Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Sliding into the 1930s

The Silent Generation generally avoided speaking directly about anything deemed uncomfortable in polite society. TV’s Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds, fergawdsakes. It was a thing when Lucille Ball was “expecting” (never pregnant) and they wrote it into the series. One of my old roommates had been a junkie as a teen before I knew him in college. My My Silent Generation mother was distressed that I seemed to know people with “problems.”

It’s like a throwback to the 1950s that today the news media has a problem openly discussing “problems.”

It's been four years since I was asked for three or four changes in political journalism that might begin to right this ship. (Emphasis on "begin to…") Here is what I came up with. pic.twitter.com/m462CLeEAt

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 31, 2024

Digby on Sunday referenced the Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn dealing plainly with uncomfortable truths about the immediate past president. Jay Rosen took note as well.

A newspaper editor — Chris Quinn of the Cleveland Plain Dealer — says it as clearly as he can:

"Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts." https://t.co/2nYQx8adj6

Quinn writes of a different kind of access. Access to our own eyes and ears: pic.twitter.com/rAeDjXmOpY

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 30, 2024

Rosen has been particularly vocal about reporting that dances around the objective facts.

My comments to the @AP on NBC's adventure with Ronna McDaniel. https://t.co/v9in684HmJ pic.twitter.com/kaDBDE23yd

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) March 29, 2024

Michael Tomasky takes on the double standard the news uses in covering the immediate past president, citing the response to Trump posting an image of Joe Biden tied up in the back of a pickup truck:

The Biden campaign issued a denunciation, and Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, always handy with hall-of-mirrors projection, snapped back: “Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”

Take note of two points. First, the way Cheung equates “Democrats and crazed lunatics” with Trump; that is, if it’s okay for “crazed lunatics” to post irresponsible things about Trump, then it’s fine for Trump himself—the standard bearer of the Republican Party to hold the most powerful office in the world—to post irresponsible things about Biden.

Bothsidesism normalizes MAGA deviancy:

This is a long-standing right-wing sleight of hand—to take things said by random angry liberals on social media and prattle on as if “the Democrat Party” said them. When Barack Obama was president, we endured years of Republicans—in Congress and state legislatures, along with numerous state party officials—making watermelon jokes and being slippery about whether Obama was born in America. It happened incessantly. And then, every so often, a few online liberals would get some nasty and perhaps tasteless meme about Mitch McConnell trending, which would give Republicans the excuse to say, “Aha, see? Both sides do it!”

Republicans have gotten away with this for ages. The mainstream media has come to expect and tolerate this state of affairs for two reasons. It’s simple human nature: If a parent has a well-behaved kid and an unruly kid, the parent naturally over time expects more of the former and lowers the bar for the latter. And once something has happened a thousand times, it isn’t really news anymore.

But there’s more to this than bothsidesism and capitalist news enterprises soft-peddling MAGA deviancy to keep from losing readership.

The water in this pot is getting hotter while the press ignores it. Anat Shenker-Osorio remarked on NBC’s Kristin Welker’s euphemistically chalking up Trump attacking a judge’s family to us being a “deeply divided nation.”

“We aren’t merely unwitting frogs in the boiling water, the forecasters keep assuring us it’s merely a pleasant little hot tub,” Shenker-Osorio tweets.

I get the everyone is burnishing their credentials to work at TrumpTV but perhaps, I dunno, we could try to first stave off the total seizure of speech and freedoms?

— Anat Shenker-Osorio 🟧 (@anatosaurus) April 1, 2024

“This whole, the news is what the public thinks the news is, isn’t merely an abdication of responsibility. It’s a pre-capitulation to fascism,” she continues.

I told my roommate about my mother generically referring to uncomfortable topics as problems. He smiled, grew animated, and spoke wildly with his hands.

“Problems? Problems? The guy’s a junkie! He has a two-bag-a-day habit! You could say he has problems!”

Our problem is a mainstream press that treats budding fascism as the 1950s treated Lucy’s pregnancy.

Quinn wrote:

Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.

I hope not.

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You are better off now than four years ago

I took a cue ten days ago from the Bulwark and every morning began posting the New York Times front page from four years ago. Remember those grim headlines?

The GOP’s idiotic attempt at campaigning in 2024 on “Are you better off?” relies on Americans having short memories and on our collective PTSD from the COVID-19 pandemic. We’d rather blot out images of empty store shelves, 6-ft distancing stickers, bodies in refrigeration trucks, mass graves, daily infection and death plots, etc. At one point, I was tracking how many preachers who claimed they were protected by the blood of Jesus had died of COVID. I stopped counting at 50 about this time four years ago. Donald Trump and the GOP want to play “Are you better off”? I’m happy to oblige.

On this April Fools’ Day, the Associated Press is running a series of articles highlighting the miriad ways Americans can be fooled.

Secret history: Even before the revolution, America was a nation of conspiracy theorists

WASHINGTON (AP) — A brutal conflict in Europe was fresh in people’s minds and the race for the White House turned ugly as talk of secret societies and corruption roiled the United States.

It was 1800, and conspiracy theories were flourishing across America. Partisan newspapers spread tales of European elites seeking to seize control of the young democracy. Preachers in New England warned of plots to abolish Christianity in favor of godlessness and depravity.

This bogeyman of the early republic was the Illuminati, a secret organization founded in Germany dedicated to free thinking and opposed to religious dogma. Despite the Illuminati’s lack of real influence in America, conspiracy theorists imagined the group’s fingerprints were everywhere. They said Illuminati manipulation had caused France’s Reign of Terror, the wave of executions and persecutions the followed the French Revolution. They feared something similar in America.

Election disinformation takes a big leap with AI being used to deceive worldwide

LONDON (AP) — Artificial intelligence is supercharging the threat of election disinformation worldwide, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone and a devious imagination to create fake – but convincing – content aimed at fooling voters.

It marks a quantum leap from a few years ago, when creating phony photos, videos or audio clips required teams of people with time, technical skill and money. Now, using free and low-cost generative artificial intelligence services from companies like Google and OpenAI, anyone can create high-quality “deepfakes” with just a simple text prompt.

One Tech Tip: How to spot AI-generated deepfake images

LONDON (AP) — AI fakery is quickly becoming one of the biggest problems confronting us online. Deceptive pictures, videos and audio are proliferating as a result of the rise and misuse of generative artificial intelligence tools.

With AI deepfakes cropping up almost every day, depicting everyone from Taylor Swift to Donald Trump, it’s getting harder to tell what’s real from what’s not. Video and image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney and OpenAI’s Sora make it easy for people without any technical skills to create deepfakes — just type a request and the system spits it out.

These fake images might seem harmless. But they can be used to carry out scams and identity theft or propaganda and election manipulation.

Almost makes me nostalgic for false-flag robocalls.

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“Get it over with quick”

Via the Daily Beast:

REP. TIM WALBERG (R-Mich.) said during a town hall meeting last week that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza “should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” in reference to the United States using atomic bombs on Japan, which happened at the end of World War II.

Walberg said: “Get it over quick.” According to The Detroit News, Walberg’s office said that his comments about nuclear strikes were a metaphor to “support Israel’s swift elimination of Hamas.”

The town hall took place in Dundee Village Hall on Monday, with video footage from the event posted on YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, as HuffPost points out. Some of his comments can be heard on the social media footage while he is not seen on camera.

Walberg made the remarks after dismissing the idea of delivering more humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Palestinian territory, where half of the population is at “imminent” risk of famine. “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said.

His office said he was just responding to the idea that Americans would be helping to build a bridge to deliver humanitarian aid. They seem to think that excuses his grotesque suggestion.

I saw some footage of protesters saying “enjoy Trump, I’m never voting for Biden.” Trum,p has always been interested in using “tactical” nuclear weapons so I’m going to guess there’s an excellent chance that it won’t be privileged white Democrats who’ll really be “enjoying” Trump.

Mark Esper says he won’t vote for Trump and every crazy thing he does make it more likely he’ll vote for Biden:

Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Defense revealed on Friday that he will not be voting for his former boss, who announced he had fired him in a tweet.

On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the host asked Mark Esper whether he would be voting for Joe Biden in the 2024 election.

“I’m definitely not voting for Trump, but I’m not there yet,” he replied. When Maher pressed him, Esper doubled-down.

“There’s no way I’ll vote for Trump, but every day that Trump does something crazy, the door to voting for Biden opens a little bit more, and that’s where I’m at,” Esper said. Shortly after the 2020 presidential elections, Trump tweeted that Esper had been “terminated,” and would be replaced by Christopher C. Miller.

Esper’s on-air comment came just after Esper had explained his fears about Trump being a “threat to democracy.”

“The first year of a second Trump term will look like the last year of the first Trump term, in other words, with all the craziness,” Esper explained, adding that Trump will be looking to hire people who are loyal above all else.

In June, Esper said that if the allegations that Trump shared classified information were proven true, then he could not be trusted with the nation’s secrets.

I’m not sure what more Trump can do to make Esper vote for Biden but I would think that being a threat to democracy and stealing classified documents is as crazy as it gets. But the campaign is young …

Sadly, it’s been a poor day for the media. On Face the nation today Mike Turner spewed the right’s propaganda that the Biden administration banned religious symbols on the Easter eggs for the White House egg roll, proclaiming that it was denying the religious freedom of the children. In fact:

This came up with McCaul when he was asked if Trump selling Bibles for profit was appropriate and he claimed he hasn’t seen it so he didn’t have anything to say about it. Then he started in on the Easter eggs. Insane.

This one isn’t getting much push back either:

Does this all seem just a little bit desperate to you? I think so. But if the media doesn’t point out that these people are blaming Biden for being sacrilegious when these policies were in place under every administration, including under their God Trump, then a fair number of normie voters will think it’s true. They need to inform people when these Republicans lie. I know that’s a tall order but it’s their job.

A bracing response to right wing critics

From the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy:

Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian.

I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him.

The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator.

The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump.

This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost.

Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it?

The March 25 edition of the New Yorker magazine offers some insight. It includes a detailed review of a new book about Adolf Hitler, focused on the year 1932. It’s called “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” and is by historian Timothy W. Ryback. It explains how German leaders – including some in the media — thought they could use Hitler as a means to get power for themselves and were willing to look past his obvious deficiencies to get where they wanted. In tolerating and using Hitler as a means to an end, they helped create the monstrous dictator responsible for millions of deaths.

How are those German leaders different from people in Congress saying the election was stolen or that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection aimed at destroying our government? They know the truth, but they deny it. They see Trump as a means to an end – power for themselves and their “team” – even if it means repeatedly telling lies.

Sadly, many believe the lies. They trust people in authority, without questioning the obvious discrepancies or relying on their own eyes. These are the people who take offense to the truths we tell about Trump. No one in our newsroom gets up in the morning wanting to make a segment of readers feel bad. No one seeks to demean anyone. We understand what a privilege it is to be welcomed into the lives of the millions of people who visit our platforms each month for news, sports and entertainment. But our duty is to the truth.

Our nation does seem to be slipping down the same slide that Germany did in the 1930s. Maybe the collapse of government in the hands of a madman is inevitable, given how the media landscape has been corrupted by partisans, as it was in 1930s Germany.

I hope not.

In our newsroom, we’ll do our part. Much as it offends some who read us, we will continue to tell the truth about Trump.

I’m at cquinn@cleveland.com

Thanks for reading.

I would like to think that the editors of every paper (or, at least, the most important ones) and the cable news producers agree with this but there isn’t a lot of evidence that they see it this clearly, at least most of the time. In fairness, the press is much better than they used to be but then the Republicans are also much worse than they used to be, and they were bad before.

This is the only truthful, authentic, factual way to see the situation we’re confronting with Donald Trump and the Republicans having become unmoored from reality. There’s not a whole lot we can do beyond voting and supporting politicians who are still living in the real world. But the most important thing we can do is hold on to the truth. And what this man writes is the truth.

But then there was this so:

Remember this?

By far,… the most idiotic Easter Message in the past 2,000 years.

Seriously,… What the f***? 😆pic.twitter.com/kyobgI1PF0

— Roshan Rinaldi (@Roshan_Rinaldi) March 30, 2024

Contemplate the fact that on this most important Christian holiday of all, most white evangelicals are supporting the second guy.

Trump made 71 posts on Easter morning. Not about Easter. Including this one attacking the judge’s daughter again. pic.twitter.com/xNf2TfrTqS

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 31, 2024

Finally this:

Wrapped in the flag and shredding the Constitution

Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University (“One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy“) reminds Jason Statler (LOLGOP) that the 2016 election that brought you Donald Trump “was the first presidential election in 50 years without the protection of the Voting Rights Act.”

“REMINDER: The kind of fascism MAGA wants is the kind of fascism we’ve already seen here,” Statler posts.

Anderson continues:

And so Black voter turnout went down by 7 percent. And to chalk that up to just, “They couldn’t stand Hillary, and not that you had states that were now requiring really strict voter IDs, and the way that they were requiring these voter IDs was to figure out who had what types of IDs and then to write the law to privilege the kinds that whites disproportionately had. It was a way that they shut down early voting sites. It was the way that they shut down early voting days, the times when people could vote early. None of that went into that calculation of what could cause a 7 percent drop. It had to be because Black folks couldn’t stand Hillary and not because you had states that were erecting these obstacles, these barriers, to the ballot box.

There’s more, much more about conservative efforts to keep the “wrong people” from voting and on GOP legislatures ignoring (or thwarting) ballot measures passed to expand the franchise.

I’m tired.

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Oh, the outrage!

Politico:

President Joe Biden on Friday issued a proclamation recognizing March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility, just as he has commemorated the day every year since he has been in office.

March 31 does not move around. Easter does. This year the two coincide. Cue the culture warriors who paused from biting the heads off chocolate bunnies to work themselves into another manufactured tantrum.

Oh, the frumious affrontery! Oh, the Antichrist of it! Oh, the persecution of Christians by a Catholic president who attends mass each Sunday!

House leadership voiced their outrage, as did the Trump campaign, demanding an apology from the White House. The White House pushed back, saying that “as a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American.”

The Transgender Day of Visibility, observed on March 31 each year, was started by advocates 15 years ago as a way to celebrate transgender people and raise awareness of the discrimination they face.

Easter falls on a different date each year that is determined by a calculation related to lunar phases — the overlap between the two this year is coincidental. It is common for there to be multiple proclamations for the same date: Easter Sunday will also be Cesar Chavez day.

Oh, the unbiblical blending of celebrations of one brown-skinned community organizer with another!

In his Friday statement marking the globally celebrated day, Biden affirmed the rights and freedoms of all transgender Americans. Highlighting the rise of extremism against transgender youth in particular, Biden referenced the proliferation of laws that “target and terrify transgender kids and their families,” including bills that ban books with LGBTQ+ content and threaten health workers providing gender-affirming care.

In a statement to POLITICO on Saturday, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates added that, “it’s unsurprising politicians are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful, and dishonest rhetoric. President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign released a statement calling on Biden to “issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Catholics and Christians? The campaign adviser likely had to explain to Trump (with pictures) that the Feast of the Resurrection and name of a Germanic spring goddess are already an unholy mating of Christian and pagan. All those LGBTQ-flag-like colors and bunnies and eggs unborn chickens.

Don’t count on the traveling Trump Bible salesman to apologize for his “insanely deperate” Holy Week stunt.

Onward, Christian soldiers
marching as to culture war

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