Mainstream institutions keep rehabilitating enemies of democracy because enemies of democracy are now normal; they'll only stop when we abnormalize them again.
This piece is just excellent, Brian. Lays out the stakes in the bothsidesist whataboutism that paves the media and, increasingly, academic path of least resistance for MAGA America. I’m going to assign it to the political
science class I teach this week.
It’s stunning what has become “normal” on college campuses. I have more than once had to defend — even to administrators!! — the position that saying that Joe Biden is president doesn’t require giving equal time to a conservative student to insist that he isn’t, or that saying that Trump admires Viktor Orban’s brand of Christian Nationalism and tough guy governance is not casting an unfair slur against the the Republican Party. The fact that Trump was fawning over Orban at rallies and he was dining at Mar-a-Lago even as a student’s mom was complaining to college administrators that I was unfairly saying Trump likes Orban is irrelevant because facts are irrelevant.
Precisely what is getting normalized is the notion that empirical evidence that something is truth is no longer a sufficient justification to to allow me to refuse to air a lie that it isn’t.
The legislature in my state just passed a law allowing universities to fire college profs, including those with tenure, if they don’t provide a comfortable environment for conservative students by airing “enough” diversity of viewpoints. And any aggrieved student who is uncomfortable can filed a complaint to initiate the review.
It’s worth noting that liberals paved the way for the “normalization” of restricting academic freedom in order to be sure students feel safe and respected in the classroom. That this is where we are heading in red states is no surprise.
It’s on us to make damn sure that the normalization of illiberal practices doesn’t begin with us!!
Feels like my blood is always on the boil these days and I’m exhausted. I’m old enough to retire and that’s the normal thing to do at this time of my life, but these are not normal times.
1. What we have come to generally perceive as "normal" was a product of mid-20th century American good times. Given the history of the nation--in which lynching black people, e.g., was considered "normal" for more than a century--it now seems a rather fragile creation. Maybe we ought to remember that more often.
2. Sarah Isgur, the legal analyst ABC hired after working for the Trump DOJ, seems to fly under the radar but her credibility as a "detached conservative" seems to me to deserve a lot more scrutiny. Look up what she did as a Trump employee.
Isgur was the DoJ spokesperson who defended policies like the Muslim Ban and child separation right? And she's been rehabilitated under the "just following orders" doctrine? And her opponents feel she should've resigned rather than justify putting kids in cages?
She worked under Jeff Sessions and was forced out when Trump fired him. She later declared it was a mistake to take such a job, but continues to use her ABC role to soft pedal Trump legal troubles and inflate Biden (so-called) legal troubles. E.g., contending (misreading/fabricating?) Special Counsel Hur's report showed "beyond a doubt" Biden had illegally taken and hidden classified material.
By her own admission she is a rather craven opportunist. (Check out a New Yorker article about her.) One wonders if Trump hadn't fired her what she would have been up to the rest of his term. Probably no good.
We should all be against any news organizations hiring anyone directly out of a partisan position. The intent of news should be to better educate the viewer/reader. Almost impossible for James Carville or Michael Steele to do such moments after they stepped away from an election.
don't know if you saw the clip yesterday from Fox News, it was Bill Hemmer, Dana Perino, and Kayli (sp) McInenny (also sp) pearl-clutching over NBC's bouncing McDaniel. they were shocked, shocked! to see NBC/MSNBC talent take their network to task, and on-air! they agreed that should anyone try that at Fox they'd be shown the door immediately. it's worth a watch.
but the things that stuck out for me were McInenny calling herself a journalist, and saying that MSNBC doesn't represent the roughly half of the country (according to her) who support Trump. she was really indignant about it (but then she is about every perceived slight) but of course applies the standard that the function of a cable news network is to provide some sort of proportional demographic coverage to please all voters only to NBC, since her own network has only a single, lonely representative of non-Fox perspective—the excellent Jessica Tarlov. McInenny's outrage and astonishment at the integrity of NBC employees who risked their extremely lucrative jobs to tell the truth is incredibly telling.
It's always hard for me to tell who's deluded and who's faking and when, but my hunch is McInenny knows she's not a journalist but is happy to degrade the professional title by calling herself one.
What's puzzling to me is why folks like Ronna stay so loyal while in their positions. No matter what, almost universally once they're out Trump is pissing on them. Ronna is now in "no man's land" which is "a place you don't want to be" because "she was fired even though she told them what they wanted to hear" . Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, but it's always hilariously shocking the complete lack of loyalty here.
Unless you take a bullet for the guy he's gonna shit on your once you're out. Even then he'll make a crack about taking bullets for others is for suckers.
Ronna got to a national level position (RNC Chair) based on apparently really nothing but Trump loyalty, and for good measure oversaw poor results while in it. So her only way of maintaining anything close to her level of influence was continued genuflection. I'm not sure we'll hear much from her in future, even if she does get a position at Harvard or some other ill-deserved soft landing.
Well, the good news is that Rona lost the lettuce webcam survival test.
The better news is that the lettuce is still fresh enough to use in a salad tonight.
This piece is just excellent, Brian. Lays out the stakes in the bothsidesist whataboutism that paves the media and, increasingly, academic path of least resistance for MAGA America. I’m going to assign it to the political
science class I teach this week.
It’s stunning what has become “normal” on college campuses. I have more than once had to defend — even to administrators!! — the position that saying that Joe Biden is president doesn’t require giving equal time to a conservative student to insist that he isn’t, or that saying that Trump admires Viktor Orban’s brand of Christian Nationalism and tough guy governance is not casting an unfair slur against the the Republican Party. The fact that Trump was fawning over Orban at rallies and he was dining at Mar-a-Lago even as a student’s mom was complaining to college administrators that I was unfairly saying Trump likes Orban is irrelevant because facts are irrelevant.
Precisely what is getting normalized is the notion that empirical evidence that something is truth is no longer a sufficient justification to to allow me to refuse to air a lie that it isn’t.
The legislature in my state just passed a law allowing universities to fire college profs, including those with tenure, if they don’t provide a comfortable environment for conservative students by airing “enough” diversity of viewpoints. And any aggrieved student who is uncomfortable can filed a complaint to initiate the review.
It’s worth noting that liberals paved the way for the “normalization” of restricting academic freedom in order to be sure students feel safe and respected in the classroom. That this is where we are heading in red states is no surprise.
It’s on us to make damn sure that the normalization of illiberal practices doesn’t begin with us!!
Feels like my blood is always on the boil these days and I’m exhausted. I’m old enough to retire and that’s the normal thing to do at this time of my life, but these are not normal times.
Thanks for this. Very cathartic!!!
Let me know how the teaching goes!
I can’t get past the issue of Ronna Romney McDaniel looking like an Al Hirschfeld caricature of herself.
Two brief comments:
1. What we have come to generally perceive as "normal" was a product of mid-20th century American good times. Given the history of the nation--in which lynching black people, e.g., was considered "normal" for more than a century--it now seems a rather fragile creation. Maybe we ought to remember that more often.
2. Sarah Isgur, the legal analyst ABC hired after working for the Trump DOJ, seems to fly under the radar but her credibility as a "detached conservative" seems to me to deserve a lot more scrutiny. Look up what she did as a Trump employee.
Isgur was the DoJ spokesperson who defended policies like the Muslim Ban and child separation right? And she's been rehabilitated under the "just following orders" doctrine? And her opponents feel she should've resigned rather than justify putting kids in cages?
She worked under Jeff Sessions and was forced out when Trump fired him. She later declared it was a mistake to take such a job, but continues to use her ABC role to soft pedal Trump legal troubles and inflate Biden (so-called) legal troubles. E.g., contending (misreading/fabricating?) Special Counsel Hur's report showed "beyond a doubt" Biden had illegally taken and hidden classified material.
By her own admission she is a rather craven opportunist. (Check out a New Yorker article about her.) One wonders if Trump hadn't fired her what she would have been up to the rest of his term. Probably no good.
Great point about Isgur.
We should all be against any news organizations hiring anyone directly out of a partisan position. The intent of news should be to better educate the viewer/reader. Almost impossible for James Carville or Michael Steele to do such moments after they stepped away from an election.
don't know if you saw the clip yesterday from Fox News, it was Bill Hemmer, Dana Perino, and Kayli (sp) McInenny (also sp) pearl-clutching over NBC's bouncing McDaniel. they were shocked, shocked! to see NBC/MSNBC talent take their network to task, and on-air! they agreed that should anyone try that at Fox they'd be shown the door immediately. it's worth a watch.
but the things that stuck out for me were McInenny calling herself a journalist, and saying that MSNBC doesn't represent the roughly half of the country (according to her) who support Trump. she was really indignant about it (but then she is about every perceived slight) but of course applies the standard that the function of a cable news network is to provide some sort of proportional demographic coverage to please all voters only to NBC, since her own network has only a single, lonely representative of non-Fox perspective—the excellent Jessica Tarlov. McInenny's outrage and astonishment at the integrity of NBC employees who risked their extremely lucrative jobs to tell the truth is incredibly telling.
It's always hard for me to tell who's deluded and who's faking and when, but my hunch is McInenny knows she's not a journalist but is happy to degrade the professional title by calling herself one.
What's puzzling to me is why folks like Ronna stay so loyal while in their positions. No matter what, almost universally once they're out Trump is pissing on them. Ronna is now in "no man's land" which is "a place you don't want to be" because "she was fired even though she told them what they wanted to hear" . Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, but it's always hilariously shocking the complete lack of loyalty here.
Unless you take a bullet for the guy he's gonna shit on your once you're out. Even then he'll make a crack about taking bullets for others is for suckers.
Ronna got to a national level position (RNC Chair) based on apparently really nothing but Trump loyalty, and for good measure oversaw poor results while in it. So her only way of maintaining anything close to her level of influence was continued genuflection. I'm not sure we'll hear much from her in future, even if she does get a position at Harvard or some other ill-deserved soft landing.