain God and continue their truth-be-damned propaganda tactics they have been using since 2015?
Is it Trump himself that’s a threat to democracy (remember we survived him once) or is it the unethical and immoral reaction to Trump as POTUS that’s a threat to democracy?
Hi Steve,
Are you familiar with the work of Ornstein and Mann over the last twenty years? Great scholars, one at AEI, the other at Brookings. They write about Congress. Congress has been increasingly polarized and gridlocked. Unlike your comment, their work documents how it happens on BOTH sides. Republicans gum up the works and over investigate, and refuse to cooperate, when a D is in the WH. Democrats do the same. But using examples, they show that this polarization began on the Right, and is still worse on the right than it is on the left. Let me illustrate with an example. Every president in the modern era has had to raise the debt ceiling. It’s absolutely essential to our global economic survival, and to the ongoing role of the dollar as the fiat currency for most global transactions. When Trump was president, the Democrats largely supported raising the debt ceiling. When Biden was president, not so for Republicans in the House and Senate. True, Democrats did impeach Trump for the quid pro quo attempt with Zelensky. But Republicans have been just a few votes away from impeaching Biden since the start of his presidency–and for what? Impeaching Mayorkas for…what exactly? Even the GOP’s own legal expert testified that it was a policy dispute, which was not what we have ever impeached someone for. So do Democrats see Trump as a threat to democracy? Well, yes, but name me another president in the modern era who 1) refused to attend his successor’s inauguration 2) implied before the election that if he lost, it was rigged 3) when he lost, made implausible claims about fraud 4) continued to make them even when more than 60 courts found no evidence of fraud large enough to even begin to change the outcome 5) called on his followers to attend a rally on the day of the count 6) encouraged them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” (but “peacefully” he said) 7) when they were emphatically NOT peaceful Trump waited hours, as people called him, begged him, to call of his dogs. He did nothing for hours. So yeah, I think he’s a threat to the peaceful exchange of power. And if you think the election of 2020 was rigged, do you also think the Neilsen’s were when his show didn’t get the top honor? He said they were rigged when he didn’t win. Did you think the Iowa Caucuses were rigged in 2016? He said they were rigged when he didn’t win. When he didn’t get an approval for one of his casinos back in the day, he said the process was rigged. Do you see the pattern here?
There’s an even deeper reason Trump is a threat to democracy–the passion he inspires. His followers LOVE him so intensely. Nobody loves Biden like that. No one even loved Obama like that. He was popular, and charismatic, but Democrats didn’t say “if Obama says it, it’s gospel.” When members of Congress on the D side stood up to Obama on an issue, he didn’t set out to destroy them. He didn’t demand the kind of loyalty that Trump does. Anyone, on the left or the right, who inspires that level of passion in a democracy, is quite a dangerous person. Democracy only works with accountability. What saved us in Watergate was Republicans like Goldwater who went up to Nixon and said, you lied. You have to go. We’re not going to stop impeachment. The next day, Aug 9, he resigned.
jdkazoo123,
Thanks for your reply.
Your reply contains #1, “Everybody Does It.” unethical rationalization.
I think you addressed my third question with the following…
1) So you think that “refusing to attend his successor’s inauguration” makes Trump a threat to Democracy, seriously?
2) So you think that because Trump “implied before the election that if he lost, it was rigged” makes him a threat to Democracy, seriously? Is Trump not welcome to his own opinion like you and I.
On that note; do you realize that in multiple states they were changing how elections took place without going through the process of properly changing state election laws in the state legislatures or amending state constitutions, that looks a bit like “rigging” the process doesn’t it?
I remember one report of a lawsuit somewhere where someone (a group I think) sued the state because they were changing how the elections were going to take place and the court told them that it they couldn’t sue because they hadn’t actually done anything wrong yet, then after the state did it they sued again but the court told them it was too late to do anything to change the election do it was dismissed, I think. I’ve recently tried to find this report and I can’t find it.
3) So you think that “when [Trump] lost, made implausible claims about fraud” makes him a threat to Democracy? Seriously? Are you willing to expand that very narrow view of free speech rhetoric being a threat to Democracy across the board and include Nation wide Democrats because there is a clear double standard on political rhetoric in this nation. Trump made some of those claims based on the facts that the states had changed how elections took place in states without properly changing their election laws – I live in one of those states.
4) Then Trump “continued to make them even when more than 60 courts found no evidence of fraud large enough to even begin to change the outcome”, very pointed question – isn’t Trump just like you and I in the fact that we are both welcome to our opinion and are freely able to express that opinion? Seriously? Are you willing to expand that very narrow view of free speech rhetoric being a threat to Democracy across the board and include Nation wide Democrats because there is a clear double standard on political rhetoric in this nation.
5) Then Trump “called on his followers to attend a rally on the day of the count”, not a rally, THE HORROR! and this supposedly makes him a threat to Democracy, seriously? Are you willing to expand that very narrow view of free speech rhetoric being a threat to Democracy across the board and include Nation wide Democrats because there is a clear double standard on political rhetoric in this nation.
6) Then he “encouraged them to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” (but “peacefully” he said)” Trump has the exact same freedom of speech as the rest of us, even if you and/or I don’t like what comes out of his unethical loose cannon mouth; threat to Democracy because of this, seriously? Are you willing to expand that very narrow view of free speech rhetoric being a threat to Democracy across the board and include Nation wide Democrats because there is a clear double standard on political rhetoric in this nation.
7) Lastly, “when they were emphatically NOT peaceful Trump waited hours, as people called him, begged him, to call of his dogs. He did nothing for hours.” This is a sticky wicket for Trump but it certainly doesn’t make him a personal threat to Democracy.
On that note, neither you or I know 100% of the details surrounding this because the impeachment inquiry was clearly a political witch hunt that suppressed things that might defend Trump and anyone to claim to know all the details is a bald-faced liar.
Conclusion; you think Trump is a threat to democracy based on the examples you provided and I do not even though I really, really dislike and don’t support the man.
Please answer my other two questions.
jdkazoo123 asked, “Are you familiar with the work of Ornstein and Mann over the last twenty years?”
I can’t say that I am. It’s quite possible hat I’ve been exposed to it but haven’t correlated their names with it yet.
I forgot to mention this very important thing in my previous comment…
jdkazoo123 wrote, “There’s an even deeper reason Trump is a threat to democracy–the passion he inspires.”
I consider that statement to be signature significant.
Maybe you should consider taking accountability for the implicit bias that caused you to write that absurdly ridiculous nonsense.
Anyone with any leadership knowledge, training, or experience knows full well that leaders are supposed to use values to inspire passion. These are foundational cores that leaders use to get things done. It has take great leaders to inspire passion in we the people to build and grow the United States of America.
I don’t care one bit if you don’t like Trumps rhetorical methods or not and I’m not saying he is an effective leader and I don’t think he is overall, what I’m pointing out is the absolute absurdity of your statement.
jdkazoo123,
Your “passion.. inspires” statement give me the impression that you’re scared to death of your fellow Americans who happen to be Republicans, so afraid that you fear passion being inspired in them, that’s roughly half of we the people! If that’s true then…
Seriously?
Are you completely blind to the verifiable facts over the last 10+ years that Republicans are the ones that are and have been preaching law and order as Democrats and progressives have set fire to buildings, defunded police, and rioted in the streets all across the USA because they’re irrational, pissed-off, immature snowflakes that can’t effectively explain why the fuck they’re rioting but seem to think they have the right to destroy property, steal what doesn’t belong to them and create general chaos.
The Founders, particularly Madison and Hamilton, were very specific about their opposition to passion in politics. They contrasted it with reason. It was one of the reasons they were unanimously opposed to political parties–they didn’t want voters or elites to pick policies based on tribalism and loyalty, but reason. That was proven to be utopian before Washington’s first term was over, but their opposition to passionate followers of leaders remained their entire lives. And in the long history of the Republic, no president has ever inspired the passion we see in Trump’s followers. Reagan was LOVED, FDR even more. But neither had such a large following who said “if Trump is for it, I’m for it. If he’s against it, I’m against it.” Indeed, when FDR’s following got near those boundaries, it was Republicans who rang the alarm bell, citing the Founders. That’s what led to the 22nd amendment, as a check on a president who was too popular that he would be endlessly reelected and blindly supported. Trump, perhaps not surprisingly, has inspired epic levels of hate and disgust on the other side. He both reflects our polarization, and acts as an accelerant. You are very unhappy that the Ds didn’t give him a chance. There’s some truth to that. But–there’s never been a president in this era of polarization (going back to Reagan) who, upon inauguration, did not reach out to the other side. Trump did almost no gestures of bipartisanship. Biden did. Bushes did. Clinton did. Obama did. Trump did not. There was so much low hanging fruit lying around, particularly infrastructure. Trump’s plan was never fleshed out, never put up for a vote even. He made an excellent point about the insanity of our permitting process for large projects on the campaign trail in 2016. Did nothing about it in office. He promised, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to have his health care plan ready. “in two weeks” was his usual promise. Guess what–he made the same promise a few months ago. Still no health care plan. Those are the type of accomplishments that Biden has already made in less than 4 years. It’s not about having a Congress that is functional–it’s about having a White House that is functional, and a president who understands how policy is made, and how Washington works. Also, a president who doesn’t take record levels of vacation time, and the shortest work day as far back as records go. And don’t get me started on his disastrous management of Covid. I wrote a long article about it, it makes James Buchanan’s handling of the first hints of Civil War look Churchillian. Despite all these defects, his base was “wow, this is a great presidency!” Because Trump’s appeal is about identity and passion, not policy and competence. And much of that passion is anti-partisan. They HATE liberals and Democrats (many actually believe that Democrats hate America!) and they know Trump is the one most likely to drive Ds and libs crazy, so they are for him. They support him when he says X is right, even if yesterday he said X is wrong. Up is down. Russia is our friend. And so on.
Passion like Trump’s following would be a problem in any democracy. (incoming semantic argument about “we are a Republic, idiot!”)
jdkazoo123 wrote, “The Founders, particularly Madison and Hamilton, were very specific about their opposition to passion in politics.”
Not that it actually contradicts anything I wrote about leadership but please use Madison’s and Hamilton’s own words to support your claim.
I’m all for using critical thinking, logic, common sense, and reason over pure passion in its raw emotional state (strong and barely controllable emotion) which is what drove Democrats and “progressive” (that’s an oxymoron) activists into the streets to protest and ultimately riot across the USA; however, passion in its’ more functional non-emotional state (a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something) has a genuine purpose and is a basic necessity in leadership and politics, to deny this fact is irrational.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “no president has ever inspired the passion we see in Trump’s followers.”
That’s clearly your anti-Trump bias speaking. I’m going to guess that a person with vast historical knowledge of past Presidents would be able to directly counter that claim.
Onward…
But of course everything is Trump’s fault.
Personally I think that Obama, Trump, and Biden have ALL inspired the passion we currently see in Trump followers. Trump’s presidency would not have been possible if Obama hadn’t inspired the raw emotional passion from his “progressives” followers which in-turn inspired stringent opposition to the radical shift away from the moderate middle and towards the extreme political left during his presidency, don’t insult my intelligence by try to deny this. Biden and the political left have inspired that radical shift to fall over the edge of the proverbial cliff into pure anti-American and anti-Constitution absurdity. Not that I like it or approve of it, Trump is doing what all politicians seem to be doing in recent history, fanning the flames of opposition (of course when Trump does it it’s evil) but the passion has been generated by what the last two Democratic Party presidents have done to undermine our society, our culture, and our country.
The political left is just short of openly saying to Republicans…
It appears that the political left approves of passion as long as it supports their ideological shifts in our society and culture where any passion from the opposition against their ideological shift is dangerous and evil. Can’t you see the immoral double standards that are staring you in the face?
At this point in time I’d rather vote for complete government gridlock between the Democrats and the Republicans in Washington DC and accomplish damn near nothing in the next four years than to vote for Trump or Biden. We can easily survive government gridlock, and we could even survive another Trump or Biden presidency, we’ve done it before. It would take an unpredictable act of God, an extraordinary turn of events, for me to vote for Trump or Biden in the 2024 general election. Like the last two Presidential elections, I currently have no candidates to vote “for” only candidates to vote “against”. The last Presidential election I voted in was 2012 and I voted for Romney and a good portion of why is that I no longer trusted Obama at all.
I want a candidate to vote for.
Yeah, I hear you on the low enthusiasm for voting. The desire to vote FOR someone, rather than against someone, or for the less evil of two lessers.
On the other matters we’ve been dancing around, I think we are in two different epistemic tribes. You think Democrats hate America. I think that’s ridiculous poppycock. I don’t think Trump hates America, nor do his followers. They want to makes changes, like mass deportations, that would alter WHAT we are, but they are doing it out of a deep belief that this is better for America. The policies you abhor among the Democrats are similar. They marched about Floyd not because they wish to destroy America, beyond a very few anarchists and communists who opportunistically glom onto any passing tide. They wanted to make America better by reducing police brutality and racism. You may disagree with their goal or their methods but that’s not the same as HATING AMERICA. It would be easy to be comforted in our positions if we simply demonize those we disagree with. But the truth is, they are very similar to us–they just got on different epistemic and ideological streams years ago, then everything got polarized, and here we are. Hating each other.
Incidentally, while I do think the demonstrations went to far in a number of cities, and violence is always wrong, the data is pretty clear–most of the protests in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder were peaceful, and to the extent there was violence, it was demonstrably less than the major civil outbursts of the 1960s, per capita and in absolute terms.
We are also factually divided on the question of whether the passion for Trump is different from passions for other presidents. My first book was basically a work of history on campaigns from 60-2000, so I know that era best, but I also have some awareness of prior presidencies. I don’t think you could find a more passionate following than Trump’s in US history, certainly not recently. It reminds me of what FDR said about a Governor of Louisiana, a leftist populist who combined FDR’s New Deal liberalism with a demagogic power to raise people’s passion, a power FDR did not really have. When he died, FDR is alleged to have said “the most dangerous man in America just died.”
I do not think “everything is Trump’s fault.” I actually find Trump did several things well as president. His work on vaccines, when everyone said it would take 1.5-2 years, but he did it in 9 months, was truly astonishing, and he deserves credit. He also was, as someone noted, judicious and careful in the use of American forces abroad, which could not be said of most modern presidents. These are not small positives. This rhetorical trick, of placing far more extreme words in your opponents’ mouth than the ones that actually are coming from their pie holes, seems to be a common intellectual failing of yours. I don’t think everything is Trump’s fault. Democrats don’t HATE AMERICA!!!!!! But if you believe those things, you feel better about your own arguments. Stop arguing with an army of straw men of your own creation.
And here’s your Federalist Papers cites, on how Ham and Mad were really worried about passion in politics:
Fed 63 –Showing the necessity of a Senate to fight unwise passions in the people
Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the representatives of the people. To a people as little blinded by prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I shall not scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.
FED 49
Cautioning against appealing to the people too often, because of PASSION:
But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage to have the prejudices of the community on its side. The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society. Notwithstanding the success which has attended the revisions of our established forms of government, and which does so much honor to the virtue and intelligence of the people of America, it must be confessed that the experiments are of too ticklish a nature to be unnecessarily multiplied.
>>>>But still it could never be expected to turn on the true merits of the question. It would inevitably be connected with the spirit of pre-existing parties, or of parties springing out of the question itself. It would be connected with persons of distinguished character and extensive influence in the community. It would be pronounced by the very men who had been agents in, or opponents of, the measures to which the decision would relate. The PASSIONS, therefore, not the REASON, of the public would sit in judgment.
You can also see similar appeals to Reason over Passion, and warnings about demagoguery, in Federalist 10, 51, and 55.
Here’s a whole article about it. There are many. https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/02/16524/
jdkazoo123 wrote, “I do not think ‘everything is Trump’s fault.’ “
That was written specifically in response to your claim and not to be extrapolated to absurdity. Talk about being intellectually dishonest.
So tell me jdkazoo123, exactly how am I supposed to read this phrase you wrote, “no president has ever inspired the passion we see in Trump’s followers” other than the passion inspired is all Trump’s fault?
If you want to call that a strawman or putting words in your mouth then fine, be like that it you must, you’re welcome to your opinion, but seriously jdkazoo123.
I said Trump was both an accelerant and a symptom of polarization. That implies that it is not all of his doing. The passion is in part because we are all so filled with hatred these days. So filled that we imagine our opposition to be nearly Satanic, that they hate the country itself, and its values.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “I said Trump was both an accelerant and a symptom of polarization. That implies that it is not all of his doing.”
I read that statement in context with its previous sentence…
“Trump, perhaps not surprisingly, has inspired epic levels of hate and disgust on the other side. He both reflects our polarization, and acts as an accelerant.”
How was I to understand that that statement which was specifically talking about the “other side” was also supposed to be read in context to his inspiring passion on his own side which was the brief section before? Maybe you can understand my confusion in this regard. If I truly just misunderstood what you were writing, then I accept your explanation and apologize for my lack of understanding.
By the way, thanks for the quotes from the Federalist Papers, I think you supported your opinion.
At this point, I think it’s been a decent conversation and I think we’ve both written what we wanted to write so I’m willing to walk away, what say you?
Enjoyed being forced to think through these things and appreciated the chance to hear your takes. Thanks.
Don’t you think “accellerant” is a bit loaded? Traditionally, after an election, all Presidents are given at least a 75% approval rating, usually more, because the public acknowledges that the winner is the President, and the office deserves automatic respect and deference. trump was the first POTUS since Lincoln not to have that support. When Nixon was elected in 1868, Herb Block, the wildly Democratic biased cartoonist, famously gave Nixon a “shave,” resolving not to emphasize his 5-O’clock shadow going forward. It was a gesture that a clean slate followed an election, as it should and, I would say, must. Trump never got that. Hillary quickly declared herself part of “the resistance.” The Congressional Black Caucus boycotted the inauguration. Democrats tried to pull off a Electoral college coup. The attacks on Trump abated not at all. That was before President Trump DID anything. He could have been treated with respect, giving him at least a chance before being condemned. That he wasn’t was not because of Trump causing polarization any more than a conservative speaker on a college campus “causes” disruptive demonstrations. His existence and his election were polarizing, because his opponents decided they were. Talk about defying democratic “norms”!
You’re leaving out some key data points. Trump was treated with amazing respect by Obama on the day of the inauguration, even Trump commented about it at the time. Think about that for a moment. Trump rose to prominence by passing along a disgusting racist lie about Obama’s birth. A lie that contributed to the idea that he was a foreign element, an unlawful president. And yet…Obama welcomed him.
And your data is wrong about every president starting out with 75% approval. George W. Bush didn’t. Others have not. And those who did–did things Trump didn’t do. His inauguration speech was dark and not full of outreach and unifying. Similarly, he didn’t do the things that most modern presidents do after victory to reach out to the other side. Both Rs and Ds do those things. Trump didn’t. True, Trump didn’t create polarization. It’s not all his fault. The house of civility and bipartisanship was on fire when he got there. BUT–unlike every other president, including Biden, Bushes, and Obama…he poured gasoline on the fires of polarization. He was an accelerant. Just look at his words. Or his actions. He was picked in 2016 not because he was the most conservative, had good policies, knew the most. He was picked because he was a white hot ball of rage. Hard for that to change into Mr. Outreach. Remember we all kept waiting for him to morph into someone “presidential” ? Part of that was not at all stylistic–it was about treating the opposition with respect.
The Democrats tried to do a coup in 2016? Really? So you’re saying they got a mob together and tried to stop the electoral count being certified in Congress? That they faked up allegations of fraud in a number of states, even states that were blow outs for the R’s? That they lied about voting machines? That they filed bogus lawsuits EVERY SINGLE ONE OF WHICH was thrown out? Did they do stuff like that? I don’t think so. There were a few people who talked about impeaching Trump. There were others arguing about Russian intervention (which…um…happened? But didn’t invalidate Trump’s victory.) No coup. No coup attempt.
Trump could have been a seminal president, he could have built a coalition of pragmatists, if he had put down the torch of hatred and did the hard work of pushing stuff through a deeply polarized Congress. Among the reasons beyond what I gave above that he never did that is that he demonstrably, factually, the laziest man to ever sit in the White House. Shortest work day. Most vacations. More golf than any modern president. AND–he never did his homework. He never studied policies. He was very hard to brief. I spoke with an intel briefer who tried to brief him on a security threat in Turkey. He couldn’t listen for 2 minutes without interrupting to talk about his old possible real estate deals in Turkey. He had the attention span of a fruit fly for things that were not about TRUMP. And this is the guy you want to bring back?
“Trump was treated with amazing respect by Obama on the day of the inauguration, even Trump commented about it at the time. Think about that for a moment. Trump rose to prominence by passing along a disgusting racist lie about Obama’s birth. A lie that contributed to the idea that he was a foreign element, an unlawful president. And yet…Obama welcomed him.”
—Not amazing respect, traditional respect and appropriate respect.
—Trump’s birther nonsense wasn’t racist, he tried the same thing on Ted Cruz. Even so, that wasn’t what gave him prominence—he was already a celebrity and had been for a long time. What made him a political force was his vocal opposition to illegal immigration.
“Similarly, he didn’t do the things that most modern presidents do after victory to reach out to the other side.’
—I agree. Not that it would have done any good, but he should have. It’s not in the guy. I didn’t find his speech dark, I found it honest. Biden made noises about unity and conciliation, and then gave his “MAGA is EVIL! EVIL!” speech.
“He was picked because he was a white hot ball of rage.”
—Nah, he was picked because a large and growing chunk of the electorate wanted to say “Fuck you!” to the elites and cynical career politicians who they were sick of seeing treat them with contempt. I have compared it to the parade riot in “Animal House.”
No coup. No coup attempt.
—-A soft rolling coup, but a coup attempt nonetheless—as soon as one broke down, they tried another. I catalogued them here.
“Trump could have been a seminal president, he could have built a coalition of pragmatists, if he had put down the torch of hatred and did the hard work of pushing stuff through a deeply polarized Congress.”
—-No, he really couldn’t have been, Jerry, not with the “resistance” and the news media working to destroy him every minute of his term, not with old Washington hands being afraid to join his team, not with so many moles and embedded leakers and saboteurs. He did remarkably well given his obstacles, his lack of government experience, and his own handicaps of character and lack of self-control. And yes, that might have been moral luck…
Here’s Gallup presidential approval since Truman. In fact, the only two presidents to hit 75% or better at the start of their presidencies were LBJ and Truman, and for similar reasons. Even Reagan wasn’t at 75. Also, as has been noted by scholars for 25 years–the trend is down for all presidents. The opposition doesn’t give much of a chance to the other side. Biden started out pretty high, considering, but that is largely because Trump hurt himself so badly with Jan 6, although it is also because Biden, during the campaign and particularly during the lame duck period, said very nice things about Republicans. The guy oozed bipartisanship. It was like the second coming of GHW Bush. remember his inauguration? He was name checking Democrats from Congress. That stuff matters. Biden did that too. Sober and serious Republicans like Fred Upton, real legislators, who understand policy and Washington, respected Biden. They all knew him from his decades in Congress and his time as VP. In Obama’s admin, Biden was the legislative whisperer, the one who could tame Congress (or herd it).
If you look back over Trump’s real estate career, every biographer makes the same point–he cannot have stable alliances with anyone unless they are working FOR him. He can’t be equal status, and he definitely can’t be subordinate. All of his attempts to play nice with others fail, unless the others work for him. He’s been involved in more than 3000 civil litigations prepresidency. He’s not about making peace, on any terms but his own. That may be a great strategy in the real estate business (not really–he sucks as a business man if you look at what he’d have if he’d just put his dad’s money in a bank) but it’s a terrible way to run a White House, and it doesn’t lead to bipartisanship in the slightest.
Careless—75% was an estimate (if I had been Trump, that would be logged as a “lie”). The nature of the Axis campaign against Trump was so intrinsically divisive—relying on fear-mongering—that any talk about coming together around the elected President was illusory. As I documented here, the attack on the Electoral College and “Russian interference” began almost the second the results were in. Trump never has a second where there was any acceptance of his Presidency as legitimate.
Yeah, HC’s succession speech urged her followers to give Trump “a chance to lead”—and it was barely over 100 days into his Presidency, the first week in May, 2017 that she declared herself in “the resistance.” Then she started beating the drums for the Russian conspiracy. Was that giving him “a chance to lead”? You know it wasn’t. John Lewis calling Trump illegeitimate immediately and leading a boycott of black members of Congress—fair? Giving Trump a chance to lead?
Hey, Trump is an asshole who thinks like a mob boss. You do something to him, he does it back, and harder if possible. That’s him, and it’s wrong, but it doesn’t retroactively justify what was done to him, or make the Left’s immediate assault on his legitimacy his conduct.
Damn it started yapping and forgot gallup link. https://news.gallup.com/interactives/507569/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx
I hate it when that happens.
Here’s another thing you left out. When Trump won a very very very close election in 2016, and only the 6th time in history that a popular vote winner lost…Obama emerged to call on all Americans to support Trump. Hillary gave a concession speech in which she wished Trump well.
In 2020, when Trump got beat in a close election, he did NONE OF THOSE THINGS. This meant Biden was, unlike any president in history, inaugurated while the leader of the opposition did not call on Americans to support him.
Trump got that, but refused to give it.
Among his many other flaws, he can never ever admit he made a mistake or got beat. Remember when they asked him if he asked for forgiveness for his sins? And he said, I think it’s best not to make mistakes in the first place. In other words, missing the crux of Christianity itself.
You don’t believe in democracy if you only accept the results when you win. You believe in something else.
“Trump got that, but refused to give it.”
As I noted in the last reply (I had read this before I wrote that one), he barely got it. I won’t defend Trump’s conduct and rants after the election, but it was an irregular election, the laws in several states weren’t followed. drop boxes and absentee voting on that scale was unprecedented, and Trump had every right to feel that the electorate had been unfairly poisoned against him for four years by the news media, with the Russian collusion tactic, the two partisan impeachments and news manipulation like the laptop story making a level playing field impossible (it was going to be un-level anyway in the wake of the self-inflicted economic collapse from the lockdowm.)
Would he have acted this way even if he had been treated no more unfairly than, say, Nixon or Bush 2? Maybe. Even probably. Fish gotta swim, bird gotta fly. It still can’t all, or even mostly, be blamed on him.
Incidentally, I’m designating you an Ethics Hero in a post tomorrow. Being willing to come here and debate these issues with the commentariat speaks so well of your character, integrity, humility, intellectual curiosity, civility and more. And you’re a mensch!
That’s very kind of you. I’ve enjoyed the debates. Some smart folk come to your neighborhood.
I’m not sure I understand your last point. I think you concede that Trump, by nature, cannot admit defeat. As I pointed out elsewhere, if you only believe in elections when you win them, you don’t believe in democracy. When we study whether a country is a democracy, it’s the peaceful exchange of power when an incumbent loses that is the key test. That’s why the election of 1800 was so crucial–the party in power lost. John Adams saved our Republic by leaving. Trump endangered it by staying. Again–he alleged that the Neilsen’s were rigged when his show wasn’t number one. He alleged that the Iowa Caucuses in 2016 were rigged when he didn’t win. HE HAS TO WIN. ALWAYS. And that, among myriad other reasons, is why he’s unfit for office, and a danger to the republic. You can’t support someone who is going to deny he lost, no matter the circumstances, in a democracy. Well, you can, but you can’t say that you are a believer in the republican form of government. It’s all about the peaceful exchange of power.
All true. But in the same vein as “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get me,” because Trump is a terrible loser doesn’t mean there weren’t valid reasons to question the fairness of the election. At a basic level, I believe that Presidential elections should be accepted as the results dictate even if there are dubious aspects to it—Jackson’s loss to Adams, Tildon, who was cheated out of the Presidency, Nixon’s loss in 1960, Gore. But that can’t be an absolute, or we’re essentially saying that there should be no recourse even when democracy is foiled by a rigged election.
There was never any chance or suggestion that the transfer of power in 202i wasn’t going to be peaceful. The morons who stormed the Capitol were not an army, and were not acting at the command or behest of Trump.
Valid questions that NOT A SINGLE JUDGE, in 60+ cases, have found. Weird. Weird how Fox News paid almost a billion dollars rather than litigate the claims about the election. Now, maybe OJ was innocent. Maybe the Earth is flat. Maybe the moon landing was faked. Maybe monkeys reside in my posteriors, and will soon erupt upon gossamer wings from my interior. But absent those events, the election wasn’t rigged, it didn’t have “serious questions” that could have changed the outcome. Court after court acknowledged those changes, and said they were fair enough. Nothing human is perfect, and elections are not well run in this country in the best of times. But this one was not rigged, not corrupt, and it should be an impeachable offense to convince your base, many of them poorly educated, of a rank falsehood that corrodes our republic.
And smart people like you should definitely know better.
Apples and oranges. The fact that there was not sufficient evidence available to legally justify stalling or challenging the results of the election doesn’t prove anything, except that there wasn’t sufficient evidence available to legally justify stalling or challenging the results of the election, due to time, the difficulty of tracking voting irregularities generally, and the irresponsible (or deliberately insecure) measures allowed by various states and officials. In 2000 they were investigating just a single state where there were problems and ran out of time: Trump needed to find ways to challenge multiple states. I knew it was impossible at the time. That’s why election tampering has been a constant throughout U.S. history. It is also why it is essential for there to be finality even when there are legitimate doubts.
I’ve never thought, said or written that the final result was wrong on the basis of voter fraud or other misconduct. What rigged the election occurred before a single vote was cast, and no court could do anything about that. Citing the 60 court cases as proof that the election was fair is like citing the jury verdict as proof that O.J. was innocent.
Smart people don’t do things like that, unless they are naive or intellectually dishonest.
Hmm..such attractive choices–intellectually dishonest or naive. I’ll go with naive. Or maybe option 3–I didn’t understand your point well enough. You’re saying the election was only “rigged” by changes to the voting procedures brought about by Covid19. You understand that “rigged” implies “fixed” and “cheating.” But that’s not how rules changes work in elections. So long as the changes were done legally (and if they were not, the courts DO have things they can do), and both sides knew about them–it’s not RIGGED. It’s not CHEATING. It’s just a change in election law. In general, voting in America is significantly harder than in most other advanced industrialized democracies. I have a whole lecture I’ve given for the State Department and others called “I’d Rather Vote in Mexico: Structural Flaws in the American Electoral System.” This difficulty in voting tends to benefit Republicans, and they are very aware of that, as are the Ds. So the necessity in the pandemic to expand access to mail in voting was expected to benefit the Ds. But that’s not rigging. That’s not cheating. It was necessary to respond to the pandemic, sometimes quickly, but always lawfully. This has happened in MANY natural disasters throughout US history. The election law may need to change quickly to address the reality of crisis.
Incidentally, many of the structural flaws reduce public trust in elections. Here’s one example–in most states, a partisan appointee or elected official oversees election administration. When we set up democracies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Germany, Japan, Italy–we didn’t do that. That would be insane. Why would you do that? Also–unlike all those countries, and most on earth…we have NO NATIONAL VOTER ROLL. WTF? The single largest source of fraud (and we have very little) is people who vote in two states in the same election because they own two or more houses. In 2000, some estimates had people who voted in FL and NY/NJ as high as 2000 people. Guess how the demographic votes who own 2+ houses? Hint: it’s not Bernie Sanders (although he definitely owns two houses–my favorite Marxists are wealthy ones). We had a kludge system that many states joined to reduce double and triple registration. It wasn’t as good as a national registry, but at least it was something. Well, Republicans have been getting out of it in state after state. So the biggest type of voter fraud, a kind that favors GOP…is less monitored than ever. Great work, people.
And there are like ten other ways our election administration sucks.
BUT–I don’t agree with you that they have ALWAYS been tampered with. That seems like Russian propaganda. There are famous cases in our system that were corrupt, but in general, our elections have been uncorrupt. Incompetent. But not that corrupt. (analysis not valid in Chicago under Daley, in Louisiana at various points, in the entire South during Jim Crow, and a few times in Miami of all places. As they said in the Daley years–“bury me in Chicago…so I can stay active in politics”)
Oh no, the election was mostly rigged—meaning manipulated—by the unprecedented news media assault on a President from beginning to end, and the such devices as the phony impeachments (so any reference to Trump would be as “the only twice impeached President,” much as the various contrived prosecutions are being used before THIS election, which also being rigged. Sure it’s cheating. News platforms aren’t supposed to put their fists on the scale. Now, rigging doesn’t guarantee a result, just makes it more likely. With teh pandemic-triggered collapse, i think it’s likely that Trump would have lost anyway, though the vote was surprisingly close. (The polls were also rigged, though.)
Oh Lordy.
Heh. That made me laugh; thanks, I needed that.
But denial that the entire media with the exception of the lonely right-biased platforms like the New York Post and Fox News set out to ally with the Angry Left and either end Trump’s term prematurely or make sure he didn’t get a second term is just as—something: Deliberate blindness? Denial? Self-hypnosis?—as denying that MSM bias exists (which gets one banned from commenting here, as I consider it deliberate obfuscation.) The NYT editor even admitted that they want “too far” in their anti-Trump campaign in 2020, which is funny, since they had gone “too far” loooong before that, and even the Times is less egregious than than WaPo, NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, and of course CNN and MSNBC. If the news sources that voters rely upon to get the information they need to make informed decisions about the leadership of the nation set out to put one candidate in a negative light, that’s rigging. Rigging doesn’t always work, but it is just as wrong whether it achieves the desired result or not, and its target has just as much justification for resenting it.
Looks like I’m set to be banned then. I don’t think your theory holds up to analysis. The media didn’t get together and conspire to keep Trump to one term. The media HELPED Trump win in 2016, not on purpose, but certainly they weren’t working against him. They covered his speeches, sometimes start to finish, and didn’t give HRC nearly the same coverage. Why? Trump got eyeballs. Trump made good ratings. That’s the main bias in broadcast journalism–eyeballs. And increasingly online as well. There was no plan to keep Trump from winning. I trust the Wpost news team to be as objective as they possibly can. They make mistakes, but in my long life of mostly uninterrupted reading of the Post and the NYTimes (since the age of 12 with the Wpost), I don’t see systemic leftwing bias in terms of favoring candidates of the Dems over the Reps in news coverage. Did you read Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky? He makes a very powerful, data driven argument that the NYTimes was biased against the left in its coverage of foreign policy. Hard to refute, actually. Basically, he examines two stories–=the murder trial for the Communist thugs who killed a Polish priest who was working with Solidarity, vs. the trial of right wing paramilitary Salvadoran thugs who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered three American nuns. Which story got more coverage in the Times? By the normal standards of journalism, it should have been the Salvadoran story, since it was A) more dead, b) Americans dead c) nearer to America D) also involved rape. But the coverage was 7-1 for the Polish story. Chomsky argues that the MSM has a bias for the establishment, for capitalism, and for patriotism. Leftwing criticism seldom even get aired. Obviously, that’s just one example, but if you want to show leftwing bias in the Wpost news coverage, you’d have to show some data, like Chomsky did. Showing bias is hard. When I wrote my book on media politics, I talked about various ways of measuring it, but it is quite tricky. Example–was it biased of the Post to keep a tally of Trump’s lies, when they’d never done it for anyone else? I don’t think so at all. No other president lied as often, as shamelessly. It used to matter if the media said “hey, that was untrue.” Not for Trump. He literally doesn’t care if what he says is true. He has a transactional relationship with the truth. There’s a great quote in Nietzsche about the subjective nature of Truth “supposing Truth to be a woman? For it is a woman, and always loves a warrior.” That’s quite misogynistic, but also a pretty good description of Trump’s attitude towards Truth. So the count of lies was justified by his unique relationship with the truth.
One last point–the Wpost and the NYTimes publish some of the leading conservative voices in politics. Theissen and Will, a solid libertarian in McCardle, and frequently others. Try to find a liberal voice in most conservative outlets. The point being–WPost isn’t liberal (even the editorials are iconoclastic sometimes). It’s trying on the OP-ed page to represent many views. And in the news, it is trying to be objective. Is it hard for a mostly liberal reporter corps to be fair? Sure. Same in higher ed. We are more leftwing now than we’ve been at any time since polling began. In my coauthored book on faculty politics, we talked about why that is, and what it means? But what it doesn’t GENERALLY mean is some kind of indoctrination. Does it happen sometimes, in some departments on some campuses? Sure–it happens in a lot of sociology classes and departments for example. But not all. And the other side gets some indoctrination in econ departments that don’t strive to be heterodox. As in most things–it’s all quite complex, and blanket statements like “The MSM got together with the left to make Trump a one term president” are usually false or desperately lacking in nuance.
Sorry to be banned–it was a good time.
No, I can’t ban you! I just made you an Ethics Hero! This is a mystery, like the “Mary Celeste” and “Croatan”and Judge Crater. I simply cannot see how anyone who pays attention to the news media could conclude what you wrote here, but it’s fascinating that someone with such obvious cognitive abilities could come to that conclusion. I’d amass the evidence (the tags “2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck” and “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias” are good places to start), but I have to believe you’ve seen the evidence I have, and somehow don’t—or can’t—see it for what it is. Amazing.
I presume you will concede that Big Tech proved itself partisan and corrupted, that Hollywood and the entertainment industry completely slanted pop culture against the President (All the Late Night shows? Fair?)
It really is a mystery and a cautionary tale. If someone like you can get so turned inside out and around, it could happen to anyone.
There’s a good book I read last year about why all late night comics are left leaning, and all talk radio is right leaning (although come to think of it, Howard Stern? But then Maher isn’t as easy to classify anymore, either). It comes down to this–the left wants to be ironic in its outrage, and the right wants to be angry in its outrage. Irony comes best with comedy, the juxtaposition of hypocrisy in that way lends itself to comedy. If you want to be ENRAGED, hey, look at the latest VILE EVIL LEFTWING HYPOCRISY. No irony needed. But again, I (and the author) note that there is more balance on late night than you might think, certainly more than on Fox News. Daily Show just had a big takedown of the vacuous rhetoric of Kamala. There are other examples. Fox is all the time “Biden sucks.” It’s relentless. They are trying to make you angry all the time. (I think the name of the book is “IRONY AND OUTRAGE” Quite a good read.)
So–is it fair that late night talk shows lean left? No, but comedy has always leaned left. It seeks to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Punching down isn’t as funny as punching up. Is it fair that talk radio leans right? What is worrisome is that more and more Americans get their news from such sources, instead of the Washington Post or PBS or NPR. All sources that try to tell both sides. I will say this–when the John Oliver show was going to use a clip of mine for their 20 minute deep dive into gerrymandering–a researcher called me up a week in advance, went over what they were going to say, just to make sure that they captured my meaning correctly. They did more careful work than any broadcaster I’ve dealt with, and I’ve been on most of them. I think the long pieces on the Oliver Show, and even some of the 12 minute ones on Daily Show, are often nuanced and complex. You can get Americans to focus on something like gerrymandering if you throw in some fart jokes, apparently. BUT–it isn’t unbiased. It is opinion journalism, with all the downsides of that.
“So–is it fair that late night talk shows lean left? No, but comedy has always leaned left.”
Ah, now you are truly in my wheelhouse, my friend, and that’s just not true, at least not in their public humor.
Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Don Rickles, Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Lewis, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Bob Hope, for decades the dean of topical humor stand-up. We only have to look back as far as Jay Leno to find a Tonight Show host who was non-partisan and who made as many jokes tweaking the Left and the Right. Mort Sahl was considered unique for engaging in more partisan routines, but even he took no prisoners and mocked both left and right with equal contempt. The original Saturday Night Live started in the Ford administration and transitioned to mocking Carter without and whiplash. Now it refuses to take advantage of Biden’s doddering, which would have been considered comedy gold in the Seventies. The complete dedication of late night to anti-Trump satire and mockery is strong circumstantial evidence of the media bias that you somehow don’t detect. They are products of the same forces and cultural shifts. Jerry Seinfeld is one of the last of the old school comics left standing, and is betting booed on college campuses.
That’s not happening because those student grew up watching apolitical humor mocking both sides.
Impressive list of conservative or neutral comics. I accept the correction.
But if you think SNL isn’t mocking the FUCK out of Biden’s age, you haven’t been watching it regularly. They hit it over and over again. They even had a bit about the sniffing hair thing, I think.
But they are three years late to that party, you have to admit, and it is because they have absorbed your wisdom: they want Biden out, and along with their colleagues in the Bubble, they are panicking. Comics are not supposed to have agendas other than to make everybody on both sides of the divide laugh (SNL mocked Gore and Bush equally adeptly in 2000). But once Obama became untouchable —cowards!—they broke the template
“I trust the Wpost news team to be as objective as they possibly can.”
Hmm; WaPo headline: The Campaign TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT TRUMP Has Begun
The date? January 20, 2017.
PWS
Thanks for the example of why media bias is so difficult to define and measure. The folks on this page, several of them, have talked about how the left never gave Trump a chance, that they were already plotting to get him out even before inauguration. So–is the Post biased for reporting a fact? It is, in fact, very unusual in American history for the word impeachment to be used in the first months of a presidency. It is a symptom of how we are so polarized. The left thinks it started with the delegitimization of Clinton, the refusal to let a liberal be in the WH again (although–WJC wasn’t really a liberal, he was from the moderate conservative wing of the Democrats, but he was a hippy in the 60s so…). The right thinks it happened with fond memories of Nixon embedded in the left. But the point is–the Post CAN’T be biased if they are just reporting the truth about the left’s attitude towards Trump, can it? They aren’t RALLYING the opposition with that story, they are reporting on its existence. If I remember the story right, it included tough questions for the movement–like “on what grounds”? Similar stories were present in Biden’s early days, even though the House was Democratic, and the stories grew after the GOP victory in 2022. Those stories do not indicate a pro-GOP bias at the post–they indicate they are reporting what’s happening.
Again–with media bias, the challenge is figuring out what it is, and how to measure it. Is this week’s news actually terrible for Biden, or is Fox News exaggerating the negative and ignoring the positive? (answer–always–yes. But even Fox News is right sometimes–some weeks are just awful for Biden, and in those weeks, the rest of the media can sound like Faux). Some interesting studies use loaded language analysis. I participated in one of those studies for Pew years ago as a coder, when I was desperate for money in grad school. Your job as a coder–read articles. Keep track of how many Rs and Ds are quoted. Keep your eye out for particularly unfair/negative words. Keep track of how each paragraph is positive or negative towards the president. Then give an overall assessment of whether it was positive or negative. Two coders do every article. If there are major disagreements, a third coder is brought in. Then–compare outlet X to outlet Y for the same time period. If, over time, you see that outlet X is more negative…you’re still not done. Maybe Y is the biased outlet, right? This stuff is HARD. That’s only one method, but typically the most quant. It’s a method that goes by the rubric “content analysis” and has many different ways of measurement.
One other point–your comment may also illustrate one of my favorite media theories–the Hostile Media Hypothesis (HMH). It came about from a study of Arab and Jewish opinions about news coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the 70s. Researchers gave the same articles to Arabs and Jews, and asked them to evaluate them for bias. The conclusions were overwhelming–the same articles were seen as biased by both sides–in the opposite directions. Worse, the folks who saw the biggest bias also thought that the article would have a terrible effect on neutral readers—turning them against their own side. So the HMH says that partisans will see bias, whether it is there or not, and also think the media is very powerful at shifting minds. Bias is, I think, neither widely present nor particularly powerful. It is hard to get people to change their minds. The bias that is most dangerous is the bias that doesn’t ever consider the other side–so folks in a one sided media bubble, or an epistemic tribe, can, over time, become convinced of things that are simply false. I think that’s all over the US now. The article that made you think the Wpost was against conservatives–liberals could read it and say “this diminishes the real threat that Trump poses! They aren’t taking it serious enough!!!” My piece that got me into all these debates here got more hate email than anything I’ve ever written. Most of the “go fuck yourself with your dad’s phallus” stuff came from the right, but some of it came from the left. Both sides thought I was a shill for the other side. the left thought I was contributing to the Republican lie that Biden was senile. The right thought I was contributing to the Democratic lie that Trump was a danger to the Republic. That’s classic HMH at work.
Please read my comment at the bottom of this comment thread, unfortunately it didn’t post up here where I intended it to be.
Jack wrote, “What rigged the election occurred before a single vote was cast, and no court could do anything about that.”
Generally speaking that’s true.
Rigged: manipulated or controlled by deceptive or dishonest means.
Bastardizing (change something in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements) election law because of the pandemic to allow that which otherwise would not have been allowed is manipulating the election process; therefore, the election process was rigged in some areas.
Additionally, there were things that were done after votes were cast too. For instance, when absentee or mail in ballots are cast there are specific rules that voters MUST follow to complete the voter verification process that accompanies the ballot or the ballot will not go into the pile to be counted, filling in all the required information correctly, properly signed by the voter, properly witnessed, etc; in some areas these rules were literally ignored and the verification of the voter(s) were not properly verified as the law defined. The laws were intentionally bastardized thus allowing ballots to be counted that should not have been counted and I’ve heard one rationalization after another trying to justify the intentional bastardizations of election law. I have no idea how many ballots like this were allowed but my understanding is that due to the unusual massive influx of absentee and mail in ballots (mail in ballots were never allowed and only properly applied for absentee ballots were allowed until the system was bastardized in my state) due to the pandemic the number was significant. Once a ballot from an unverified voter is put in the pile to count it cannot be removed because there is no way of knowing which ballot belongs to what voter because tracking is not, and should not ever, allowed because ballots are secret.
These things were reported by our local ABC news and I do believe they were reported on nationally by various media outlets.
I have no idea how many election laws were intentionally bastardized across the USA due to the pandemic, but from the reports I’ve heard it was a lot.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “But neither had such a large following who said ‘if Trump is for it, I’m for it. If he’s against it, I’m against it.'”
Yes that can be an issue if pushed too far and so can the political left basically going down the path of “if Trump is for it, I’m against it and if he’s against it, I’m for it” and they intentionally pushed that political tactic to absurdity, even to the point of being blatantly unconstitutional with two ridiculously divisive impeachments. The Democrats set a new anti-Constitutional low bar precedence for impeachment and now that the shoe is on the other foot, as Alan Dershowitz says, the Republicans dove into a couple of ridiculous unethical tit-for-tat impeachments.
I think if you look back honestly over the Trump presidency I think you’ll find that Trump did meet some well earned opposition from some Republicans, they weren’t all kowtowing to Trump just as not all Democrats kowtowed to Obama.
Yes, I know, I know; but Orange Man Bad, Obama good.
Also if you look at what’s happened to Trump’s moderate base over the last few years a lot of the moderate Republicans have become very firmly anti-Trump and are currently supporting Kennedy. I personally know some life long card carrying Republicans that will not vote for Trump in 2024.
Based on observed cultural, societal and political patterns, I see the 2024 election as being a societal and cultural disaster for the United States of America. No matter who is elected, the reactions are going to be bad, and they’re likely to be very bad.
I agree, and should have said, that many on the left are unable to see any good at all in Trump. However, I do think the second impeachment was merited more than any prior impeachment. If attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power is not impeachable, nothing is. I also think the first was, but it’s a closer call, I concede. Your last vote was for Romney–he was a true profile in courage in both impeachments.
I just saw this reply.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “If attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power is not impeachable, nothing is.”
Correlation ≠ Causation.
Sorry jdkazoo123, Trump was impeached for exercising his Constitutional right to free speech and Democrats tried to bastardize that into inciting an insurrection, the Democrats failed miserably. Trump did not incite illegal activity and Supreme Court rulings in the past have upheld that interpretation plus there was no insurrection just a mostly peaceful protest that turned into a riot.
Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Trump was not impeached for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The impeachment was another flagrant bastardization of the Constitution, aka unconstitutional.
There have been a number of legal analyses over the years of what was meant to be covered by the Impeachment clauses “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Gerald Ford said once (when still serving as Minority Leader) “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives thinks it is.” During Nixon’s time, it was drawn up that he could be impeached for lying to the American people. My own view is that something can be a crime, and yet not be impeachable. And something might not be a crime, but would be very impeachable. EX: it’s legal for the president to consult daily with the justices of the Supreme Court. But if he were to deliver orders to them on how they should rule, it is not a crime. But either they or he (or both) should be impeached for that.
So gathering fake electors, falsely alleging fraud, and most of all, calling in a mob to stop the count–those are unprecedented in American history AND impeachable. Every other defeated president or candidate has accepted their loss for the good of the republic. Even Nixon, who believed 60 had been stolen. Even Gore who felt the same. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Only this guy couldn’t do that. It was the most just impeachment in the history of our nation. I only regret that the Senate lacked the courage to carry through.
Interesting side note–at his second impeachment, Trump’s lawyers said “You can’t impeach a former president. All you can do is try him in court!” At his court trial for election interference his lawyers said “You can’t convict a former president unless you first impeach him!” Heads he wins, tails America loses.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “Gerald Ford said once (when still serving as Minority Leader) ‘An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives thinks it is.’ “
Gerald Ford was just simply wrong. He was welcome to his opinion but not his own facts.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “My own view is that something can be a crime, and yet not be impeachable.”
I agree up to a point. It would be impeachable if it rose to the level enumerated in the Constitution. It would be a choice that Congress would have to make, to impeach or not to impeach based on an actual qualifying crime being committed by the President, Vice President of a civil Officers of the United States.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “My own view is that… something might not be a crime, but would be very impeachable.”
Based on Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution you, like Gerald Ford, are simply wrong.
You should read and thoroughly study Alan Dershowitz’s (a life long Democrat) speech on the Senate floor, here it is in its entirety; History In The Making
jdkazoo123 wrote, “calling in a mob to stop the count”
From what I can find, that’s a false assertion. Here is what President Trump actually stated in his January 6th speech, “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.” in my book, that’s not equivalent to “stop the count”. If you can provide something I haven’t heard or read that factually supports your statement I’ll read it.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “Interesting side note–at his second impeachment, Trump’s lawyers said ‘You can’t impeach a former president. All you can do is try him in court!’ At his court trial for election interference his lawyers said ‘You can’t convict a former president unless you first impeach him!’ Heads he wins, tails America loses.”
There may be come contextual issues with that, but I personally think that SCOTUS should take the time to rule on what appears to be a contradiction regarding when a President, or former President, can be legally prosecuted and convicted of an actual crime committed while holding the office of the President of the United States.
Thank you Jerry for responding. I’m on your side by the way, but was wondering how you would respond to this argument from Steve (I hear it a lot):
Thanks!
On that note; do you realize that in multiple states they were changing how elections took place without going through the process of properly changing state election laws in the state legislatures or amending state constitutions, that looks a bit like “rigging” the process doesn’t it?
I remember one report of a lawsuit somewhere where someone (a group I think) sued the state because they were changing how the elections were going to take place and the court told them that it they couldn’t sue because they hadn’t actually done anything wrong yet, then after the state did it they sued again but the court told them it was too late to do anything
Not sure which argument you want me to respond to–the one about changes in elections procedures being ruled too soon and then too late? I wouldn’t want to comment on something based on that anecdotal level of information.
Right. So I’ve seen a lot of arguments here and elsewhere that essentially come down to “well, sure the election wasn’t ‘rigged’ BUT…in PA they passed an unconstitutional law to the election rules that changed how mail in ballots are allowed/counted etc….which leads me to believe there’s reason to question the election”
Jack has made the same argument to you in this thread.
He’s gone into detail about how the law made mail in ballots more accessible and mail in ballots lead to more election fraud, etc…and the law change benefits Dems because more Dems use mail in ballots, so it was an “unfair” election
I never know how to respond because the argument feels circular to me. Why is making it easier to vote a bad thing? But then Jack’s response will just go back to the beginning “well it was passed illegally, Dems played unfair, blah blah
How would you respond to that?
Why is making it easier to vote a bad thing?
Easy question. “easier” would be good if it didn’t undermine trust in the integrity of elections and make corruption of the system easier as well. One might as well ask, “Why is making it easier for police to gather, log and store evidence a bad thing?” Chain of custody is pain, but it is also essential.
I also fervently believe that voting is sufficiently important that it should require a demonstration of commitment and due diligence. A citizen who regards registering and taking the time once every two years to go a polling place and fulfill the duties of citizenship as too much trouble also is likely to find understanding the issues and the candidates too burdensome as well, making that citizen’s vote less a contrition to democracy than a pollution of it.
I would start by saying I’m not an expert in election law, in PA or elsewhere. Also not a lawyer. I’ve studied election administration, but it’s probably about 10th or 11th of my topical areas of expertise in American politics.
Then I’d start with the facts–what law in PA was declared unconstitutional? Near as I can tell, the state high court overturned the lower court ruling about the constitutionality of mail in voting and other changes. https://penncapital-star.com/campaigns-elections/pennsylvanias-mail-in-voting-law-survives-constitutional-challenge-by-gop-lawmakers/
The best way to answer allegations about election fraud is just to point to the rulings by courts headed by Ds and by Rs, including Trump appointees. They have never, not once, found fraud even close to significant to change the results in a single state. Remember, also, that false allegations of fraud led Fox News to have to pay Dominion about 800 million dollars. They settled because they knew they’d get crushed in court.
Anyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own facts. If your opinion is that there was election fraud large enough to overturn the election of 2020, or that the election of 2020 was rigged, you’re believing something shown to be false over and over.
Thank you for responding. So that’s the PA law yes. But people use it, despite all the courts throwing all the cases out, to argue that it was still enough for Trump to at least question the integrity of the election.
You can even see Jack’s response above where he says, incredibly, that even though it wasn’t enough to overturn the election (which is what Trump wants), it was enough to question it.
But to me that feels like a weasel argument and totally in accurate , because you can say that about any election…and Trump wasn’t merely saying “oh there’s some irregularities” he claimed he won and it was rigged.
But when you bring this up to someone like Jack, the circular argument comes into play where it goes “well okay sure it wasn’t rigged but it was unfair because of X, Y, Z and Trump had a good reason to think it wasn’t unfair”
But when you point out Trump did way more than just state it’s unfair, the argument goes back to the beginning…”well Trump didn’t know before the investigations what really happened but he had good reason to think it was suspect…”
But then it just devolves into “Trump wasn’t treated fair, it wasn’t a fair election because of how he was treated, etc. But isn’t that a totally different argument than what Trump is arguing? That the election was stolen?
It feels like a total distortion of what Trump has been attempting to do since day one…not give up power. It seems patently obvious to me and you, but Jack, who is college educated, doesn’t see this…it’s honestly very confusing to me.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Let me make two main points, one domestic and one foreign.
First, on the unemployment front, the economy under Trump achieved the record low unemployment rates (with a somewhat higher participation rate, as I recall). Then the government (still under Trump plus the governors) basically told a major part of the economy to shut down and furlough its employees. Once those artificial constraints were released, no power on earth could have prevented millions of jobs from being restored. I don’t feel that Biden created so many new jobs, but he presided over the economy being revived from the dead. Harold Stassen could have been president and achieved similar results.
On Ukraine, Biden absolutely deserves credit for supporting Ukraine and helping put together the coalition to aid them. But it seems to many, including me, that his primary goal has been to give Ukraine just enough aid to keep it from losing, but never enough to enable it to win. He’s really never stated to the American people what the United States’ goals are for this war — there was a golden chance for us to lead the way in both a moral and material fashion. He’s totally failed the first and eked out the second.
Once Ukraine survived the initial assault, I believe we in the West and the United States in particular had a brilliant opportunity to help defeat a crass and callous attack on the very underpinnings of a global society we’ve strived to create. I believe Biden has taken counsel of his fears, and that is no way to win a war.
On the economy–we were one of many capitalist countries to shut down, and our shut down was shorter and softer than most. Yet our economic recovery under Biden has been better than almost any other Western country. So I think Biden deserves some credit for that.
On Ukraine–I understand the critique that Biden has been too cautious. It may be true. But he’s been trying to avoid a nuclear escalation by Putin, or a NATO provocation. I give him some slack on that.
The infrastructure bill that you referenced was bipartisan as are all infrastructure bills. We hear that roads and bridges are to be repaired but only a small amount actually goes to road construction and bridges. Under this bill a substantial portion of each state’s allocation goes toward broadband access and funding for green projects such as mass urban transport, EV subsidies. I have seen no evidence of electric grid projects that are funded under this bill other than subsidies for weatherization or higher efficiency appliances made in China or Mexico. Given that my water and sewer rates have climbed to offset new EPA regulations I cannot say that I have seen any of the funding coming our way despite the White House report card on the infrastructure bill for Maryland.
The stimulus bill by Biden’s own admission created inflation. Giving out cash to spend before supplies rebound was foolish inflationary and and wasteful.
I can support the chip bill but because it only benefits Intel and AMD its benefits are limited. If we are to invest in production facilities with tax dollars then America’s taxpayers should gain some equity position in these firms. Barring equity, taxpayers should take a preferred position on debt Past experience in which Obama gave more than a half billion dollars to create Solyndra only resulted in China take its assets for pennies on the dollar when it went belly up. We need more support to promote manufacturing of critical materials for pharmaceutical production and other strategic products but we have to do so based on sound business evaluations.
The unemployment values are a reflection of two variables, the number of unemployed and the labor force. The labor force still has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Biden states that Trump lost jobs as president. The pre-pandemic unemployment rate was as it is now with a larger labor force. The smaller the labor force the lower the unemployment rate for a given amount of employment. To suggest that Trump’s economic policies ere the proximate cause of job losses is part of the propaganda espoused by the D’s. As the pandemic eased when the vaccines were suddenly made available after the election, government began reopening the the businesses that were shuttered by government decree. Employment rebounded almost immediately through no effort by government. If you follow economic statistics as I do you will see that a majority of the jobs created under Biden are in government or jobs that rely on government expenditures such as health care and education as well as hospitality. Manufacturing jobs have declined as have construction related employment which is why housing prices are rising faster than they should. When we hear about numbers of jobs created we are not necessarily saying these are newly employed full-time workers. Average weekly hours have declined since 2021. Many, if not most, of these jobs that are touted as new jobs are part-time and may be filled with workers employed in other part-time positions. The labor department needs to use an unduplicated headcount when counting jobs but that will never happen.
The stock market hits record highs under many presidents. The only legitimate causes for increases in the market are from increased demand from 11 million undocumented aliens and substantial deficit spending. Both have resulted in a roughly 5% loss in purchasing power since 2021 for all families. Food prices have risen 20% while housing and energy costs have doubled for Americans. Currently, household deb loads are fast approaching unsustainability due to inflation. Inflation, does creates temporal profits which drive stock prices up because prices rise faster than costs. Ultimately those profits will become illusory unless the government continues to artificially stimulate demand through higher debt loads which ultimately crowds out private investment.
Trump did not need to assemble an international alliance in defense of Ukraine because Putin only invaded Ukraine under Obama and Biden. What was Putin’s calculus in making those invasion decisions. Under Biden’s watch our adversaries are emboldened that could be why Europe, and our Asian allies are quick to assemble into an alliance. They cannot trust the US to be there if the shit hits the fan.
The Trump shit show to which you speak brought us a stable growing economy. I will concede that the Trump administration racked up substantial debt but much of that was pandemic related the remainder was to increase military readiness because Obama had cut our forces significantly during his eight years. Government intrusion into our lives was reduced as regulations promulgated by federal agencies were eliminated. The Trump administration substantially reduced the ability of ISIS to launch attacks by denying them territory, as well as negotiating peace agreements through the Abraham Accords. Much of the shit show was predicated on numerous attempts to delegitimize his presidency by the Democrats, Republicans and various agency heads who resented his unwillingness to “play ball” DC style.
If we are honest with ourselves the norms that Trump supposedly violated were those that created a façade of civility while the elites used their power to promote an environment in which they could grow wealthy by virtue of being a first mover. Trump did not need to play that game he was already a billionaire. The rest are just upset that he exposed them for what they are.
The biggest problem I see with all the various subsidy bills, tariffs, and what not is that historically government does a pathetic job picking winners when it comes to subsidizing new industries. The only real good examples that come to mind are the transcontinental railroad, the Homestead act, and the Interstate highway system (another transcontinental transport system).
If left to government, we’d never have had the natural gas revolution of the 2010s and (briefly) energy independence. IBM. Apple. SpaceX. Intel. Ford and GM for heaven’s sake. We could all probably list a half dozen others.
Fundamentally, Biden and the Democrats think government is the solution. I think government is the problem.
I agree that government often does a terrible job picking winners. The market usually works best at that. But government has done great things that are not on your list, such as the Manhattan Project, the internet, or say, getting to the moon. How long would we have waited to get to the moon without government saying “this must happen”? And the market benefited immensely from that endeavor. Indeed, for most of human history, almost any good large thing that happened was separate from the market. The discovery of America was by a government sponsored program! So I think Democrats are often on the side of government, but the ideal Democrat (and Republican) is one who recognizes when government is the best solution, and when the market is the best. I’ll use healthcare in Switzerland as a good example. The government says everyone gets health insurance. But the market determines the products (tailored to government regulations), and the people choose the ones they want. It’s far from perfect, but it works and has better outcomes than ours and is cheaper. Another thing that government does that the market cannot is standardization. Sometimes we don’t need the best answer, we can satisfice and use one that is good enough, so long as it is universal. Markets can produce unnecessary waste. Think of VHS vs. Betamax. When alien anthropologists are going through our landfills 700,000 years from now, they will find acres of beta max tapes and machines. Some were used for only a couple years because competition was fierce to become THE platform. In short, if the question is–which is better, government or market, the answer is–it depends on what you are doing, what you value, and what sector of policy we are talking about. And yes, government will sometimes standardize to the wrong standard, because of rent seeking (corruption), incompetence, and so on, but markets do not always produce the better outcome either. Markets are subjected to irrationalities such as ad campaigns, side deals (microsoft wasn’t the best OS, it just got placed in every personal computer that wasn’t an Apple and so just became the standard even though, as Jobs correctly pointed out, it sucked. If you think markets invariably pick the best product, that’s simply false), and other well studied market failures.
jdkazoo123 wrote, “Dems would have no trouble picking a Jew.”
You’re welcome to your opinion on that but I think what’s happened in the USA and across the globe since October 2023 shows that you’re wrong. The loudest Democrats and their progressive army of activists seem to be rather anti-Semitic and without these 21st century in-your-face activists on board I don’t think a Jewish candidate has got a prayer of winning.
We may be disagreeing about what constitutes anti-Semitism? I don’t see widespread anti-Semitism among Democrats, either at the mass level or the elite. Most Dems voted to send billions to Israel recently. Some did not. But those who opposed, such as Jewish socialist Sanders, would not agree that not sending Israel money is anti-Semitic. No nation on earth has gotten more money from the US since 1967 than Israel. We’ve sent more to Israel, a wealthy country, than to all of Sub Saharan Africa combined, a region where millions live on pennies a day and many die annually from starvation. That money was supported by D’s in great measure. Sure, recently, a rising tide of criticism of Israel, many of it from Jews like Schumer and Sanders, has been labeled anti-Semitic. While some criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, it is not intrinsically anti-Semitic to be critical of the Gaza campaign, or of the apartheid under which Arabs in the West Bank live. More than 450 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct 7, mostly by settlers. Settlers have rampaged through towns in pogroms, burning cars and shooting innocent civilians. The IDF stands by and watches. I think that’s appalling. Am I being anti-Semitic? My Jewish ancestors would disagree, I hope.
Maybe you should take the time to interview Alan Dershowitz and talk specifically about anti-Semitism.
Even if “unemployment” were at a record low, labor participation is still down 0.7%+/- from prepandemic levels.
In February 2020, labor participation was 63.3%, a value that was stable (if stagnant) since 2015. Participation plummeted to 60.1% a month later in March 2020. It has grown since, but is still 4 years later only at 62.7%.
Participation was about 150 Million in 2016, so .7% represents about 1 Million fewer people working or seeking a job compared to four years ago.
However, unemployment (among those participating) was 3.5% in 2020 (skyrocketing to 14.8% in April). Four years later it is 3.9% (stable since about March 2022).
Thus, a smaller participating workforce is experiencing a slightly higher unemployment rate today compared to just before and/or the start of Joe Biden presidency.
Labor Force Participation Rate (CIVPART) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)
Unemployment Rate (UNRATE) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)
My rant for the day.
Economy may be sorta decent depending on your point of view, unemployment rates may be sorta decent depending on your point of view but these are only part of the story; in my opinion inflation is on the verge of crippling the USA right now. Food is through the roof in grocery stores, has anyone really looked at the price of beef lately, no one can really plan on gas prices being much lower, construction costs are through the roof, forget about wasting your hard earned dollars on fast food that costs damn near as much as some sit down dinners, have you seen the price of major appliances – I just replaced my home furnace & A/C condensing unit and the price was more than double the price for replacement at my previous home a few years back for roughly the same equipment, shipping anything is going through the roof, trade services and parts rates are rapidly increasing, etc, etc.
I just found out yesterday that my home, car and motorcycle insurance all went up over 25% in one year, that’s clear evidence that massive inflation has taken hold of the economy and the insurance companies do not think it’s going to go back down. I’ve been with the same insurance company and the same agent for over 40 years and I’ve never seen an increase such as this. We’ve seen 3%, 5% and even 10% one year, I really bitched about the 10%, and now it’s a 25% increase in one year – you bet I bitched yesterday. I told my agent that they are driving their long term customers away and I’m forced to start shopping around and all my agent has to say is I can’t do anything about it and let’s look at changing your deductibles and coverage. I’m supposed to get a call from the manager in a couple of days and I suspect the same boilerplate message.
The people that said anything close to “raising minimum wages above $15 and hour to give people living wages won’t raise prices to the consumers, the companies will just take the hit on their bottom line” is either willfully blind, ignorant, or a bald-faced lying activist.
Extremely rapid minimum wage increases like have happened across are driving inflation and prices are going through the ceiling, so much so that those “living wages” that they’re ramming down peoples throat are going to be poverty wages really fast.
I just retired from manufacturing engineering at the beginning of 2024 and I can tell you that I’ve seen cost go wild, levels of knowledge in customer service from suppliers across the USA has hit rock bottom – they’re hiring idiots and yet their prices are going up and up.
I’m not sure anything can be done to stop what’s happening.
Rant complete.
I had the same problem with this post that I had with the Ezra Klein post. Mayer and Klein are both Democrats (or Democrat leaning, if not card-carrying members). Their analysis is a partisan analysis; to complain that it is biased seems to miss the point. It is a critique of Biden from a Democratic perspective. The Democrats have to nominate someone, and both columns attempt to address the reality of the situation.
but, yeah, Klobuchar? As if Minnesota’s track record with Presidential candidates should inspire confidence in Klobuchar’s chances.
But, to complain that the options offered are bad options misses the point: those bad options may be the best they have.
and, yes, both columns exhibit bias (or spin). But that is to be expected when they are still advocating for the party.
-Jut
I don’t think they are bad options. They are imaginary, impossible options. Advocating impossible options is unethical: it wastes time, avid the real issues, confuses the gullible.
but, what are the real options?
apart from Gavin Newsome, I am not sure who would replace Biden.
but, someone will. If Biden is gone, someone else will get the nomination, and, without a clear favorite, anyone is possible.
so, suggesting Shapiro, Booker, or Koobuchar is not unethical.
-Jut
My point is that there are no options, which is why Biden is going to be the candidate absent some health catastrophe. No matter how bad he looks, there is no precedent for an incumbent withdrawing because of unpopularity resulting in the replacement “option” winning (though there have been only two situations that qualify since 1900: the LBJ-Humphrey hand-off and the Nixon-Ford bit. Note that both involved VPs taking over, and Democrats know that 1) Harris would be a worse candidate than even Biden and 2) they couldn’t get away with dumping her.
Jerry, do you have a response to this? Would love to see it.
? “Reply” to a specific comment disappears after about four levels. Is that a WordPress glitch, or has it always been that way and I just noticed because of the unusually long string of responses on this particular post?
“ ‘So–is it fair that late night talk shows lean left? No, but comedy has always leaned left.’ Ah, now you are truly in my wheelhouse, my friend, and that’s just not true, at least not in their public humor. …We only have to look back as far as Jay Leno to find a Tonight Show host who was non-partisan and who made as many jokes tweaking the Left and the Right. “
I’d say you could add Craig Ferguson and Conan O’Brien to that list. Ferguson may lean right, and Conan is supposedly a “staunch democrat”, but was largely apolitical in his comedy. You might even include Letterman, before GWB apparently broke him. I finally stopped watching after he was still opening with Bush jokes two years after GW was out of office.
If you stray from late-night, you could include Dave Chappelle as a neutral. You’d have to note that Fox now includes a string of right-leaning comedians as regulars on a number of their various shows. Though not “officially” a comedian, Greg Gutfeld certainly plays the part, and has the largest late-night audience. Of course, you could also include the group, if I recall correctly, that your post was originally addressing, the Pythons. They skewered everyone from coal-miners to upper-class twits, from gays and cross-dressers to princess Margaret.
Gutfeld notwithstanding, I might posit that Jerry’s (or his referenced book’s) opinion on the leanings of late-night TV vs radio audiences could be caused by other factors. Who listens to daytime radio? People at work, at their desks, in their cars, on the jobsite…people who are gainfully employed? Older people tend to not stay up late. Who does…college students and Cheeto-munching couch-in-the-parents’-basement dwellers? Confirmation bias is a thing for all of us.
Yeah, I agree that Ferguson, who is brilliant, and even James Corden were pretty apolitical. Conan mostly—he was at a Leno level of political joking. Letterman? Total asshole politically, and not very astute either—and he got away with outrageous sexual misconduct on his own show. I gave up on him when he blathered on about how Cindy Sheehan had some kind of “moral authority.”
jdkazoo123,
Please understand that the 21st century activist media that we are now faced with is a HUGE problem.
Propaganda Is Destroying Trust In The Fourth Estate and Wreaking Havoc On Society
I’ll repeat this until I’m blue in the face and everyone on both sides of the political aisle clearly understands it…
“The political left has shown its pattern of propaganda lies within their narratives so many times that it’s beyond me why anyone would blindly accept any narrative that the political left, their lapdog Pravda-USA media, their woke consumed bureaucracy, or their activist supporters actively push?”
What the activist journalists are doing is immoral and anti-American.