Jeremy Mohler of the nonpartisan, anti-privatization organization called “In the Public Interest,” opposes ridiculing anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers. He thinks that those who support science should try to dispel their suspicion of government. Do we want to turn vital public services—like police, firefighters, the military, national parks, beaches, highways, protection of the air and water, and many other public services—to private entities? Ask them if they plan to refuse Social Security and Medicare.
Watch The Daily Show interview he refers to. It is horrifying.
Mohler writes:
You have to watch this Daily Show clip of anti-maskers at a school board meeting in North Carolina (despite the host, Jordan Klepper, self-righteously making fun of them, which doesn’t sit right with me).
It’s like an anthropological study of tactics that right-wing leaders use to divide us so that the wealthy few can maintain and expand their political and economic power.
“I’m against all mandates, whether it’s masks or vaccinations. I’m against it all,” said one protestor.
“[We’re here to] save the kids from all that’s going on with Critical Race Theory,” said another.
What really stood out was a phrase printed on t-shirts and written on protests signs throughout the clip: “I don’t co-parent with the government.” By which, I guess, protestors meant that democratically elected school boards shouldn’t be deciding how to make public schools safe for students and teachers.
This isn’t surprising. For decades, attacking government—perhaps more than any other idea or issue—has united right-wing forces, from white supremacists to the religious right. As political historian Nancy MacLean documents in her book Democracy in Chains, “The idea [is] to get voters to direct their ire at [public] institutions and divert their attention away from increasing income and wealth inequality.”
Journalist Jeff Bryant nailed it when he tweeted, “The confluence of anti-masking with efforts to rid schools of teaching the truth about structural racism is where American libertarianism meets white supremacy.”
This is why we need to be loud and clear that public problems—inequity in public education, climate change, Covid-19—require public solutions.
We must defend our public institutions, make them more democratic, make sure they’re adequately funded, and wholeheartedly articulate the value of public things. (BTW, you can sign up for our Executive Director Donald Cohen’s new email newsletter—called Public Things—here.)
To be sure, it’s not that everything the government does is automatically great. I hate getting parking tickets. I get angry every time I go to the DMV. I’ve been waiting for a city-issued trash can for more than a year now.
But the answer isn’t to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy few even more. Or get rid of the DMV. Or privatize the sanitation department. Or—in the case of public schools—hand them over to privately managed, unaccountable charter school management organizations.
It’s to defend, fund, and improve the public institutions we rely on every day. And it’s to call out the obvious attempts by right-wing leaders to divide us against each other.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good morning Diane and everyone.
Reason, facts, education, and common sense are not the antidote for all ills. That’s why constantly dealing with this problem in a rational, reasonable way rarely works. There is some emotion or fear that is driving these people. Until that is addressed, facts, reason and education will not change their opinions.
You are correct. My husband has engaged in discussions with local anti-vaxxers online. He presents data and facts to them, and they call it “fake news.” For a small number of them the anger and resentment is palpable. Others are more reasonable and willing to listen.
One doctor on the news had one of the best comments on vaccine hesitancy. He said, “Not one dying patient has ever said to him, “I am so glad I didn’t get the vaccine.”
cx: anger and resentment are palpable.
Sadly, I’ve read several anecdotes of people dying from COVID and denying that was what was killing them.
I don’t think anyone has ever been convinced of anything in any online exchange in the history of the internet.
AMEN, Mamie Krupczak Allegretti!
Rarely, if ever, will anyone be convinced of
anything, if the “pitch” starts with:
Hey dumb-dumb, listen up.
Please cite any prominent health official who started the pitch to encourage masking or vaccines as “hey dumb-dumb, listen up”.
But their nice, respectful pitches didn’t work. So by your own logic, you want us to try to say “hey dumb-dumb listen up” so we can know if that works better, as no prominent health officials have tried that yet?
How come no one ever told the Republicans that insulting and attacking people and lying to them doesn’t work?
How do you think we shoujld address the emotion and fear of white people who support the racist, xenophobic anti-demnocratic agenda? I am interested in some ideas as the decades long efforts to tell them what good peop9le they are and to marginalize their critics for being too mean to them is not working.
Can you imagine if the critics of the Ku Klux Klan were attacked and marginalized for being too mean to Ku Klux Klanners with all sympathy going to the Ku Klux Klanners for people not understanding why they feel so much hatred toward Black Americans. Can you imagine if Jewish Americans were attacked for criticizing the neo Nazis and not doing more to “understand” the very real and valid concerns that the neo=NMazis have that make them hate Jewish people?
Thankfully, there were not a lot of people advocating that or we would be a very different country.
In fact, we would be the kind of country we are in danger of becoming, with no voting rights and he far right white supremacists far too likely to seize power.
How did we get to a place where someone who calls racist, xenophobic, white supremacists “deplorable” is the person who is attacked and marginalized, while those who believe in white supremacy must be “understood” and not criticized?
Can you imagine a politician in the 1950s or 1960s or 1970s being forced to apologize for calling the Ku Klux Klan “deplorable” and the entire media and political establishment marginalizing that politician for not “understanding” why so many “very good people” would be drawn to the Klan’s philosophy of hating everyone who isn’t white or Christian?
But today, that would happen.
No, don’t bother calling names. Just continue to pass mandates that exclude the vaccinated from movies, restaurants, shops, public transit, airlines, trains, everywhere they might want to go.
I don’t agree, No Brick. See my comments below.
“Rarely, if ever, will anyone be convinced of
anything, if the “pitch” starts with:
Hey dumb-dumb, listen up.”
Panicdotal proof of that
Mamie, I agree with you. A few years ago, I had a two-hour conversation with George Lakoff, who specializes in political communication. He contends that liberals make a huge mistake by believing they can win votes by appealing to reason and facts. It’s an emotional narrative that wins hearts and minds, not reason.
Key words: emotional, narrative
Spot on.
Yes, and… the solution to flawed democracy is improvement, not elimination. The so-called centrist Democrats who are opposing Biden’s already limited proposals are, as they have been for decades, abetting the limited government rhetoric and ideology that has thwarted improving the lives of everyone in the US except the wealthy.
The politization of our response to COVID is indicative and reflective of a societal illness which cotninues to encourage the need/desire for political and economic power. This not a healthy development, especially when large segments of our population continue to feel powerless to find their portion of the American Dream. Against this backdrop, a question that has yet to be adequately addressed in the vaccine debate and which seems to encourage sepration… Why does it seem that our “official” goverment response to COVID elimination focuses on the need for the general public to recognize its obligation to act on the public interest while the pharmaceutical companies’ part of acting in the public interest includes record profits, immunity from legal action related to vaccine use, and aggressive to censorship of information pertaining to examination of alternative treatments?
While it is convenient to blame the lack of universal acceptance of the “vaccine solution” on partisan politics (and there is no doubt that this is a signifcant factor), does it make sense to ignore that in many of our life times we have seen the failure of government solutions – see war on poverty, war on illiteracy, war on terrorism, loss of jobs, shrinking pensions, crazy medical costs, etc.? Our propensity for “othering” those who hold controversial or minority opinions and blaming these “others” for our disappointments is in full swing with our discussions of anti-vaxxers, mandatory “inconveniences” for vaccine hold outs, etc. Continuation of this direction is not destined to improve the health of our society.
I don’t respect a “minority view” that promotes death. The overwhelming majority of hospitalizations abd deaths occur among the unvaccinated. Their views are less consequential than hard facts. Senator Lindsay Graham was booed by a crowd in South Carolina when he told them that 90% of those hospitalized with COVID were unvaccinated. He urged them to get vaccinated and they booed him. Their views are ignorant. They don’t deserve equal time.
To hell with the anti-maskers/vacciners who only serve to prolong the epidemic. I’m tired of their trite, adolescent “liberty” arguments. Like an addict they don’t need coddling, they need tough love and/or ostracism.
You speak for me. How can one “educate” people who refuse to acknowledge what is right before their eyes? How can one “educate” people who believe that government (at least government services that do not directly benefit them) is inherently evil? How can one “educate” idiots who don’t know the most basic concepts of science and claim to know more about science than MDs and PhDs? I agree, to hell with them. Unvaccinated people who get Covid should be put in warehouses with some medical supplies and then figure out how to treat each other. Then medical professionals and people with real medical needs can get access to the care they need once again.
Neither “to hell with” nor “educate and reason” are sufficient to address the deadly anti-vaccination and anti-mask behavior that is putting everyone at risk. As a society, we need to address the underlying lack of trust. That means supporting and pushing Democrats to make government more effective for everyone, supporting strong voting and union rights, and explicitly talking about how racism and inequity undermines a decent life for everyone. it means multiracial organizing for the common good.
I agree with Arthur in theory, but I can’t name one Republican who would. But we can visualize a Ben Hur-like leper colony for them, can’t we?
Arthur Camins,
The attempts to do what you suggest were propagandized by the right to get more people to hate the Democrats and turn to the right wing Republicans who reflected their (now legitimized and normalized) racist beliefs.
When you blame people who aren’t racist and xenophobic and anti-government for the fact that people don’t trust their government anymore, you simply help make it harder to change that.
People don’t trust teachers union anymore because they have heard lots of right wing rhetoric about how the teachers unions protects child predators and lazy teachers.
How would you feel if I said it’s up to the teachers union to change the public’s minds by creating perfect public schools and it’s really the fault of teachers unions not doing what they should be doing to get people to trust union teachers and public schools. How would you feel if I minimized all the lies spewed by anti-public school folks that were causing parents to turn away from public schools and instead I said that it’s all the fault of union teachers for not do a better job convincing parents that public schools were worth supporting?
We have to stop this scapegoating of those on our side and call out the people spewing propaganda, whether that propaganda is anti-public school or anti-Democrats. Because scapegoating union teachers and the imperfect teachers’ union simply legitimizes the anti-public school propaganda and convinces parents that unions must be bad because even the people who support public schools blame teachers union for not making public schools better.
The same is true when you scapegoat Democrats for not making government for effective.
It doesn’t make people more likely to empower progressive ideas — it makes them believe the anti-Democrat rhetoric and vote for Republicans.
If Democrats had a huge majority in the House, Senate, Supreme Court and had the presidency, progressive things would happen. That has not happened since – well, since the Democrats were more progressive under LBJ! The fact that people don’t believe that is why they keep empowering the far right. (And yes, in hindsight the Democrats should have ended the filibuster in 2009 but that mistake would not happen twice if the Democrats had 59 Senators instead of 50 where 2 conservative Dems can prevent everything.)
AOC gets this. So do the squad. You can’t wait for the Democrats to solve all the problem when they don’t have power. You have to empower them first and progressive things have always happened when they are empowered.
Ostracism is my preference, Duane, for those who refuse to protect themselves, their family and their communities.
Ask the right questions and you can move a person in your direction.
I’d like to introduce you to some of my neighbors (and from what I’ve read, yours). I follow another aphorism, “Never try to teach a pig how to talk. It frustrates you and annoys the pig.”
The reason these anti-maskers have been empowered is because of years of being catered to instead of being called out.
Back in the day, anyone who spewed John Birch Society beliefs would be marginalized by the media and anyone who hoped for a public career, not elevated as “real Americans whose desires and beliefs must be legitimize as just as worthy as those who believe in democracy.”
You don’t “try to educate” them. You marginalize them and make it clear that their beliefs are lies, and abhorrent and selfish. Otherwise, they simply feel empowered by the careful consideration and sympathy that Jeremy Mohler has for their views, which signals that their views are perfectly acceptable and normal.
The cowardly mainstream media has been normalizing these people for years and that is why they grew in number. The right wing media was telling them “the truth” and anyone who challenged their “truth” was lying to them. The entire mainstream media was telling them that both sides were equally valid and worthy of consideration so they should decide for themselves what was true. And way off in the margins, were a few voices that the mainstream media mischaracterized as “left wing” who were actually telling the truth.
No wonder so many people believed Fox News, since the mainstream media told them that they had no idea what was true or false since both sides have very valid points, and people would have to figure out it for themselves, which they did by listening to the one side that was adamant about what was true and false.
Jon Stewart kept these so called “liberal” (but terrified of Fox News criticism) mainstream reporters in check for a while because The Daily Show used to show them in all their cowardly “both sides equal” reporting and publicly shame them. Jon Stewart was best not at making fun of the people who were anti-maskers, but at publicly shaming the reporters and others who took those people so seriously and presented them as if they had very important opinions that must be legitimized instead of marginalized.
Agree. Three years ago Paul Krugman made (tweeted) the same point that both-siderism is bogus when one side is off the charts stupid, ignorant, insane or lying: Quote – New York Times columnist on Sunday unleashed an epic rant at media outlets who entertain both sides of a political argument even when one side is “completely insane.”
Krugman began his tweet storm on Sunday by noting that President Donald Trump is mostly interested in solving problems “that exist only in his warped imagination.” End quote
It would be like having a “serious” discussion about whether the earth is flat or not. The flat earth proponents should be mocked, ridiculed and flushed out to sea (nonviolently).
Actually, the flat earth clowns should just be ignored. It’s hard to ignore the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers since their actions can make people sick and spread the virus.
What??? The earth isn’t flat????
I think Jeremy Mohler is a large part of the problem, and not the solution.
Jeremy Mohler no doubt self-righteously believes he is “non-partisan”, but what he did was to mount a partisan attack on Jordan Kepper by dishonestly mischaracterizing Jordan Kepper as “self-righteous” while the only people in the video who were self-righteous were the people that Jordan Kepper was talking to!
I suggest that Jeremy Mohler examine his own biases, where he is attacking someone telling the truth as “self-righteous” while he doesn’t see anything self-righteous aout the people spewing nonsense who he seems to believe must be catered to no matter what.
I watched the video twice. Jordan Kepper was not self-righteous. But Jeremy Mohler certainly is.
Marginalizing and attacking people telling the truth (too “self-righteous”) is part of the right wing agenda. To hear a supposed “non-partisan” person repeating that propaganda doesn’t surprise me — the so-called “non-partisan” media has done this too. And then they bend over backward to “understand” people spewing deplorable nonsense and insist that the real problem is that the rest of us aren’t following their lead to legitimize and normalize them which supposedly will get them to change their mind even though that is what we have been doing for decades and it is making it worse!
You don’t try to “understand” the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis and racists and John Birchers by telling them how much you love them while attacking anyone who is the least bit critical of their abhorrent beliefs as “self-righteous”.
“You don’t try to ‘understand’ the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis and racists and John Birchers…”
I understand them alright. Probably better than they do themselves. (Nothing more fun than to confront one of those and ask them about their source of their “philosophy.” Sometimes the stammering becomes rhythmic.) Their message is loud and clear.
Widening gyre.
And who does a widening gyre benefit? It benefits those who want to destroy democracy.
And it’s not a coincidence that Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel and a bunch of right wingers believe that chaos and anarchy will benefit them.
To prevent this, people need to start embracing truth, not “both siderism” which is what got us to this place.
It used to be perfectly acceptable for most of society to note that the anti-vaxx beliefs of the Orthodox Jewish community that led to serious outbreaks of mumps and measles was hurting people and had very bad effects.
Now we must “understand” the people whose fear of the rare side effects some young men will have to the vaccine far exceeds any concern they have about what happens when a deadly pandemic puts stress on our entire health care system.
What happens when science – and truth itself – is just an opinion in which only the facts that the far right believe matters are offered without any context? Widening gyre.
Anarchy is a precursor to fascism.
I agree with Mohler’s opening statement. “Ridiculing people” is an element of unproductive arguments. The goal is to have a respectful conversation. You might change some minds, or not, but at least you’re not making things worse.
Watch the clip: it’s not “horrifying.” It shows what I suspect is more typical than the people we see shouting down school board meetings: a few are opinionated but not angry; others are uncertain, and don’t like to rock the boat. I imagine coming together in a march like this gives them a sense of agency in a situation that deep down makes them feel like helpless pawns of fate. Pointing out the fallacy in “I do not co-parent with the government” is not helpful: as Mohler notes, the whole anti-govt bit is a dog-whistle distraction from the issue. It’s not really the driver. It’s something people tell themselves and each other to rationalize fear-based behavior.
These are folks who are not overly self-confident and generally do what they see family/ friends/ neighbors doing. To me, that indicates the path forward. Business wants to thrive, and cannot if employees are constantly getting sick, and there’s a % of customers hesitating to come in the door. Businesses will use mandates as needed, and govt will not stop them. (Because Rep party does not approve of interfering with private industry/ market forces). If they have to, in order to work—or go to restaurants/ ball games/ shows– unsure fence-sitters will quietly get vaccinated &/or wear masks.
Are you suggesting that Jordan Klepper didn’t try to have a perfectly respectful conversation? Again, I can’t help noticing how propagandized we all are to see one side that believes in truth as “disrespectful” and the side making no sense which slings insults and hurls epithets and lies as being “worthy of respect” and anyone who politely challenges anything they do is scapegoated as the reason that they act so reprehensibly! We are supposed to believe the ridiculous theory that if we only were even nicer to them, they wouldn’t hate us so much. It’s all our fault, we just didn’t convince them we weren’t evil people out to get them and if we had only “tried harder” to do that they would change.
It’s gaslighting.
There were always lots of people with racist or anti-science beliefs, but they were marginalized. Now we treat them with kid gloves and make them feel important – no wonder their numbers have multiplied.
There has been an anti-vaxx movement for decades that was marginalized. As soon as anti-vaxxers were elevated to an equal status with those who believed in science and vaccines, their numbers exploded.
Businesses mandating vaccines won’t change that very dangerous situation.
NYCPSP–
1.I see I goofed: mistook Diane’s opening statement for Mohler’s. Mohler’s blog headline does read “Stop making fun of anti-maskers,” which I like. But the 2nd half of the headline says “Confront their anti-government ideas.” I disagree with “confront”—Diane’s “try to dispel” is better, and describes Klepper’s approach. You’re right, he was not being “self-righteous”– nor were the folks in this video hurling insults, slinging epithets and lies. Klepper was reasonable with them, and they were reasonable back. I suspect he got a couple of them thinking some more.
2.Mohler gives mixed signals in this piece. He actually didn’t expand on ‘don’t make fun of anti-maskers.’ He spent most of his time talking up exploring the public-goods/ democracy angle with protestors– which Klepper in fact did! [While also not making fun of anybody.]
3.I disagree with both you and Mohler.
a.Mohler recommends reasonable discussions with protestors to bring them around from their anti-govt stance. Reasonable public conversations with individuals are fine [name-calling matches don’t change opinions]; do it whenever you get the opportunity. But as someone raised in the sticks, I can attest that it takes years of reasonable discussions to unseat such a generations-long credo from the rural mind. Best to go with what actually works, like denying them entrance to needed/ desired places sans vaccine/ mask/ whatever. Sadly, their govt leaders are cynically stirring the pot to keep mandates out of govt-run venues. But businesses are a different story: they will follow the $$, which here favors covid mitigation.
b.Your recommendations are about something else.
(i)how should liberal media talk back to rwmedia: I agree libmedia should ditch both-siderism. It’s one thing to report what each side says; you have to do it. It’s quite another to frame the report as though lies and anti-scientific claims have equal weight to facts/ latest data. Liberal media often seems to gloss– avoids citing the facts on one side vs the debunked claims/ no-evidence on the other. And often cites without discussion the shiny-object rationalizations used by one side as ‘weight’ against the facts cited by the other side.
(ii)how should Biden/ admin/ Dem pols address anti-public-good, anti-democratic rhetoric from Reps: this is trickier. The Dem party has [by the fingernails] the upper hand, but needs to represent all the people, and with such a narrow mandate, de-escalate the rhetoric. Personally I’m fine with how Biden et al are threading that needle.
bethree5,
Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Those are all excellent points and I agree! (My first response was unclear on some issues, but I basically agree with everything you wrote here.)
A well ordered, sequential set of assertions can very easily be entirely anti-factual and have less than no basis in reality. I have seen such thought processes in the responses of those who have no cogent response to being presented with facts and evidence, but who literally insist that their opinions should be respected as being equally valid and given the same weight as scientifically and logically derived answers to questions and problems. In the short term, it is not possible to persuade someone who lacks the basic mental skills needed to interpret reality. Such people have no knowledge of logical fallacies or of the many human biases. In fact they reject the existence of those things while believing that their emotional responses to what they experience ARE those things. This is the reason that they can believe that two entirely contradictory, mutually exclusive things are simultaneously true, such as masks concentrating CO2 while not being able to stop the far larger Covid containing droplets. It is not possible to persuade such people of the existence of verifiable facts external to their belief systems without replacing the emotion based thought processing systems which prevent them from comprehending the structures of factual information. Additionally, both the Sunk Cost Fallacy and the bias against other “tribes” are major obstacles to persuading them of anything.
In the short term, it is not possible to persuade someone who lacks the basic mental skills needed to interpret reality.
Exactly
Yes, this is true, Jon. This is why I think govt’s best bet going forward with covid– given the regrettable red-state leadership which actually encourages such emotional thinking in a short-sighted, anti-public-good bid for re-election against voters’ best interests— is to encourage/ allow private biz to impose vax/ mask mandates (which are in their own best interests). I am waiting & hoping for health-ins corps to get a clue and bump premiums way up for the unvaccinated, who are the 90%+ occupying ICU beds in those states.
Smokers pay a premium for health insurance. Smokers and drinkers go to the back of the line for transplants. The CMS is not allowed to cover abortion services under most circumstances. Employers can deny health coverage for contraceptive and abortion services. Physicians can refuse to provide these services. If you are a woman at the largest health service in the the Nation, you could bleed out before Catholic Health Services preforms a medically necessary abortion.
The right has given us the tools to deal with these vile anti vaxx morons . It is long past time we used them. Obviously I disagree with the author. There is no reasoning with those whose goal is to mock you for attempting to reason with them.
Agreed, Joel!
So totally agree. Had to look up CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]. It should start right there– but suspecting that won’t happen due to the usual Congressional gridlock. OTOH a large % of older folks (the majority served under those programs) are vaccinated. I’m waiting for Kaiser et al huge ins providers for employer-provided healthcare [not to mention big ACA providers like United Healthcare] to get a clue and bump premiums way up for the unvaccinated, who are occupying 90+% of the very-expensive ICU beds around the country.
Here’s another slogan to put on a t-shirt. I know it’s sort of long for a t-shirt slogan, but …
“I hear you don’t want to co-parent with the government, but you don’t complain when corporations and billionaires such as Bill Gates, Charles Koch, Alice Walton, et al., are parenting your children and you are left out of all the decisions.”
I wouldn’t waste my time making fun of the antivaccine freaks and antigovernment libertarians, but I’d be happy to drench their faces in pepper spray to shut them up.
I wouldn’t, ofc, ever make fun of Trump’s Mini-Me, moRON DeSantissssssss.
Forget the Trumpeteers and the Anti-Vaxxers. These are cultists. NO amount of dialogue is going to change them.
Educate their children. Teach their children to hate everything their parents stand for.
And for them, show blatant, open, unapologetic, utter contempt. Ridicule works. Negative social sanction is a powerful force for change.
When I was a kid, it was commonplace, among whites, for people to tell racist jokes. No more. Why? NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE RESPECTFUL OF THOSE FOLKS’S OPINIONS!!!!! No. Change came about when every time people made some horrifically racist statement, others expressed their horror and disdain and contempt.
Sorry, no more coddling the morons.
cx: FOLKS’
Bob S– That doesn’t exactly work in the present circumstance. It took many decades for immigrant jokes to become non-PC, i.e., unpopular, i.e., you can’t find a peer group to laugh at unkind jokes that put down friends/ colleagues. Ridiculing anti-vax/ anti-maskers is a barely two-yr-old phenomenon that gets traction only in those places where vax/masking is accepted as obvious common sense. At this point, blatant, open, unapologetic, utter contempt/ ridicule not only doesn’t work In the places threatening our national health/ economy, it causes the perps to double down. Keep in mind their attitude is borne of existential fear, not just peer pressure.
We don’t have enough time for public ridicule/ social pressure to trickle down into anti-vax/mask locales as they slowly become outnumbered by those who’ve lost relatives (or whatever it takes to change minds). What’s needed now is mandates making it hard for them to live a quasi-normal life without vax/ mask. I’m looking to private industry to get that moving, as they have a vested interest, & Reps don’t like to interfere with them. Once that gets traction, their bought&paid for Rep pols will come around.
I did not say that the way to stop this immediately is through ridicule. I said that ridicule is a powerful means for bringing about change (which, yes, happens over time). No, I think that people should be forced, legally, to get their gets vaccinated and have them wear masks because they are putting their children and everyone else in danger. People do not have some “right” to do that to others. As Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
To be as clear as possible about this, I did not say that one should use ridicule and contempt in order to get these people to change. In fact, I said the opposite. I said that they are cultists, and you cannot change them. The purpose of the ridicule and contempt in public is, as you suggest, to create an environment over time in which espousing dangerous antiscientific and antisocial nonsense is less likely because of the negative social sanction with which it will be met.
Change Trumpeteers? Antivaxxers? Might as well draw a sword against the sea or _____ into the wind.
Bob Shepherd says “Negative social sanction is a powerful force for change.”
Yes, such an important fact that used to happen with much greater frequency when people espoused ugly racist or xenophobic views or were anti-science.
But then Fox News happened and the right wing convinced the mainstream media that calling out the abhorrent beliefs of right wingers should not be done, but instead those people needed to be “understood” by making them feel good about themselves and their racist and xenophobic views. How dare anyone make them feel like there was something wrong with their views — they should always be treated as if their most racist and xenophobic views were valid and important.
Back when David Duke was espousing those views, his followers were criticized for their beliefs; but today, it would be the critics of David Duke who were attacked and marginalized for not “understanding” that David Duke’s followers had very important views that should be taken seriously.
There was a time when anyone spewing the hatred and lies that so many in the right regularly spew would be rightly marginalized. Now their critics are marginalized and attacked for not being nice enough to the people who foment hatred and violence.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/10/07/all-our-problems-are-built-on-us-vs-them-propaganda/
Thank you for this excellent link to one of the foremost purveyors of right wing propaganda! I would not be surprised if it turned out that anarchist far right billionaires like Peter Thiel or others help prop her up.
Many people (including me) mentioned the “both sideerism” of the media, and the link posted here is an excellent example of the “both siderism” propaganda that is promoted by a columnist who Trump fanboys adore.
If this were 1939 America, you could simply replace her desire to normalize and legitimize the far right (they are always presented as no different than the moderate and progressive Democrats) the way propagandists who liked the Nazis but couldn’t actually come out and say that tried to get Americans to stay out of World War II:
“Most propaganda is based on us-vs-them framing; support the oligarch-controlled Jews because Nazis are bad, support the oligarch-controlled Nazi Party because Jews are bad, those evil Commies/Marxist/Chinese want to hurt us, that evil dictator over there is doing things which we good freedom-loving people cannot allow, etc. A tremendous amount of energy goes into feeding into these us-and-them frameworks to keep the propaganda engine running efficiently.”
Caitlin Johnstone’s columns work overtime to convince Americans that there is no difference at all between Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson and there is no difference at all between AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene and no difference between Sheldon Whitehouse and Tom Cotton, and there is no difference between Raphael Warnock and Marsha Blackburn.
Propagandists like Caitlin Johnstone tried to convince progressive Georgia voters that they should not bother to vote for Ossoff or Warnock. And the insidious way that propagandists like Caitlin Johnstone do it is to tell them that anything less than the US becoming a progressive nirvana after both Ossoff and Warnock won elections proves that they were right. It is pure propaganda.
Caitlin Johnstone and some of her followers told us over and over again that it was fine if Trump won and appointed many far right Supreme Court Justices and packed the federal courts with right wing judges.
Whether it was intentional or not, Caitlin Johnstone was a purveyor of Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon propaganda when she worked so hard to convince Americans that having a far right wing judiciary was no different than having a left wing judiciary because they all are corrupt. “Both sides are evil” is what fake leftists who are purveyors of right wing propaganda say no matter what. “Both sides are equally bad” is what propagandists said to normalize and empower Hitler in Nazi Germany.
Notice Caitlin Johnstone is not telling her right wing Republican fanboys that they should stop supporting all Republican candidates because the Republican party has lied to them and is controlled by people who want to hurt them. Her propaganda is never directed to her right wing fanboys. It is in service of telling people who want progressive change not to vote for Democrats so that the far right is empowered
Pure propaganda and it is not surprising that this link was posted by someone who wasn’t concerned about having a far right Supreme Court that was a danger to democracy.
Thank you for this informative link to an excellent example of “both siderism” far right propaganda being purveyed by right wing apologists like Caitlin Johnstone whose goal seems to be about normalizing the neo-fascists who have taken over the Republican party.
^^^Also Keith Olbermann was brilliant here. The mischaracterization of Keith Olberman as some crazy person is similar to the false characterization that Jeremy Mohler made about how the Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper was “self-righteous”.
Keith Olbermann is a lot more truthful than Caitlin Johnstone and her propaganda that Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson are the same and her mischaracterization of Keith Olbermann.
And the comments show that her fans are those who use right wing propaganda phrases like “Scamdemic” and never have a harsh word to say about any Republican except the rare times one doesn’t toe the fascist line.
I don’t see where Jordan Klepper is remotely self-righteous in the clip. Is there a specific example? Those of us familiar with his work happen to know his views, but there’s nothing in his approach that indicates a preference for any position. A substantial portion of his responses consist of paraphrasing back to the interviewees their own statements, which they then agree are accurate representations of their views.
His tone & language are respectful & no one appears the slightest bit offended. His neutrally-voiced questions focus on items reported as facts, & never touch on any personal judgment; nor does he ever suggest that the subject’s view is wrong.
He uses the standard interview technique of referencing opposing views from various sources, & asking for a response. He carefully expresses those positions in the third person, never directly advocating for a position himself. If a response is offered he either accepts it & moves on, or asks a follow-up also referencing another view; on occasions where the interviewee doesn’t have a response & either rejects, or appears to consider, the point, his demeanor remains neutral. In general, his manner is a textbook example of good journalistic reporting.
Lol, what? I don’t know if “self-righteous” is the right adjective, but plainly mocking the people he questions. That’s what’s funny about it. “Good journalistic reporting”? He’s a comedian, he’s not a journalist or a reporter and he’s not trying to be. Is anyone else confused about this?
I’m not confused about anything, & the arrogant tone does nothing to enhance your credibility. I was talking about his procedures, not his profession. It’s amusing to some because those of us who’ve seen him on the Daily Show & his specials happen to know his personal views, but he was careful not to bring them into the interviews. The Daily Show being a comedy presentation of news items, targeted to a liberal audience, the context invites viewers to see these people as humorous, but part of the reason the audience may have that view is because Klepper plays it absolutely straight.
In that piece he carries out his comedy by adopting the approach of an impartial observer. It’s effective because all he does is shine a light on the people’s ways of thinking & ask them to respond to contrasting views expressed by others. We may find it entertaining because of the flawed logic displayed, but it’s simultaneously an insight into the outlook of a substantial portion of our fellow Americans. If he was baiting & ridiculing them, provoking anger, it wouldn’t be funny. The best comedy functions on multiple levels. He can be a comedian & still present the truth.
Lenny,
Both bethree5 and I also pointed out that Jordan Klepper isn’t “self-righteous” (but I believe that Jeremy Mohler is).
And if asking someone with illogical views to explain those views is now “mocking”, and “self-righteous” then we have really entered some Orwellian world in which we legitimize the beliefs of those who fear the vaccines’ rare side effects far more than they fear getting COVID and spreading it to more vulnerable family members during the middle of a pandemic when ICUs are full and all medical treatment is affected, not just for COVID patients.
I find it revealing that the most self-righteous and mocking among us seems to believe Jordan Klepper shares the belief that being self-rightous and mocking is “funny”. Maybe it’s funny to preteens and teens when they go through their stage of “ragging” their friends. Most of us grow out of that, as Jordan Klepper did. Some never do.
The piece shows Klepper doing what journalists SHOULD be doing instead of breathlessly allowing people to spout their nonsense unchallenged and presenting them as thoughtful and knowledgeable people whose views should be taken very seriously because those people explain that their views are based on science and fact.
Klepper asked follow-up questions. If it was humorous, it was because the people answering him were self-righteous yet could not come up with any good reason for their self-righteousness when they had the chance to do so.
You think I’m self-righteous? Any other views about my personality?
Hi NYCPSP,
I agree with everything you’ve said. You & bethree5 taking issue with Mohler’s ironically judgmental “self-righteous” characterization inspired me to expand on it in my post.