The Problem: Trump Doesn’t Believe In Democracy That Much More Than Democrats Do

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Some prominent progressives are noticing that Democrats are increasingly hostile to the core principles of democracy. Yesterday, for example, actor/activist Tim Robbins issued a tweet condemning the House Democrats who threatened reporter Matt Taibbi with prison following his congressional testimony on the so-called Twitter Files:

A serious, individual liberties-respecting, democratic values-honoring GOP candidate who hadn’t already burned every bridge he came across might have some success turning such previously knee-jerk Democratic voters around. Such a candidate is emphatically not Donald Trump.

In both his social media posts and his recent rally in New Hampshire, Trump implied that he wouldn’t participate in any pre-primary debates among other contenders for the Republican nomination. Describing the debates as giving rivals like Florida governor Ron DeSantis a chance to challenge him, he asked the crowd n Manchester,“Why would you do that?”

Gee, give me a minute; let me think. Oh! You do that because democracy requires an informed public. You do it because voters deserve an opportunity to compare their options. You do it to show respect for the process of American elections and the office Trump is seeking.

Then he said, “I do look forward to the debate with Joe.”

Idiot. Why would Biden agree to debate Trump if he didn’t have to? Trump ducking the primary debates would eliminate any traction he could gain by claiming that Joe was “ducking him.” Trump skipping the GOP candidates debates all but guarantees that Biden will refuse to subject himself to the risks of a debate format.

All of which degrades and undermines the functioning of our system. These guys don’t care, and Trump is seemingly setting himself up to run a Bull Moose-style kamikaze third party assault if the Republican Party doesn’t do his bidding and make him its candidate. Recall that the RNC announced that promising to support the GOP nominee was a prerequisite for participating in the debates. Now Trump is saying, “Debates? I don’t need no stinking debates!” It’s obvious what he’s threatening, isn’t it?

Trump is declaring himself the nominee—Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor, remember—-leaving the rest of the possible contenders with a no-win dilemma: all they can do is knock each other off while Trump coasts to the nomination, only appearing before fawning audiences of deplorables and never having to engage with his critics.

Democrats want to silence and criminalize dissent; Trump wants to block any route to challenging his power.

As divided as Americans are, it doesn’t appear that enough of them care about preserving democracy to do anything to preserve it. They only differ on the means by which they are willing to let it collapse.

Trump Wraps Up The Ethics Alarms 2023 “Asshole Of The Year” Award In Record Time

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

I may even have to name it “The Donald Trump Award.”

At a New Hampshire campaign rally yesterday, the former President drew laughs and cheers from his crowd of human seals when he did an imitation of President Joe Biden being disoriented and getting lost on stage.

Nice. Stay classy, Mr. President.

“You would think at least one time he’d get up and say, ‘I’m running for President — where, where am I going, where the hell am I going?’” Trump, said, doing his best imitation of an addled old coot. “I want to get out, oh, no over there, over there,” Trump said as he wandered away from the podium.

The ugly routine evoked this episode from his 2016 campaign, in which Trump mocked a disabled reporter (and later denied that he did.)

Trump is out of control at this point, assuming he’s ever been in control. He’s convinced that he’s invincible and already has the GOP nomination wrapped up. The political hit jobs on him from the George Soros prosecutors, the House Democrats and the Justice Department have only made him stronger politically.

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Open Forum, Searching For Something Better

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

What a depressing week.

I think the cap might have been right before bedtime last night, when I finally checked out what strange tangents Ann Althouse had been on lately. For some reason she had tracked down an article at Metafilter about Nate Silver’s being separated from his creation, 538, and a reader comment that said he had been guilty of “bothsideism.”

Nate is far from an Ethics Alarms favorite, as when he is not analyzing sports he uses the alleged neutrality of his statistical models to mask an obvious left-leaning bias. However, the flat assertion that he didn’t slant his analysis enough for the Leftist totalitarians out there is genuinely frightening. It also echoes the ethics rot emanating from this recent post. I’ve encountered the term “bothsideism” periodically and mentally noted its absurdity, but now I realize that a frightening proportion of the public, academics and especially journalists really do believe that thoughtfully considering multiple points of view and perspective is wrong.

As they sing in “Sweet Charity”: There’s gotta be something better than this.

Please try to find it.

Wait, WHAT? The White House Is Caught Rigging Biden’s Press Conference To Make Him Appear More Competent Than He Is, And The Washington Post’s Analysis is “Everybody Does It” And “Republicans Pounce”?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

How do these people look at themselves in the mirror without retching?

Paul Farhi was the veteran Democratic operative (aka a MSM reporter) the Post assigned to spin this scandal. “President Biden was photographed holding a notecard Wednesday, revealing the stage managing behind many political media events,” he began. Oh, the euphemism is “stagemanaging,” is it? What the “notecard” was is called a cheat sheet, and what it signifies is cheating, and lying to the public.

The card in Biden’s hand—he’s so diminished mentally that he can’t even cheat competently–read “Question # 1,” and directed the President to call on Los Angeles Times reporter, Courtney Subramanian. The card included Subramanian’s name, a pronunciation guide, her affiliation and a headshot. The card also included Subramanian’s question: under the heading “Foreign Policy/Semiconductor Manufacturing,” the card read, “How are YOU squaring YOUR domestic priorities — like reshoring semiconductors manufacturing — with alliance-based foreign policy?”

Biden called on her for the first question, she asked what she was supposed to, and Biden offered an uncharacteristically detailed and coherent response. Farhi’s spin: “White House press office employees have routinely polled reporters about their priorities and interests in advance of news meetings to anticipate what their boss might be asked while on the podium. The practice is also common in news conferences with Cabinet secretaries, such as the secretary of defense and secretary of state.” Fine, that’s their job. And it is an ethical reporter’s job to say, “Sorry, you’re just going to have to find out when I’m called on.” Sure Presidential aides want to brief POTUS on what the likely topics are. Rigging the questions in advance, however, is something completely different. It’s called cheating. This is particularly true in this case, when much of the pubic is concerned about the President’s cognitive abilities. Presenting him as able to whip off a detailed answer to a reporter’s question when in fact he was tipped off and the reporter was in cahoots with the White House is pure deception.

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Jerry Springer (RIP) Was An Ethics Corrupter

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Jerry Springer has died at 79. I’m not glad he’s dead, but when someone has as damaging an effect on the culture as he did, the fact belongs in his obituary. Attention should be paid.

Springer was the epitome of an ethics corrupter. He held the poor, uneducated, non-too-bright and badly socialized up to public ridicule. He encouraged foolish people to embarrass themselves on TV. He also sent the message to many of his less civilized, socialized and mature viewers that the best way to deal with conflict is a punch in the chops.

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Gun Control Advocates Would Be More Persuasive If They Didn’t Rely On Big Lies And Fake Statistics: The Latest From Kamala Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 71 Comments

The only example of a similarly polluted public policy debate I can think of right now is the hoary “women are payed 76 cents for every dollar a man is paid for the same job” myth. Wait: there are the inflated and misleading Wuhan virus fatality stats. And come to think of it…never mind, we’re talking about the Bill of Rights here. The fake statistic in Harris’s tweet—and to be fair, her claim didn’t originate with her—representing a toxic hybrid between the “Do something!” gun hysteria and the “Think of the children!” rationalization—is popping up everywhere lately. Frankly, I believed it when I first saw it last week. After all, as Harry Reid would say, it works. But it’s a Big Lie.

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Ethics Quiz (“The Password Is ‘Civility'”): Fired For A Foul-Mouthed Faux Pas

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

ESPN fired national baseball reporter Marly Rivera, an ESPN Radio MLB analyst who has also appeared on baseball telecasts, after an incident at Yankee Stadium in which she called a female reporter from another outlet a “fucking cunt” during an altercation. The incident was caught on someone’s cell phone video (of course), and posted on social media. When the clash and the vulgarity got back to Rivera’s employer, ESPN canned her.

Rivera had been with ESPN for 13 years, working for ESPN’s English language platforms as a writer and on-air personality, and for ESPN Deportes. Reportedly she attempted to apologize to the object of her epithet, but was rebuffed.

Your Ethics Alarms Civility Quiz of the Day is…

Was it fair and responsible to fire Rivera for her outburst?

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What A Surprise: Trump’s Scorched Earth Premptive Attack On Ron DiSantis Is Hypocritical, Dishonest And Divisive

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Ronald Reagan’s “First Commandment” was “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan, and he’s only a Republican of convenience; nevertheless, his strategy of using negative campaigning to kneecap his presumed competition for the Republican Presidential nomination before Florida’s Governor Ron DiSantis has even announced his candidacy is particularly odious. Launching these attacks would be revolting if they were fair and accurate, but they are not.

That is who and what Donald Trump is, however. He’s not going to broaden his base this way, or make it more likely that the GOP can defeat the Democrats in 2024. Right now, he doesn’t care about that: all that matters is winning the nomination, and, like Scarlett O’Hara, he’ll think about the consequences tomorrow after playing as dirty as he has to.

I know I’m repeating myself, but what an asshole this guy is. It is a searing testament to just how unfit to govern the Democrats and Joe Biden are that I had to vote for him in 2020, and it really wasn’t that difficult a decision.

This week Trump and his campaign vomitted up a document claiming that “the real DeSantis record is one of misery and despair,” and arguing that Florida was a terrible place to live. This assertion has an immediate ring of hypocrisy surrounding it, since Donald Trump chooses to live there.

The Wall Street Journal was moved to fact-check Trump’s ruthless indictment, and it’s a legitimate fact-check, not the kind one gets from, say, the Washington Post. WSJ points out…

1. The Trump release relies on links to progressive-biased studies and anti-DiSantis news reports claiming that Florida is unaffordable and unsafe, and includes, “ESPN wrote that Florida is the Worst State in The Nation To Die.”

ESPN?

2. Many of the statistics cited in the Trump hit piece come from groups with progressive agendas, those that Trump would typically dismiss as “fake.” It cites a 2022 Oxfam report that says Florida is the 29th best state for workers, but down-rates states that have “so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws” and those that, like Florida, don’t allow “localities to implement their own minimum wage laws.” Trump has never been a fan of unions or the minimum wage. It also cites the Florida Policy Institute, which wants illegal immigrants to be able to obtain obtain driver’s licenses. “Wasn’t immigration Mr. Trump’s signature issue in 2016?” asks WSJ. “They say politics makes strange bedfellows, but Mr. Trump’s one-night stand with this outfit is bizarre.”

Indeed.

3. Trump’s vicious hit job relies heavily on the website WalletHub, which ranks Florida 26th on its “best states for working moms” ranking using a witches brew of “17 relevant metrics” that were given different weights, a classic device in pseudo-science. Many WalletHub rankings not mentioned by Trump’s campaign rank Florida highly: the site says Florida is the second best state in which to retire, second best for starting a business, second best for for fewest Wuhan virus restrictions, the second “most fun” state, fourth best for teachers, sixth for low taxes, and the seventh best state to live in. This is the epitome of cherry-picking, a dishonest and unethical advocacy trick.

4. WSJ also points out that hundreds of thousands of Americans are moving to Florida, which strongly suggests that the public doesn’t agree that the state teems with “misery and despair.” The Census Bureau says Florida gained a net 318,855 under DiSantis from July 2021 to July 2022, and leads all states, by far, in attracting new residents.

One conservative blogger writes in reaction to the attack,

[W]hat makes Trump any different than Biden, who constantly lies about the GOP with absurd claims such as the ones being made by Trump? What makes Trump any different than those Democrats and media outfits who smeared him for years during his presidency? What makes him any different than those trying to smear him now?

Are there really still people who expect consistency, integrity, fairness or The Golden Rule from Donald Trump? He believes that the ends justify the means. He fights to win. Collateral damage doesn’t trouble him one bit, and ethics are for suckers. By attacking DiSantis and in his manner of doing so, he is showing once again that whatever his faults, pretending to be someone he’s not isn’t among them.

Comment Of The Day: “I THOUGHT This Issue Would Eventually End Up At The Supreme Court, And Here It Is!”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Now that the question of whether Donald Trump was violating the First Amendment when he blocked nasty commenters on his tweets (like every other Twitter-user could do) has some distance from the reflex “That asshole! Serves him right that the courts stopped him” response from the Trump Deranged, the issue has sparked some varied and interesting commentary. Yesterday’s EA post sure did; I even managed to trigger a violent argument between two long-time esteemed commenters here.

I remain very ambivalent on the issue. Here is Rich in CT’s Comment of the Day raising a parallel that is one of the reasons.

***

I serve on a local board, and in Connecticut at least, there is no inherit right for the public to speak in any particular forum (during the conduct of official business). If comments are allowed, it is up to the discretion of the board (pursuant to applicable bylaws), and they can be limited to a specific topic to help the board make a lawful and effective public policy decision. Disruptive comments can be barred. My board has never had to remove a disruptive individual, but we have that right if needed as they speak as our guests.

We’ve had heated exchanges, and have had to frequently warn the public that comments must remain on topic and civil. Allowing uncivil comments, in fact, can create a “hostile forum” that can potentially bias the commission again a particular applicant. Courts can vacate decisions made during such conditions, and made adjudicate the application itself, taking the decision completely out of the commission’s control.

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