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erronis

(14,853 posts)
Fri Dec 27, 2019, 09:33 AM Dec 2019

Excellent post by Heather Cox Richardson: Chuck Todd, Turley on impeachment, media / disinformation [View all]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-26-2019

Today began and ended with Trump melting down. This morning, after a silence during the holidays, he came out swinging at the Democrats generally, and at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically. Then this evening, apparently against the advice of his lawyer, he retweeted a story that named someone claimed to be the whistleblower, a person who currently has a security detail for protection, not in a foreign war zone, but in our own nation’s capital.

It seems clear that Trump cannot bear that Pelosi—whom he is calling “Crazy Nancy”-- is not rushing to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial… a trial that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already promised will exonerate Trump. It is worth noting that it has been only a week since the House passed the articles of impeachment, and we have had major religious holidays in that time, and yet Trump is obviously angry and desperate for movement on impeachment. But he’s got to wait even longer. The House will not be in session again until January 7—twelve days from now—and the Senate calendar for January is still in flux.

In other impeachment news, you will recall that Noah Feldman, the Harvard Law Professor who testified before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of impeachment, wrote an op-ed last week saying that Trump was not officially impeached until the House sent the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. Trump jumped on this idea, and has been saying that he is not really impeached. Today one of the other law professors who testified, George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley, who was called by the Republicans and was opposed to impeachment, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “I testified against Trump’s impeachment. But let’s not pretend it didn’t happen.” The title pretty much sums it up. As Turley concluded: “The House speaks in its own voice and in its own time. It did so on Dec. 18, 2019.”

For all the drama of these two stories, I have been more interested in what feels to me like a changing trend: it appears that media is finally recognizing that it cannot simply report “both sides” of the news as if they are equally valid when one side is lying. On the evening of December 24, Rolling Stone magazine published a short interview with Chuck Todd, an NBC journalist who moderates Meet the Press and who is the Political Director for NBC News. On December 29, Meet the Press is doing a show on disinformation and how it is weaponized, and this interview was a teaser.

It's really important to understand that “misinformation” and “disinformation” are different things. “Misinformation” is bad information caused by errors-- someone makes a mistake. “Disinformation,” though, is deliberately false information intended to manipulate public opinion. Another word for disinformation is propaganda.

In the interview, Todd laments that he has been “absurdly naïve.” Right up until he had Senator Cruz on his show recently and Cruz echoed Russian propaganda, Todd apparently believed that the Republicans were acting in good faith when they talked to the media. Todd says he was “stunned” by Cruz’s embrace of Russian disinformation, especially since he was the third senator to do exactly that on the show. Cruz had asked to come on, and Todd thought that since Cruz had always been a Russia hawk, he wanted to set the record straight. When, instead, he followed the party line, Todd finally got it: Trump Republicans are using the media to spread propaganda.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, responded to this revelation by pointing out that it was on Todd’s own show in January 2017 that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway launched the concept of the administrations lies simply being based on “alternative facts.” But, Rosen writes, media leaders nonetheless treated officials’ lies as hyperbole, just Trump and his spokespeople being ridiculous.

The upshot is that, three years later, Trump’s base is divorced from reality, while other Americans are so tired from incessant gas lighting we have lost faith that we can still perceive reality. This is why gaslighting is effective propaganda: having lost confidence in their own perceptions, people are so eager for peace they are willing to accept a strong leader who will promise to create stability.

I’m with Rosen on this. There is no excuse for such “naivete” on Todd’s part. He’s the Political Director for NBC News, after all, and should have had a better handle on the well-known methods at play here.

Even more, it has been very clear that today’s Republican Party has risen to power by rejecting facts and creating its own reality. After World War Two, Republicans and Democrats both shared a belief that the government had a role to play in regulating the economy, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting infrastructure. Indeed, that belief about government was so widely embraced it became known as the “liberal consensus.”

In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr., fresh out of college, wrote a book attacking that consensus by attacking fact-based argument. In God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom,” Buckley said that trying to reach the truth by constructing arguments out of facts—the premise of the Enlightenment-- was a worse superstition than the Dark Age traditions the Enlightenment tried to root out. When presented with fact-based arguments, voters kept choosing the liberal consensus. So far as Buckley was concerned, that consensus flew in the face of God’s laws. So, Buckley concluded, it was imperative to stop arguing based on facts, and simply promote a “Conservative” view of the world by whatever means necessary.

The construction of a narrative undercutting the popular liberal consensus took the modern Republican Party further and further away from a fact-based reality, until by 2002, journalist Ron Suskind had this extraordinary exchange with one of President George W. Bush’s aides.

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles…. He cut me off. 'That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. '…When we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”

Ten years later, in 2012, Thomas E. Mann from the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute warned that it was imperative to stop saying “both sides do it,” because the parties were not equally polarized. “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics,” they wrote. “It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

We now have a president who has made more than 15,000 false or misleading claims in fewer than three years in office, and it has become increasingly clear recently that those lies echo Russian propaganda. Senior officials repeat his claims to the media, creating their own reality.

It is my sense that Todd’s revelation is a sign that media figures are starting to see how they are being used to advance disinformation. There has been discussion emerging of how to report the news without providing a platform for lies. If it takes hold, there will be an important shift in media coverage of the administration and congressional supporters in the new year.
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Wow Chuck Todd underpants Dec 2019 #1
It only took three Republican guests for chucktodd to figure it out? gratuitous Dec 2019 #4
I call it cement brained. lunatica Dec 2019 #51
Todd was chosen to director for the very reason that he can be easily manipulated. olegramps Dec 2019 #9
So agree, Wellstone ruled Dec 2019 #38
Wow! True Blue American Dec 2019 #19
Great post. The quote from William F'ing Buckley is telling underpants Dec 2019 #2
Buckley isn't actually quoted... JHB Dec 2019 #11
If there were truth in packaging... JohnQFunk Dec 2019 #20
Karl Rove said it in front of a microphone Perseus Dec 2019 #36
Todd is one of the worst offenders but the disease is media wide Takket Dec 2019 #3
I read somewhere recently (a critique of an NYT politics reporter IIRC) maxsolomon Dec 2019 #30
The assault on reason is not new malaise Dec 2019 #5
This. MontanaMama Dec 2019 #14
All the best for the coming decade malaise Dec 2019 #21
And to you and yours, malaise. MontanaMama Dec 2019 #24
The Repugs get a lot from the Old Church... rickyhall Dec 2019 #27
I was even longer but the Renaissance was an important malaise Dec 2019 #42
It took well over a year into Trump's presidency for the media to call a lie a lie. madaboutharry Dec 2019 #6
Yeah, but at least Mulvaney spoke some truth. I hear he's on his way out.... erronis Dec 2019 #22
Yes, Trump is not the anomaly but the essence of Conservatism bucolic_frolic Dec 2019 #7
I think * is a Con Man who's hijacked Conservatism and the GOP. maxsolomon Dec 2019 #33
Recommending the OP. Excellent. Been known to us a long time, but well stated & researched. . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz Dec 2019 #8
Thanks for posting PatSeg Dec 2019 #10
If media figures like Todd are going to call these people out, their outlets Raven Dec 2019 #12
Less Republicans using the media as a political ad to spew propaganda TheRealNorth Dec 2019 #39
What's worse is that this isn't new, it's not something that suddenly sprang up with Trump JHB Dec 2019 #13
K&R and Thanks! B Stieg Dec 2019 #15
11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting billh58 Dec 2019 #16
Thanks for that. I've read 'gaslighting' and thought I understood it. This gives clarity. erronis Dec 2019 #23
+1, uponit7771 Dec 2019 #37
That's why Chuck shoulda finished college and J-school. Kid Berwyn Dec 2019 #17
Chuck Todd has, to me, always been a bit suspect and more than a bit of a disappointment. PWPippinesq Dec 2019 #18
In my "game" of "if I ran MSNBC," he'd be the first one replaced. calimary Dec 2019 #49
I agree. PWPippinesq Dec 2019 #50
Agreed about Nicolle Wallace. Her show has kinda grown on me. calimary Dec 2019 #53
Billionaires Own And Control Most Of The Media DanieRains Dec 2019 #25
Trump Republicans are using the media to spread propaganda. Fullduplexxx Dec 2019 #26
this pretty much sums up the toll it's taking on so many folks out there.... FM123 Dec 2019 #28
This is what scares me the most in 2020 TheRealNorth Dec 2019 #40
Yes, this battle fatigue is real. FM123 Dec 2019 #41
It is, and we have to recognize that that's part of what they want. And get tough. coti Dec 2019 #52
one can only hope. barbtries Dec 2019 #29
That quote has been attributed to Rove - a bit belatedly erronis Dec 2019 #34
I must have read the interview whenever it came out. barbtries Dec 2019 #35
Yep. Rove was also the one whose preferred battle strategy was calimary Dec 2019 #48
I hold out no hope that Todd will stop giving the Nazis a platform AllyCat Dec 2019 #31
Morning Joe was chummy with Trump through May 2016... MartyTheGreek Dec 2019 #32
media completely misses trump parading limbaugh to intimidate senators with notable timing, while certainot Dec 2019 #44
I like how you covered that... MartyTheGreek Dec 2019 #54
i hope you're right. democracy needs all the help it can get. the iran contra rewrite and certainot Dec 2019 #55
Good luck with that. gilligan Dec 2019 #43
Recommended. Kurt V. Dec 2019 #45
Reagan And Bush Got Away With Iran-Contra DallasNE Dec 2019 #46
Great post Joinfortmill Dec 2019 #47
Kicked ooky Dec 2019 #56
Thanks. I now get her posts in my inbox daily. erronis Dec 2019 #57
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