Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Why Is The Media Ignoring Trump's Increasing Senility?
The media seems to be fixated on Biden's age, but Trump is just as old (and his gaffes are much worse). Here is how Brian Tyler Cohen describes this at MSNBC.com:
We’ve all heard Republicans spout the party line about President Joe Biden: Not only is he in the throes of mental decline, but he’s also the apparent mastermind behind an entire crime family but can’t remember his own name. Does it make sense? No. Does it have to? Apparently not.
But the problem is that the people who’ve been perpetuating this narrative seem pretty willing to overlook the fact that their political deity, Donald Trump, doesn’t seem to be working with a full deck of cards — a point that’s become progressively evident these past few weeks. Like, for example, when he suggested that he defeated Obama in the 2016 election. Or when he claimed that World War II hadn’t happened yet. Or when he said that Jeb Bush got us into the Iraq War. Not exactly the next Stephen Hawking here.
And not to revert to the familiar refrain, but could you imagine if Joe Biden did any of these things? Could you imagine the wall-to-wall coverage on Fox and the rest of conservative media? The earth could quite literally fall off its axis — that still wouldn’t be enough to knock right-wing media off this news cycle.
And look, I’m not looking to get into the mud about which septuagenarian or octogenarian politician is too old; they’re all old, we get it. But what I will do is point out the obvious, glaring hypocrisy of both Republicans and many in the media who relentlessly hammer Biden on his age, his mental acuity and his fitness to serve when those same people are conveniently silent when Trump says things that are far worse. Running it as front-page news when Biden trips one time, only to then ignore when Trump suggests World War II has yet to take place, betrays right-wing media’s actual goal: It’s not because of any well-founded concern over Biden’s ability to execute the duties of office; it’s just naked partisanship.
But while we expect this kind of hackery from right-wing media, we should demand more from the mainstream media that has arguably learned nothing from 2016 by platforming this blatant propaganda. I was truly hoping we’d come further than watching Fox and other like-minded outlets parade around their talking points about Biden’s age, only to then witness other mainstream outlets take the bait.
But lo and behold, headlines like these are the norm: “Biden’s age may be a growing problem for his reelection” from The Washington Post; “Questions over Biden’s age are getting sharper” from The Hill; “Biden and the ‘Age Question’” from The Wall Street Journal. It would be one thing if we hadn’t already encountered the disastrous consequences of a “both sides” media, but after years of the Trumpificiation of the Republican Party, to witness the media still fall for the exact same tricks that brought us Trump in the first place is truly unacceptable.
The truth is that if this was actually about Biden’s ability to fulfill his duties as president, you don’t have to sit around and play doctor; all you have to do is look at how he’s been fulfilling his duties as president. I don’t need to see the results of Joe Biden’s next colonoscopy to be able to see the American Rescue Plan, which saved the U.S. economy after Covid; to see the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which put people to work after the “infrastructure week” punch lines of the Trump era; to see the gun safety law, the first gun bill passed in three decades; to see the Chips and Sciences Act, which has led to a boom in American manufacturing; to see the PACT Act, which gave desperately needed health care to our veterans; to see the Violence Against Women Act reauthorized; to see a record 13.5 million jobs added and the unemployment rate hit a 50-year low.
Again, we don’t have to guess whether Biden is capable of doing the job, because he’s quite literally already doing it — and I’d argue doing it more effectively than any other president in modern American history.
And to be clear, none of this is to deny the validity of anyone’s worries about Biden’s age. He’s old. Too many of our leaders are old. I get it. But aside from the fact that Biden has already proved that he is up to the job because he is currently exceeding expectations while doing the job, let’s also not pretend that we don’t know the stakes in this upcoming election. Our elections are binary; they’re a choice between two people. As of this moment, it certainly does seem that the choice is going to be between an 80-year-old Joe Biden and a 77-year-old Donald Trump.
And I have every ounce of faith in the world that Americans — who, yes, may certainly recognize that Biden is old — won’t make that a higher priority than the fact that his opponent is a dangerous, anti-democratic authoritarian currently contending with four indictments and 91 criminal charges and whose most recent act as president was to incite an insurrection against our own government. So the GOP and its willful accomplices in the media may parrot Republican talking points about Biden’s age until they’re blue in the face, but we won’t be distracted by the same antics they deployed ahead of the 2016 election. We know the stakes of this election, and no amount of right-wing propaganda is going to change that.
Monday, October 02, 2023
Majority Wants Binding Code Of Ethics For Supreme Court
The chart above reflects the result of the Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between September 23rd and 25th of a nationwide sample of 1,967 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.
The Emotion-Based Christian Nationalism Is Dangerous
The following is part of an op-ed by David French in The New York Times:
The more I consider the challenge posed by Christian nationalism, the more I think most observers and critics are paying too much attention to the wrong group of Christian nationalists. We mainly think of Christian nationalism as a theology or at least as a philosophy. In reality, the Christian nationalist movement that actually matters is rooted in emotion and ostensibly divine revelation, and it’s that emotional and spiritual movement that so stubbornly clings to Donald Trump. . . .
In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, there was a tremendous surge of interest in Christian nationalism. Christian displays were common in the crowd at the Capitol. Rioters and protesters carried Christian flags, Christian banners and Bibles. They prayed openly, and a Dispatch reporter in the crowd told me that in the late afternoon Christian worship music was blaring from loudspeakers. I started to hear questions I’d never heard before: What is Christian nationalism and how is it different from patriotism?
I’ve long thought that the best single answer to that question comes from a church history professor at Baylor named Thomas Kidd. In the days before Jan. 6, when apocalyptic Christian rhetoric about the 2020 election was building to a fever pitch, Kidd distinguished between intellectual or theological Christian nationalism and emotional Christian nationalism.
The intellectual definition is contentious. There are differences, for example, among Catholic integralism, which specifically seeks to “integrate” Catholic religious authority with the state; Protestant theonomy, which “believes that civil law should follow the example of Israel’s civil and judicial laws under the Mosaic covenant”; and Pentecostalism’s Seven Mountain Mandate, which seeks to place every key political and cultural institution in the United States under Christian control.
But walk into Christian MAGA America and mention any one of those terms, and you’re likely to be greeted with a blank look. “Actual Christian nationalism,” Kidd argues, “is more a visceral reaction than a rationally chosen stance.” He’s right. Essays and books about philosophy and theology are important for determining the ultimate health of the church, but on the ground or in the pews? They’re much less important than emotion, prophecy and spiritualism.
Arguments about the proper role of virtue in the public square, for example, or arguments over the proper balance between order and liberty, are helpless in the face of prophecies, like the declarations from Christian “apostles” that Donald Trump is God’s appointed leader, destined to save the nation from destruction. Sometimes there’s no need for a prophet to deliver the message. Instead, Christians will claim that the Holy Spirit spoke to them directly. As one longtime friend told me, “David, I was with you on opposing Trump until the Holy Spirit told me that God had appointed him to lead.”
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the “rage and joy” of MAGA America. Outsiders see the rage and hatred directed at them and miss that a key part of Trump’s appeal is the joy and fellowship that Trump supporters feel with each other. But there’s one last element that cements that bond with Trump: faith, including a burning sense of certainty that by supporting him, they are instruments of God’s divine plan.
For this reason, I’ve started answering questions about Christian nationalism by saying it’s not serious, but it’s very dangerous. It’s not a serious position to argue that this diverse, secularizing country will shed liberal democracy for Catholic or Protestant religious rule. But it’s exceedingly dangerous and destabilizing when millions of citizens believe that the fate of the church is bound up in the person they believe is the once and future president of the United States.
That’s why the Trump fever won’t break. That’s why even the most biblically based arguments against Trump fall on deaf ears. That’s why the very act of Christian opposition to Trump is often seen as a grave betrayal of Christ himself. In 2024, this nation will wrestle with Christian nationalism once again, but it won’t be the nationalism of ideas. It will be a nationalism rooted more in emotion and mysticism than theology. The fever may not break until the “prophecies” change, and that is a factor that is entirely out of our control.
Sunday, October 01, 2023
The Nightmare Of Government Shutdown (SATIRE)
The Republicans seem determined to shut down the government. In her latest bit of satire, Alexandra Petri (The Washington Post) presents this as a recurring nightmare:
I am having the government shutdown nightmare again. I had it a few months ago, but it is worse than before.
You know the nightmare I mean. It is the one where other things are shutting down for the same reasons that House Republicans are shutting down the government. It is one of those nightmares that you keep trying, and failing, to wake up from.
You are lying on an operating table. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is your surgeon. “I can save you,” McCarthy says. “I know how. But that is going to upset members of the Freedom Caucus. Instead of saving you, they want me to insert this bonus liver! I’m going to try it, as a gesture of good faith to them.” He nods to his nurse, lifts the liver from a neighboring tray, and you feel yourself going under.
When you next open your eyes you are on an airplane. Kevin McCarthy’s voice comes over the intercom. “Hello,” he says. “This is your pilot speaking. I would love to land this plane safely. I know how. But if I do that, Matt Gaetz will threaten my job. Instead, he wants me to try to fly into the sun. And to that I say, sure! We don’t know it won’t work!”
“Yes, we do!” another passenger yells.
“What matters is, people will see that we tried our best to land the plane safely!” Kevin McCarthy’s voice says, and then the intercom cuts out and you feel the nose of the plane tilting up, up, up.
When you next open your eyes you are on a deserted island. There is a bridge to the mainland. Kevin McCarthy is setting it on fire. “Come on!” you say. “Really?”
He shrugs. “Freedom Caucus doesn’t want us to use the bridge,” he says. “But they have a great plan that should work, using just a few hen’s teeth, a series of ghosts and cold fusion.” You sigh.
When you next open your eyes you are sinking in quicksand. “Throw me the rope!” you yell to Kevin McCarthy. He is very clearly standing within range, holding a generous length of rope.
“Do you know what will make Matt Gaetz happy?” he yells back. He makes no attempt to throw the rope. You are sinking rapidly. “I am just trying to do what will make Matt Gaetz happy!”“No one knows what will make Matt Gaetz happy!” you yell. “It is essential that you throw me a rope!”
“Essential,” McCarthy says. “I don’t know what that word means. Like an oil?” Sand fills your mouth and eyes. “What if we hold an impeachment hearing? Is that essential?” you hear McCarthy saying, as the sand closes over your head.
When you next open your eyes you are plummeting rapidly through the air, securely belted to your skydiving instructor. The instructor is Kevin McCarthy. “Pull the chute!” you shout. He shakes his head. “SORRY!” he shouts back. “MATT GAETZ WILL GET MAD IF I PULL THE CHUTE, SO INSTEAD I AM GOING TO USE THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING!”
“That won’t work!” you yell. The ground is getting closer.
“IT’S THIS OR MY JOB!” he shouts back.
“YOUR JOB IS TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING!” you yell. You are picking up speed. You squeeze your eyes shut.
When you next open your eyes you are on an out-of-control trolley, barreling toward the U.S. economy’s fragile recovery, which in this scenario is anthropomorphic and strapped to the trolley tracks. There is a bright red switch that will divert the trolley onto a siding where it will damage only one thing, Kevin McCarthy’s career as speaker of the House — a thing of limited value to anyone. “Pull the switch!” you yell. “Pull the switch!” But Kevin McCarthy is driving the trolley. He shakes his head.
I wish I didn’t have this nightmare so regularly. I wish we weren’t in a situation where the punchline to this kind of joke behavior will punch real people in the face. Real suffering for joke reasons, the new American way! I wish this kind of goofy brinkmanship wasn’t going to result in denying expectant parents access to food, straining those trying to deliver health care, and — less importantly, but still — preventing me from seeing which bear is fat this week.
But that would be a dream.
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