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Robert Hubbell Denounces Washington Post Editorial on Kamala’s Economic Plan

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2024 //
12

Robert Hubbell was outraged by the editorial in The Washington Post attacking Kamala Harris’s economic plan. The editorial said, basically, that her plans to help the middle class made no sense. Consider the source, he says. In one post, he listed and praised Harris’s economic priorities, then went into detail, explaining how they would benefit the average American.

This is the heart of her economic plan:

  • Increase the child tax credit.
  • Increase the earned income tax credit for wage earners without children.
  • Prohibit price gouging in food supplies.
  • Subsidize down payments for first-time [home] buyers.
  • Decrease the cost of prescription drugs.

Then he followed up by attacking the Washington Post editorial belittling her plan.

He writes:

Apologies for taking a second-bite at the apple, but Jeff Bezos just gave Kamala Harris a gift that cannot be ignored. The Bezos-owned Washington Post just issued an Editorial by the Editorial Board that was titled, “Opinion The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks.”

Oh, thank you, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, and one of the largest home delivery grocery services on the planet, thank you!

Here is what Kamala Harris should do at the convention: Put up that headline on big screen, and give a speech that contains these elements:

The Washington Post Editorial Board, which works for billionaire Jeff Bezos, thinks it’s a “gimmick” to give families with newborns a tax credit in the first year of the newborn’s life.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos thinks it’s a “gimmick” to expand the child-tax credit, the single most effective measure for lifting children out of poverty in three generations.

Billionaire Bezos, who has a super-yacht to ferry passengers to his mega-yacht, thinks it’s a “gimmick” to give low-income working Americans a $1,500 tax credit.

Billionaire Bezos, whose company, Amazon, is trying to take over the pharmacy business in America, thinks it’s a gimmick to limit out of cost prescription drug prices to $2,000 for ALL Americans, not just seniors.

Billionaire Bezos, who just bought his THIRD mansion on an island in Florida, thinks it’s a gimmick to give first time home buyers a $25,000 subsidy for a starter home.

Billionaire Bezos says that we shouldn’t prohibit “price gouging” because grocery stores are aggressively reducing prices. Let me hear from you: Is your grocery bill going down now that inflation is under control?

Billionaire Bezos is free to have his personal newspaper criticize my plan all he wants. This is America and billionaires are entitled to free speech, even if they get to buy an Editorial Board to promote their opinions.

But fair is fair. Donald Trump held a press conference last week to reiterate his plan for the economy, which has only two elements: Extending tax cuts that favor billionaires and imposing an economy killing 10% tariff on all imports.

Here is what Jeff Bezos’s editorial board had to say about Donald Trump’s insane plan that just happens to be good for billionaires like Jeff Bezos: Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. 

That’s right, in the face of an economic plan that favors Jeff Bezos but would destroy the economy for hundreds of millions of Americans, the Washington Post Editorial Board was silent–but roused itself to say that my plan aimed at helping the working poor and middle class is–according to Bezos–a bunch of gimmicks.

Now, Jeff Bezos and his employees on the Editorial Board will tell you that Bezos doesn’t weigh in the editorial stance of the Washington Post. If you believe that the panicked voice of Jeff Bezos wasn’t in the ear of every editor who did his bidding by writing that editorial–while ignoring Trump’s plan–I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.

I have promised a new way forward for all Americans, one that does not involve a handful of billionaires telling us what is good for the working poor and middle class in America. I suggest that Jeff Bezos leave his private island in Florida, sell his super-yacht AND mega yacht, and spend some time with people like you–the people who built America before Amazon arrived on the scene and who will sustain it long after Amazon is gone. You are America. You are the new way forward. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Categories Bias, Billionaires, Economy, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media

Umair Haque: Kamala’s Economic Policies Are “Brilliant”!

By dianeravitch
August 20, 2024 //
46

Umair Haque is an economist. In this post, he takes aim at journalists who have taken potshots at Kamala Harris’s economic proposals. He explains why they are, as he puts it, “brilliant.”

He writes:

It took nanoseconds. Kamala announced her economic policies. Wham! The press pounced. All in unison. Without taking even a second to think. Bad! Terrible! Awful! The Washington Post went so far as to legitimize Trump calling her a communist.

Welcome to the crackpot level of American media, and nowhere is it worse than its commentary on economics.

My friends, I’m here to tell you something. Kamala’s economic policies are brilliant. Absolutely stellar. They are the economic state of the art, reflecting not just the latest thinking, but also aimed directly at solving America’s biggest problems. Price gouging. Housing. Having a family. This is stuff that should be celebrated. America is becoming a leader again through such policies.

I know that for a fact. I’ve been the chief economist of one of the world’s largest corporations. I keep up with the literature. I’ve written peer-reviewed books about the economy. This is why so many of you follow me. I know precisely what I’m talking about.

They don’t. Journalism’s criticism of Kamala’s econ policies isn’t criticism at all. It’s a disgrace. They are just making it all up. I’m going to explain that to you, as well, because I feel that our econ journalists are an embarrassment. They lash out at Kamala—and yet they appear not to know the current state of the field at all. They’re regurgitating tired, obsolete far-right talking points from decades ago. Which have all been discredited in the real world. I’m going to explain that to you, in this dense essay, and it’s dense because I want to do justice to Kamala’s policies, and rebut some of the sheer nonsense coming from these crackpots by teaching you a thing or two about econ.

If you feel like something’s off here, it is. They’re trying to get Kamala. Just like they got Biden. This sort of thing is the equivalent of character assassination, and our media should be doing better. What do I mean?

How to Raise a Society’s (Falling) Standard of Living

The Washington Post minced no words. Instantaneously, their editorial board called Kamala’s trio of policies “gimmicks,” while their columnists savaged them, too. Fair? Spectacularly foolish.

Kamala’s first policy is to offer families a $6K tax break for having a first child. A gimmick? Give me a break. America’s median family income is about $70K. Before taxes. That’s about 10% of median income. Would you like a 10% raise? That’s what you’ll get. I think at this juncture, most Americans would be grateful for 10% more income. Half of families—that’s what “median” means—make less than that, of course. So up to half of American families could get a lift more than 10% of their incomes. 

In this day and age? We’re savaged by a “cost of living crisis.” I put that in quotes to emphasize that I don’t make it up: even the world’s most pre-eminent, and most conservative, financial institutions, like the IMF, call it that. During an historic cost of living crisis, giving people more than a 10% lift in incomes? That’s a Very Big Deal. 

Sound like a “gimmick” to you? The media didn’t even bother doing this basic math. It takes five seconds. But they appear not to even know these fundamental facts about the economy—median incomes, cost of living crisis, etcetera. Like I said: this isn’t criticism. They’re just making stuff up. The IMF itself—one of the world’s, again, most conservative institutions—has recommended governments find ways to help people address the cost of living crisis. Ways just like this.

It’s shocking to me that the editorial board of the Washington Post and their columnists wouldn’t know this. But maybe it shouldn’t be. They seem more focused on gotcha journalism these days than facts. And facts are what I’m trying to teach you. Facts enlighten us, and now you know whyKamala’s first policy is brilliant.

Many readers pointed out to me that the Post is now run by a former Murdoch editor? Does that play a role here? 

Let’s come to the second policy, which is building three million new homes. Targeted directly at the middle and working class, not to be sold to investors, aka private equity funds. Is that a…gimmick?

Three million homes. They will house three million families. That’s twelve million people. Twelve million people is 4% of America’s population. In other words, Kamala’s proposing enough housing for a sizable share of the population. If you’re one of those twelve million, is that a gimmick? Having a new, affordable home to live in? A “gimmick,” if we’re fair, is something that doesn’t really count—maybe it affects .001% of the population. But 4%? That’s very real. Far from a gimmick—that’s a policy with real, and tremendous impact. If it’s repeated in a second term, we’re talking housing for 10% of a society’s population, roughly. A gimmick? You must be kidding.

Let’s think harder about it. To build each of those homes, perhaps 10 people will be employed. Probably more, but let’s stick with ten. That’s 30 million jobs. What do 30 million new jobs do? They raise demand in the economy. What are we currently struggling with? A situation of slow demand, which the IMF—let me say it yet again, the world’s most authoritative financial institution—has called weak and sluggish and a threat to financial stability. Creating 30 million jobs right about now is an incredibly smart move, because it restores health, demand, and growth, the good kind, to the economy, when things are risky and uncertain and difficult.

Again, how hard is this to understand? I’ve explained it to you simply, and yet, media didn’t want to think any of this through for even the few seconds it took me to explain it to you. That’s disgraceful. If a media can’t do that, what purpose does it serve?

Let’s keep going. What do those 30 million jobs do, in turn? They create growth, because now, of course, more demand is flowing through the economy, more money is in people’s pockets, and they can go out and spend and invest it. As they do that, new businesses can roar, and more than that, the magical thing called certainty and confidence return. That in turn sparks a virtuous cycle of investment, which is the key to raising living standards.

And that’s really what all this is about. Raising living standards. That’s the point of an economy, after all. And yet our media, pundits, journalists, editorial boards—they seem deliberately unwilling to engage with that point and fact, instead, just regurgitating discredited talking points. All the above is “communism!” My God. Can you even imagine? If any time we talk about raising living standards, it’s “communism,” then of course, we’re not having a sane conversation anymore. We’re just trying to reason with crackpots, which is what America’s media has become, sadly.

Why American Living Standards Have Fallen

I’ll come back to that. First, let’s tackle the third proposal from Kamala, which is the one that really set the media’s hair on fire.

Price gouging. They went nuts. Price gouging?! Where? Where’s the evidence? The Post’s economics columnist went so far as to equate taking on price gouging to “price controls,” and say that was communist. So there’s the Post, calling Kamala a communist.

Let’s pause there. The Post’s columnist literally made this up. Kamala’s proposal pointedly doesn’t mention price controls. And in fact, there are already price controls in the economy. Here’s one Big One. The…minimum wage. Does it make America a “communist” society because it has a minimum wage? You see how ridiculous this is. And you also see how illiterate economics commentators are not to understand this elementary level of stuff.

Why do we want to stop price gouging, anyways? Far from being “communism,”, because that’s how we restore capitalism to good health. Price gouging is already illegal in most states, and every other developed country besides America. Why? Because it’s usually evidence of, and propelled by, “anti-competitive behaviour.” Anti-competitive behaviour means basically building monopolies. America’s economy is the most highly concentrated on earth—just a handful of gigantic companies control nearly every industry. What we want, if we’re interested in the health of capitalism, is competition.

Competition between market players, which ends up in price competition. Why do we want price competition? Because prices are “signals” in economics. The integrity of the “price signal” is paramount in economics, because it allows economies to allocate resources efficiently. But if prices are out of whack, if they’re bad signals, then an economy can’t do that. And that is why we want no price gouging—not for moral reasons, or because we’re “communists,” but because we want capitalism to be healthy, and for prices to be reliable, meaningful signals.

Again, it’s utterly shocking to me that media wouldn’t know this, or worse, not be able to tell you this. The Washington Post literally legitimized Trump calling Kamala a communist, and people went into an uproar, rightly so. But on an even deeper level, it’s worse than it seems, because, no, it’s not “communism,” we’re actually trying to defend capitalism, by making prices work the way they should.

Whew, it makes my head sort of explode, but let me return to the issue.

How do we know if there’s price gouging or not? The wrong way to do it is the way pundits tried to—revealing, again, that they don’t know what they’re doing. They looked at “longitudinal” data, aka, prices over time, in a narrow way. The correct way to do it is to look at comparative data.

Let me explain, and here’s a brief tutorial in social science, by the way.

Think about any major category of expenditure in America. Let’s take for example healthcare. Healthcare costs in America have exploded by thousands of percent over the last few decades. So has, for example, sending a kid to college. That’s also true for food, and of course housing. 

Now. In most of these categories, the same hasn’t been true in many other countries. In France, my favorite example is that the Sorbonne is free, while sending a kid to Harvard will cost $100K a year or whatnot. Healthcare’s affordable, even if it’s private, in most of the rest of the rich world. Why is that? And what does it tell us?

It tells us that something went badly wrong in America. Americans pay astronomical prices for most basic categories of goods and services compared to most if not many of their peer countries. And that’s clear evidence of price gouging.

And Americans know that by now. We all know that when you get some kind of bill, for example, from an HMO, it’s literally mostly made up. And if you call up and make a fuss, you can get them to drop some of the “charges,” because they’re fictional to begin with. 

One thing that strikes most Americans who’ve lived overseas is how much cheaper food is. It comes as a shock. Fruit, dairy, meat, even snacks—half the price or less. That, too, isn’t just evidence of price problems in America, it’s because Europe’s laws on food have been carefully designed to keep it relatively affordable for people.

Is there price gouging in America? Media and pundits have gone hysterical asking this question, and then tried to answer it in naive and unsophisticated ways. They end up missing the forest for the trees. There’s a much simpler, and yet more sophisticated way, to think about the question. If there’s not price gouging in America, how come life in peer countries is so much more affordable? 

This is all why America’s standard of living has been falling. According to the most authoritative index on the subject.

That’s a fact. Another one that those writing about economics should know. If there’s not price gouging happening, then why are living standards falling? America’s hardly out of money, housing, or jobs, after all. The reason must be that people are having a harder and harder affording the standard of living their parents and grandparents once enjoyed.

How (Not) to Think About Economics

You see my point, perhaps. Let me make it really, really clear though. There’s a lot of crackpot “research” that comes from “think tanks” in America, which is just right wing propaganda, basically. But the last really good paper on all this? By an eminent and internationally respected economist? Here’s what it found:

I review the causes and consequences of rising concentration of market shares that is occurring in most U.S. industries. While concentration is not necessarily harmful to the economy, my assessment of the available evidence leads me to conclude that Increased barriers to entry have resulted in lower investment, higher prices, and lower productivity growth. I estimate that the associated decline in competition has likely decreased aggregate labor income in the United States by more than $1 trillion between 2000 and 2019.

Now connect that to the evidence on falling living standards.

And there are literally tons of papers like that, because this is what the field has found. Its a consensus now in mainstream economics that, yes, this is a problem, monopolies, raising prices, leading to lower investment and growth. But—again—the editorial boards and journalists we’re dealing with don’t appear to actually read, know, or grasp modern economics at all, and so they don’t know this. But then what business do they have teaching you rank disinformation?

All of that’s abysmal and shocking to me. Let me sum up where we are.

Kamala’s policies aren’t gimmicks. They’re brilliant. Because they hold to transform the American economy, by raising living standards again. 

Kamala’s policies aren’t “communism.” They’re designed to keep capitalism healthy. Those are polar opposites, and that journalists and editorial boards have fallen for the former tell us what level their thinking is at—nonfunctional.

Kamala’s policies aren’t some kind of radical leftism. In fact, they are precisely the directions that the cutting edge of the field of economics, the best economists, already suggest. But because journalists and editorial boards don’t read that stuff, they don’t know that, and that’s actually disgraceful, because they’re just making stuff up, and miseducating you. The truth is that 99% of the world’s better economists would nod their heads at Kamala’s plans, and approve whole-heartedly. (And if crackpots from American thinktanks disagree, so much the better.)

We should celebrate policies this smart, innovative, and ferocious. To reflect the cutting edge of economics, to transform living standards, to lay a foundation for growth—these are brave and wise and good things. For media and journalists to paint them as the opposite is, like I’ve said, disgraceful. It betrays that they literally appear to have no idea about the very issues they’re pretending to be authorities opining on, that they hope you listen to. You shouldn’t. Their ignorance is one thing, but when ignorance joins hands with itself, it’s called folly, and nobody should make that mistake.

America Deserves Better

America deserves better than the charade media is playing out with policy. If you don’t understand the first thing about economics, as I’ve proven here, then…keep your mouth shut and go read and learn instead. It’s shocking and alarming that a major American paper, as we discussed above, would call keeping capitalism healthy “communism,” and play right into Trump’s hands, repeating his smear. Just crazy—but irresponsible, too, and egregiously outside the boundaries of good journalism. This is some of the lowest quality writing and thinking I believe I’ve ever seen—I’d flunk it out of a college class—and America deserves better.

Tomorrow, I’ll write some more about this—this is too long already. Take some time with it. This was dense, and I packed a lot of lessons and example into this essay. Let me end on this note.

I’m here to tell it to you like it is. If Kamala’s policies sucked, I’d tell you. If they were pie-in-the-sky, I’d say it. If they were fantastical or brain-dead, you’d hear it from me. The fact is that they are brilliant. Remarkable. Smart. I don’t say that lightly. Don’t let those who don’t know the first thing about economics, don’t read papers or books, and still think the wealth is going to trickle down, or right-wing thinktanks are credible—don’t let them convince you otherwise. Don’t join them in their folly. This moment is too crucial for that.

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Categories Democracy, Economy, Elections, Ethics, Harris, Kamala, Media

Josh Marshall: Why Kamala Harris Has Not Released Policy Papers or Given Interviews

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2024 //
100

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo cites several critical headlines in major newspapers about Kamala Harris’s campaign. One says her campaign is light on details. Another says she is running a substance-free campaign. Yet another demands to know when she will meet the press. He remembers how the Washington press corps treated her as a lightweight, as a problem, as a dead weight at the top of the ticket. There was an unspoken assumption that the public was not ready for a Black woman for president, especially not this one.

He writes:

I’ve come at this debate in my head from a bunch of different directions over the last few days…. I actually got in a minor spat today with a reporter who I’d dinged for an article description which presented Harris as a sort of mystery candidate verging on a Manchurian Candidate, with unknown views and barely detailed ambitions. Are we kidding with all of this?

On the one hand, journalists press for information, details, answers. That’s what they do. It’s their job. It’s part of their job to be annoying. They press for things that people aren’t going to volunteer. But there is something uncanny and vaguely absurd hearing this mix of complaints, demands and warnings of electoral disaster leveled at a campaign which is finishing up what has to be at least among, and quite possibly the, best single month of any presidential campaign in at least half a century. Campaign success isn’t what journalists are or should be concerned about. But it defies belief that Harris and her campaign would shift gears when what they’ve been doing is working this well.

I’ve made my points on this in the earlier piece. I don’t want to rehash them here. But there is one additional point: modern political campaign journalism is almost totally indifferent to public policy. Normally, Democrats cannot get reporters to pay attention to it. So these demands for a “vision” for this and a vision for that and detailed policy papers on all the rest are just a bit weird. Where does this newfound interest come from?

The whole thing will take care of itself. Harris will do some interviews — not because reporters are demanding it but because it will make sense for her campaign. And they’ll flesh out some policies — again, ones that make sense for her campaign.

The deeper story is that most campaign reporters simply don’t know what to make of Harris’ campaign and can’t figure out how it has managed, at least for the moment, to be so successful. That’s not a criticism: I think many of Harris’ supporters are equally mystified. But they’re just happy with the results. They don’t need an explanation. But for reporters the inexplicableness requires a storyline. And this is that storyline: the substanceless campaign, the lack of interviews, yada yada yada. As Kate noted in today’s pod: Biden started doing a bunch of interviews when his campaign started to tank. Trump’s been doing a spree of them because he’s floundering and he’s trying to regain attention. Candidate do these when they need to, not when reporters demand it.

The final part of the story is rooted in official Washington’s view of Harris. To put it baldly, most elite DC journalists treated Harris with a kind of breezy disdain that could scarcely rise to the level of contempt. For the first year of her vice presidency there was an ongoing series of critical reports about issues in the Office of the Vice President, staff drama, mean bossism, general turmoil. I don’t know how much reality there was to those reports. But they set a dismal tone. You’ll remember that when Ezra Klein and others got together the calls for a Thunderdome convention, Klein referred delicately and painedly to “the Kamala Harris problem,” a problem so obvious that it scarcely required explanation: how to usher her out of the way for others from the vaunted Democratic bench.

I’m not trying to pick on Klein here. I’ve done enough of that. I note this simply because it was such a deep conventional wisdom that it hardly required explanation. Everyone in that world knew what he meant. That certainly figures into this, and in both directions. It is not only that there is this great appetite to find out just what it is Harris must be doing wrong. That backstory must have left Harris just utterly uninterested in what these folks have to say. They treated her as something between a punchline and a nonentity and now she’s the odds-on favorite, if only by a small margin, to be the next President. Why should she care?

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media

Dan Rather: Elon Musk Pushes Lies and Fake News

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2024 //
7

Dan Rather warns about the danger of one-man control of a major social media company. He had Elon Musk in mind. Musk is supporting Trump, and he is using Twitter, his personal megaphone, to help Trump and smear Harris.

I have been locked out of Twitter since mid-July, because Twitter says I am underage. Really! So I am no longer influenced by Musk propaganda. But millions of other people are.

Rather writes on his blog “Steady”:

Imagine having the ability to instantly lob information, true or not, to millions of people across the globe. Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), has that ability. One would hope that with that power would come responsibility. In a perfect world, the owners of social media companies would be fair-minded and objective. Alas.

For all the talk of social media reform after 2016 and the Facebook fiasco when misinformation ran rampant across that platform, it now appears that Musk has decided not only to support the Republican candidate for president but to personally help spread misinformation about voting and the election.

Plus, in 2024, Musk has more powerful tools than Facebook ever imagined eight years ago. Artificial intelligence is coming into its own, and the dangers it presents to our democracy are profound.

Musk has recently released an AI chatbot, which, if you don’t know, is basically a computer that can simulate a human conversation. Musk named his Grok, and within hours of President Biden bowing out of the race, it created a post that read: “The ballot deadline has passed for several states for the 2024 election,” naming nine states: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. The message suggested that Kamala Harris had missed the filing deadline to get on the ballot in those states.

This is 100% false and was shared with millions of users on X.

Secretaries of state in five of the nine states have written a letter to Musk urging him to “immediately implement changes” to Grok. I’m not holding my breath.

When Grok was launched late last year, Musk called it the anti-“woke” chatbot — his characterization. He said he wanted the AI search assistant to “answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.” Those other AI systems, powered by OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, are specifically designed to avoid controversial topics.

But it’s not just Grok that is pushing out lies. Musk himself reposted a manipulated version of Harris’s first campaign video. It featured an altered voice track that sounds just like Harris. In it “she” says she didn’t “know the first thing about running the country” and that she is the “ultimate diversity hire.” Musk tagged the video as “amazing” and didn’t include a disclaimer. His post has garnered 135 million views, so far. It has not been taken down.

Talk about strange bedfellows. Over the years, there has been no love lost between Musk and Donald Trump. As recently as May, Trump was a vociferous and vocal proponent of the oil and gas industry. Remember the Mar-a-Lago get-together where he promised to end Biden’s green energy initiatives, including his electric vehicle policies, in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions?

Apparently Musk and Trump have mended some pretty tall fences. For his part, Musk has promised lots of cash to the pro-Trump America PAC. Maybe Trump didn’t get what he asked for from his oil and gas friends.

The Musk-backed America PAC is already helping Trump in swing states. The PAC’s website is tricking people into sharing personal data. The site promises to help people register to vote, but when a user enters a zip code in a battleground state, after also giving their name and phone number, they are directed to a page that says “thank you.” They are then asked to “complete the form below.” But there is no form. And there is no redirection to a voter registration site.

In exchange, Trump now thinks electric vehicles are “incredible.” What a shocker. At a rally in Georgia on Sunday, Trump told his supporters, “I’m for electric cars. I have to be because, you know, Elon endorsed me very strongly. So, I have no choice.”

The Michigan secretary of state is investigating Musk and the PAC. “Every citizen should know exactly how their personal information is being used by PACs, especially if an entity is claiming it will help people register to vote in Michigan or any other state,” a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office said.

In 2022, President Barack Obama gave a speech at Stanford University about the dangers of artificial intelligence, foreseeing that “regulation has to be part of the answer” to combating online disinformation. His closing thought is a reminder that AI can be a help as well as a hindrance — but that it can’t exist in a vacuum.

“The internet is a tool. Social media is a tool. At the end of the day, tools don’t control us. We control them. And we can remake them. It’s up to each of us to decide what we value and then use the tools we’ve been given to advance those values,” Obama said.

For all intents and purposes, social media has become our town square — but unlike most communities, it has no sheriff, and it very much needs one. In his or her absence it is up to us, social media’s users, to be wary consumers.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Harris, Kamala, Media, Propaganda

Lawrence O’Donnell: Wake Up, Reporters! Do Your Job

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2024 //
24

Lawrence O’Donnell appears nightly on MSNBC at 10 pm EST. I love his show because he is so smart.

This episode is a must-watch.

As a bonus, here is Robert Reich wondering why the media doesn’t report honestly about Trump’s dementia.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Media, Trump

USA Today: The Musk-Trump Lovefest on Twitter

By dianeravitch
August 13, 2024 //
12

For three weeks, I was locked out of Twitter because of a snafu that’s not worth recounting. Every time I tried to log on, I received a notice saying I was underage and not allowed to engage on Twitter. I have been on Twitter since 2009. So, even though I have been an active participant on Twitter for 15 years, Twitter concluded I had not yet passed my 13th birthday!

I have been active on Twitter for 15 years, but the great X decided I was not yet 13. Should I feel complimented or insulted?

Anyway, I didn’t watch or listen when Elon Musk held a conversation with Trump last night. I did notice, however, that the topic “slurring” was trending, and I discovered hundreds of comments about Trump slurring his language in the conversation, which led to comments about weird things Trump said: congratulating Musk for firing workers who dared to strike; brushing off climate change and rising seas, instead saying that he would get “more oceanfront property” and that our real worry should be “nuclear warming.” Many more non sequiturs.

Rex Huppke of USA Today wrote about the Musk-Trump show and summed it up well: it was a disaster. Worse, it was boring.

It started 40-45 minutes late, due to technical problems.

It was downhill from there.

For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid.

Former President Donald Trump had loudly trumpeted a planned Monday night interview with Musk that would stream on X. But much like the disastrous X-platformed launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, the Musk/Trump interview failed to launch, leaving social media users laughing at the collective incompetence.

Since Vice President Kamala Harris rose to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket last month, Trump’s reelection campaign has been flailing. His childish attacks against her aren’t working. His racist comments about her mixed-race heritage have repelled all but his most loyal supporters. His vice presidential pick, JD Vance, becomes less likable every time he speaks.

So his answer, weirdly, was to sit down with Musk and talk to what would undoubtedly be a very online audience that doesn’t represent the broader electorate. Had the conversation gone off without a hitch, it still would have been odd and largely useless for Trump’s effort to halt Harris’ momentum….

Forget the glitches, Trump’s X interview got worse when he started talking

Of course, things didn’t get better for Trump once the interview was able to proceed. …

He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being.

He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck…

I’m not going to quote anything Trump said in the interview because it was either too stupid to merit transcription or a mere repetition of the nonsense he spouts at every rally he holds.

A big part of Trump’s problem right now is he has become almost unbearably boring. Build a wall. Drill, baby, drill. Marxist, socialist something-something. Harris only recently became Black. Blah, blah, blah.

So for Trump, sitting down with a rich weirdo few people like and slurring his way through an interview that failed to launch was, in the words of one Donald J. Trump, “a DISASTER!”

Musk, with his social-media ineptness and unmerited sense of self-importance, made DeSantis look like a fool. And now he’s done the same to Trump.

Categories Elections, Media, Stupid, Trump

Robert Hubbell: Get Ready for the Media to Turn Cynical

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2024 //
24

Blogger Robert Hubbell was an enthusiastic supporter of Joe Biden and now he is enthusiastic supporter of Kamala Harris. Like me, he wants to stop Trump and his anarchist pals from retaking the White House and wreaking havoc on our society.

He knows that the media is currently amazed by the enthusiasm that Harris’s campaign unleashed. But he warns about what will happen next as journalists get bored and seek to burst the bubble of excitement she has generated:

We must shape the media narrative

By its nature, the political media is contrarian. It has been impossible for the media to ignore the outpouring of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. Still, we should expect the media to turn on Kamala Harris and Democrats. It is just a question of when. Media outlets will begin featuring stories with random voters—likely young, diverse, female—who support Trump or are doubtful about Kamala. Such random interviews are worse than meaningless. They are efforts to distort reality and mislead readers about the true nature of the race.

When such stories begin to appear, recognize them for what they are: lazy reporting by journalists who can’t be bothered with the hard work of reporting the truth. Instead, they will default to the “Just asking questions” brand of false reporting. (“Is Kamala in trouble?” “Can she sustain the enthusiasm?”) I saw an article today from someone who wanted Biden to withdraw, asking, “Was Kamala the right choice?” Thankfully, he was being overwhelmed by negative comments from readers.

One way to fight the contrarian news cycle is to spread the good news of Kamala’s candidacy and the incredible energy of the Democratic base. For now, we have the upper hand; we are controlling the narrative and should be “flooding the zone” with positive messaging for Kamala Harris.

But this cannot be said enough: The election will be won on the ground in fifty states by ensuring a historic turnout of voters. That effort will take hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Be one of those volunteers. If you haven’t joined a grassroots group already, do so ASAP. If you already belong, recruit new volunteers and mentor new members. We have less than 100 days left to get this done, but we have every reason to be hopeful—and no reason to be complacent.

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media

Help! My Twitter Account Has Been Hacked!

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2024 //
30

About 18 months ago, I discovered that someone had set up a Twitter account pretending to be me.

My Twitter “handle” is @DianeRavitch.

The fake account is @Ravitch_Diane. I tried to find someone at Twitter to take it down but had no luck. I posted on it that it’s a fake.

I decided to ignore it because it had so few followers. As of now, it has 81 followers, while my real account has over 145,000.

But in the last 24 hours, something changed. Whenever I post a tweet, it goes to the fake account. Whatever I post or repost, it won’t come up on my real account but only on the fake. My real account has been silenced.

I’ve reached out to X, but I can communicate only with AI. I can’t deactivate the fake account unless I have the email for whoever opened it. Nor do I have the password.

So unless someone has a solution, I now have a parasite sucking away my tweets and reposts to a fake account with only 81 followers.

If you have any ideas about how to get X to shut down the fake account, please let me know.

Categories Fake, Fraud, Media

Dan Rather: A Dangerous Double Standard

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2024 //
56

Dan Rather is puzzled about why the media scrutinizes Biden for any misstatements or gaffes and seems to be gleefully stoking the “resign” story. Yet Trump says crazy and incoherent things, and the media ignores it.

He writes on his blog “Steady”:

What a weekend. You know I have seen some things in my seven decades covering American politics. I have never seen anything quite like the wrangling, hand-wringing, and behind-the-scenes gamesmanship currently swirling around President Biden. These are compounded by the one-sided media coverage against Biden. And it isn’t over yet. 

One thing is for certain: If Biden stays in the race, every step, every word, every gesture will be parsed, dissected, and magnified. This is the reality, at least for the Democrats. Trump? Not so much. Or really, very little.

Case in point: On Friday, Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. In the transcript of the interview released by ABC, Biden said, “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.” Several news organizations and the White House took issue with the word “goodest.” According to The New York Times,the ABC standards team listened again to the audio and changed “goodest” to “good as.” According to the Times, “Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.”

So here we are — one slightly hard to discern word in an otherwise coherent interview. And then there is the other guy. The one who can’t seem to string together a single coherent sentence — a fact news organizations don’t even bother mentioning any more. Try making sense of this gobbledegook from Trump’s remarks at a recent rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:

“Our nation was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean it was so, was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways — it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And uh the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor — did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake, he lost his great general and uh they were fighting uphill. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late.”

What?? You may not have heard about this because it was “lightly” reported, i.e. not a word from The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, or the Associated Press. Jon Stewart did mention it on “The Daily Show,” saying it was “plagiarized, almost directly, from my seventh-grade book report, ‘Gettysburg, Wow.’”

Why are the rules so different for these two men? Both should be held accountable for their deeds and words. But they aren’t. Trump gets pass after pass.

The Republicans have hitched their wagon to a cult leader. They are willing to do just about anything to win back the White House: lie; obliterate the rules; blindly back a convicted felon, a cheater, a sexual assaulter, a Project 2025 promoter, a dictator on day one, and an insurrectionist. Maybe they should change their MAGA caps to say “The ends justify the means.”

The Democrats have, to this point, backed the president, a decent man who has devoted his life to the service of the country. Now that the proverbial chips are somewhere near rock-bottom, the party doesn’t know what to do. Remain loyal to a man who has objectively done a very good job after the debacle that was the Trump administration, and risk Trump 2.0? Or nudge Biden out in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris or any number of untested contenders? The finger-pointing and “blames-manship” will be epic if Trump wins. Where is this headed? As my father said, “he who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass.”

But for those of us who believe in the great American Experiment — a constitutional republic based on the principles of freedom and democracy — this is what it looks like, folks. It’s raucous, sometimes ugly, painful, and chock full of anxiety. But one thing we can do and are doing is speak freely. That could all change. Imagine a world where the Trump police track down naysayers and truth tellers. He has vowed retribution, even military tribunals for his political enemies. And then he would not be subject to prosecution. In our system of government, we have the right to question our leaders. If Trump wins, that could quickly disappear.

In the confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety of the moment, and amidst all the disappointing media coverage, it is time to remind ourselves once again what is at stake in this election.

Please know that we feel your anxiety and we welcome your insights, your frustration, your worries in the comments on this forum. It’s an open exchange. All I ask is that you remain respectful to your fellow Steady readers. Please, no name-calling or foul language. I enjoy reading your comments. We desperately need this passion come November. Our democracy depends on it.

Categories Biden, Elections, Hypocrisy, Media, Trump

Why Democrats and the Media Love to Pull Down Democratic Candidates

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2024 //
149

A reader who calls herself New York City Public School Parent (NYCPSP) posted this gem of a commentary. It is a brilliant rant by a journalist about how Democrats and the media love to tear apart Democratic candidates. When faced with a choice between a flawed incumbent only four months before the election, they gather into a wolfpack to demand he be replaced by an ideal candidate. Groupthink prevails. If they got their wish, they would immediately attack the new candidate, because she or he is also flawed. Meanwhile the fascist and his bootlicking party are treated as normal.

NYCPSP explains that she found this rant by climate/energy journalist David Roberts on the Facebook page of author/historian/activist Rebecca Solnit. NYCPSP wrote “It is one of the most trenchant analyses of how the media does political reporting that I have ever read.”

I am not on Facebook so I am borrowing NYCPSP’s transmission, which follows, and I thank her both for sending it and for adjusting (but not deleting) words like “f**k”

Rebecca Solnit writes: “this is the best thing I’ve read so far on the situation, and it’s some tweets a guy who has a Substack newsletter on climate did for free, while a thousand salaried media pundits are congratulating themselves while striving to outdo and imitate each other in pulling down the republic.”

David Roberts: “I haven’t written much about politics since the debate, mainly because I’m so overwhelmed by disgust & contempt toward this country’s media & commentariat that it has rendered me inarticulate with rage. Twitter probably doesn’t need more rage. I do just wanna make one point tho.

To be clear up front: I don’t give one tiny hot f**k who the Dem nominee is. I truly don’t. Biden’s fine. Harris is fine. A warm puddle of vomit is fine. *There is no conceivable resolution to the nomination fight that could change the basic calculus of this race.*

Preventing a fascist takeover of the US is my top priority–as a journalist, as a voter, as a human. If it isn’t yours too, you should feel bad about yourself. If you haven’t made the stakes of this election clear to everyone within the sound of your voice, you should feel bad.

But I’m not gonna rant. [breathes deeply] Just gonna make my one point, which is this: the idea that that the process of jettisoning Biden & choosing someone else will go well — will be *allowed* to go well — is a deeply deranged fantasy.

The idea that Dems will do this & will end up feeling unified, that Harris will come out popular, that “the dynamics of the race will shift,” all of that … f**king deranged. Deranged in such a perfectly characteristic Dem way.

“This person/policy/slogan/approach has been irredeemably slimed by Republicans & a hostile media — let’s throw it overboard!” That’s the Dem way. Always with this starry-eyed hope that they can reset, start over, get it right this time.

Just as one example — other people have aggregated these — there have been “calls” for every Dem nominee of the last 30 years to step aside. Dems practically delight in abandoning their own people, policies, & principles in response to bad-faith pressure. They f’ing love it.

But, as I’ve been saying for, oh, 20 years now, the situation is structural. The current situation is an outcome of a particular incentive structure & that structure will remain exactly the same if Harris takes over the ticket.

For centrists, journalists, pundits, *even Dem electeds*, the way you prove you are a Reasonable, Serious Person in DC is by sh**ting on Dems. For the left, the way you prove you are a true radical is by sh**ting on Dems. For the right … well, obviously.

Everyone’s professional incentives are to s**t on Dems. Dwelling on Trump & his fascist movement — however justified by the objective facts — just doesn’t bring that juice, doesn’t get the clicks & the high-fives, doesn’t feel brave & iconoclastic. It’s just … no fun.

So, say Biden stepped aside in favor of Harris tomorrow. How long until the vapid gossips we call political reporters find something wrong with her, some alleged flaw they just have to write 192 stories about? How long until the hopped-up mediocrities we call pundits …

…find some “counter-intuitive” reason that the new Dem ticket is flawed after all? How long until the irredentist left gets over the temporary thrill of its new Harris memes & remembers that she’s a cop & turns on her? How long before the ambient racism & misogyny in the US…

… lead center-leftists to conclude that, sure, they’d support a black woman, just not *this* black woman? In other words: how long before everyone reverts to their comfortable, familiar identity & narratives?

About 30 f’ing seconds, is my guess.

Dems uniting, feeling good, telling a clear story, receiving credit for their accomplishments–all of that is *impossible* in the current environment. It won’t be allowed. Dems can punch themselves in the face all they want, abandon whoever they want, apologize all they want…

… they simply will not be allowed to turn the page & start fresh, because everyone’s incentives remain the same. If they did that, elites, including media elites, would have no choice but to openly & frankly grapple with Trump & what he represents & they *don’t want to*.

Everyone feels comfortable sh**ting on Dems — it’s just a cozy professional space. You get to feel brave & independent (just like all the replacement-level pundits around you) with zero risk.

Yes, it’s abysmal, contemptible cowardice on a genuinely embarrassing scale …

… but it is what it is & we should have no illusions that it will change with a change in the top of the ticket.

As @whstancil has been trying to tell you people (good god how he tries), the information environment is thoroughly corrupted.

@whstancil For some reason, left pundits are pathologically averse to acknowledging that fact. And so they grasp at these straws — if we could just get rid of Biden, we could have a reasonable conversation! Yeah, sure. You absurd summer children.

@whstancil This election is not a choice between two individuals, it’s a choice between worldviews, between futures. Do we want to continue down the path to multiethnic democracy or do we want to impose a white patriarchal Christian autocracy?

@whstancil At stake is the entire federal civil service. The machinery of state built since WWII. Freedom & dignity for millions. Yes, democracy itself. That’s not an exaggeration. Yet this country’s elites have utterly failed to convey those stakes to the populace. A *grotesque* failure.

You can not look at this extraordinary media freakout this last week and not psychologize, not see all kinds of displacement. They can’t or won’t be serious about Trump & so they are f**king *giddy* at having permission to scold Dems again. Their safe place.

Anyway, my point is just: none of this will change if Harris replaces Biden at the top of the ticket. The idea that the media — with these soulless careerist court gossips in charge — will allow it is just fantasy. They *need* Dems in disarray & so they will engineer it.

The US is right on the precipice of falling into bona fide fascism & *the vast majority of the voting public doesn’t even know it*. That speaks to a deeply diseased information environment. Until Dems do something about that, all their self-flagellation will buy them nothing.

Not knowing what else to do, Dems s**t on their own.”

This analysis confirms what I have been thinking and writing. As I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and other mainstream media, I feel that they jump to distribute news of a Congressman, a Senator, a donor, or a bunch of big donors (“Hollywood”) that wants Biden to step aside. They seem to be on a death watch, waiting for Biden to succumb to their pressure. If you added together the stories about why or whether Biden will retire and compared them to the stories about Trump’s absurd lies and dangerous threats, the ratio would be about 10:1. It’s “news” to hound Biden out of office, it’s not “news” to report on Trump’s incitement of violence, hatred, and division.

I support Biden because he has been a very successful President, because he is sane, rational, and I share his love of democracy. I would support any Democrat against Trump. I won’t repeat why I oppose Trump but he is the opposite of Biden. He represents the worst in America.

Categories Bias, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Media, Trump
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