Glenn, I think you need to be clear on what you mean by "Russiagate." Do you refer the media's panicked representation of the saga, or do you believe there was no activity by Trump himself or his campaign that merited impeachment? I would like to point you to Lawfare's exposition of the Mueller report volume 2 in which it is clear that in multiple instances Trump's behavior met all the elements of the criminal offense of obstruction of justice. Trump, as the head head of the executive branch, attempted to strangle an investigation in which he had the deepest of personal interests. If that's not an abuse of power, I struggle to imagine what is. Given that, I think some measure of panick, while probably unproductive, is understandable. That he was simply an idiot I think is understated.
Can we please get rid of the term "Russiagate"? Grouping every aspect of alleged Russian influence on the 2016 election into a single concept that could be considered a "hoax" is a gross oversimplification. Yes, as Matt reports, there was a lot of sensationalism and discredited reporting, but the Mueller Report contains this:
"... the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected that it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts ...”.
How is it "stupid and disconnected from reality" to acknowledge an attempt by a foreign government to swing a U.S. election? It is a fact that Russia flooded social media with content intended to influence voters against Hillary Clinton and hacked the Clinton campaign computers to steal documents. Moreover, the idea that the Russian influence actually did affect the election results has never been "discredited". No, the Russians did not hack vote-counting systems. But given the small percentage of votes that determined the election, it is possible that the Russian actions did make a crucial difference [1]. We can never know for sure. But even if the Russian actions did not swing the election, surely the fact that they attempted to do so is worthy of concern.
I'm not saying that the 2016 election was illegitimate. The votes were legally cast and properly counted. Influence on voters, no matter how nefarious the source, is irrelevant to the legitimacy of the election.
So-called "Russiagate" contained two categories of allegations: those against the Trump campaign and those against Russia. Some of the allegations against the Trump campaign, especially the salacious Steele dossier, were under-investigated and over-hyped by the media and eventually discredited. But the allegations against the Russians? Those turned out to be true. Go read sections II and III of Volume I of the Mueller Report [2] if you doubt the extent and effectiveness of Russia's use of cyber technology to influence the election.
"Russiagate" didn't give Americans the wrong impression about Russia. They learned, correctly, that Russia has strong cyber-attack capabilities and that Vladimir Putin tried to install Donald Trump as president.
I'm glad you chose this segment as two things I want to discuss are contained.
Matt mentions Wesley Lowery and his piece, “A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists.” I just now read it and found it to be standard issue Woke. I am confused whether Matt was praising it, condemning it, or simply referencing it. In a New York magazine piece (a hit piece, more or less, "What Happened to Matt Taibbi?"), it is stated Matt agrees with Lowery that "the view from nowhere" is outmoded. The NY mag piece even makes it sound like Matt has embraced such "moral clarity," which, in this interview, seems something he does not embrace. Matt's not responsible for what NY mag writes, of course, but I am confused.
My confusion about that matter is dwarfed by my confusion over John's pushback. Eyelashes and contact lenses, entomologists and butterfly collectors, narratives as markers of intelligence. Also, was he referring exclusively to the WMD media coverage, or all the examples for which members of the media might need to answer? John was tip-toeing through a minefield, I understand, but "Finnegans Wake" was less obscure.
Critical thinking requires steel-manning all positions. These moral crusaders typically straw-man various arguments. Essentially, they lie for the sake of promoting a dubious moral standpoint. Fail to tolerate this behavior, and you are in the wrong. Not sure how to fight back against this moral obligation to be stupid.
All one needs to know about the state of the mainstream press is the emergence and popularity of sites like Substack where Taibbi's work appears. Same with like Glenn's. People have a hunger for information, preferably information they can trust and they don't trust the bulk of the media. The long-form format is successful because it's not a reductionist exercise where the soundbite is king. It allows for points to be made, for pushback, for clarification, etc. When people who are left of center like Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and Bari Weiss sounds like Rush Limbaugh used to re: the news industry, it's hard to dismiss it as a partisan exercise.
The problem is no one outside of MSNBC diehards actually believes Trump was colluding with Russia, not even the people who knowingly pushed the lie. So hard to see how it could have caused anyone to believe Russia was some kind of hypercompetent opponent.
I might argue that technocrats and social scientists are great at telling us what happened and after studying it for years why. They are like 0% effective at forecasting the future or anticipating events... And don't get me started on their inability to foresee unintended consequences. The idea that the professional classes should be running things is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people... Woodrow Wilson started it and quite frankly we've been worse off ever since...
I’m glad Glenn now acknowledges that Trump is an idiot. Now, define collusion. There was clearly Russian involvement in the 2016 election, in the release of Democratic party memoranda, in the placement of social media posts, etc. The US sent home a whole nest of Russian internet manipulators. And Trump never said anything about it – – just as he has never said anything negative about Putin before or since. (And the lines of oil related high finance might well cross in Trump Tower. I don’t see anything wrong with checking them out.) So if Trump didn’t “collude,“ he abetted by not punishing or even scolding Russia for real offenses. And he did hold up money that Congress had approved for the Ukrainian army for his political benefit. Why are you not concentrating on that (as an encouragement to Putin’s invasion), rather than the question of specific collusion. You’ll never get proof of that in the form of a signed agreement. What you do see is a passive agreement to help each other out – – what more does anyone need?
Matt T: "Audiences' trust is the most important thing in media."
After 35 years, I stopped my NYTimes & New Yorker subscriptions in 2015 when I could smell not just a rat - but lots of rats....I subscribed to Matt but just stopped several months ago as well. None of you is trustworthy. It's just so rich that McWhorter is now covering for the NYTimes. And ya, I'd take Trump any day over the bumbling fool in the White House now. It's been a shameful six plus years. All of you should be fessing up. You're just very hard to read but for some reason I keep thinking you are going to say something sane again. It's like watching Saturday Night Live (SNL) hoping that it's going to get better again, but it never does. I feel bad for you folks.
Excellent content, Glenn. I only discovered you a few weeks ago, but I’m devouring what you’re putting out. Matt is solid as always, and I enjoy the pushback between John and him. I hope there’s more of this conversation made available.
Impressive triumvirate. Opposite of MSM talking heads who actively make their audiences dumber. It's almost as if they elevate those voices but not yours for a reason...
Glenn, I think you need to be clear on what you mean by "Russiagate." Do you refer the media's panicked representation of the saga, or do you believe there was no activity by Trump himself or his campaign that merited impeachment? I would like to point you to Lawfare's exposition of the Mueller report volume 2 in which it is clear that in multiple instances Trump's behavior met all the elements of the criminal offense of obstruction of justice. Trump, as the head head of the executive branch, attempted to strangle an investigation in which he had the deepest of personal interests. If that's not an abuse of power, I struggle to imagine what is. Given that, I think some measure of panick, while probably unproductive, is understandable. That he was simply an idiot I think is understated.
Can we please get rid of the term "Russiagate"? Grouping every aspect of alleged Russian influence on the 2016 election into a single concept that could be considered a "hoax" is a gross oversimplification. Yes, as Matt reports, there was a lot of sensationalism and discredited reporting, but the Mueller Report contains this:
"... the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected that it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts ...”.
How is it "stupid and disconnected from reality" to acknowledge an attempt by a foreign government to swing a U.S. election? It is a fact that Russia flooded social media with content intended to influence voters against Hillary Clinton and hacked the Clinton campaign computers to steal documents. Moreover, the idea that the Russian influence actually did affect the election results has never been "discredited". No, the Russians did not hack vote-counting systems. But given the small percentage of votes that determined the election, it is possible that the Russian actions did make a crucial difference [1]. We can never know for sure. But even if the Russian actions did not swing the election, surely the fact that they attempted to do so is worthy of concern.
I'm not saying that the 2016 election was illegitimate. The votes were legally cast and properly counted. Influence on voters, no matter how nefarious the source, is irrelevant to the legitimacy of the election.
So-called "Russiagate" contained two categories of allegations: those against the Trump campaign and those against Russia. Some of the allegations against the Trump campaign, especially the salacious Steele dossier, were under-investigated and over-hyped by the media and eventually discredited. But the allegations against the Russians? Those turned out to be true. Go read sections II and III of Volume I of the Mueller Report [2] if you doubt the extent and effectiveness of Russia's use of cyber technology to influence the election.
"Russiagate" didn't give Americans the wrong impression about Russia. They learned, correctly, that Russia has strong cyber-attack capabilities and that Vladimir Putin tried to install Donald Trump as president.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump
[2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6209778-Mueller-Report
I'm glad you chose this segment as two things I want to discuss are contained.
Matt mentions Wesley Lowery and his piece, “A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists.” I just now read it and found it to be standard issue Woke. I am confused whether Matt was praising it, condemning it, or simply referencing it. In a New York magazine piece (a hit piece, more or less, "What Happened to Matt Taibbi?"), it is stated Matt agrees with Lowery that "the view from nowhere" is outmoded. The NY mag piece even makes it sound like Matt has embraced such "moral clarity," which, in this interview, seems something he does not embrace. Matt's not responsible for what NY mag writes, of course, but I am confused.
My confusion about that matter is dwarfed by my confusion over John's pushback. Eyelashes and contact lenses, entomologists and butterfly collectors, narratives as markers of intelligence. Also, was he referring exclusively to the WMD media coverage, or all the examples for which members of the media might need to answer? John was tip-toeing through a minefield, I understand, but "Finnegans Wake" was less obscure.
Critical thinking requires steel-manning all positions. These moral crusaders typically straw-man various arguments. Essentially, they lie for the sake of promoting a dubious moral standpoint. Fail to tolerate this behavior, and you are in the wrong. Not sure how to fight back against this moral obligation to be stupid.
Pod-whoretss? I always thought it was /pu-DAWR-utz/.
All one needs to know about the state of the mainstream press is the emergence and popularity of sites like Substack where Taibbi's work appears. Same with like Glenn's. People have a hunger for information, preferably information they can trust and they don't trust the bulk of the media. The long-form format is successful because it's not a reductionist exercise where the soundbite is king. It allows for points to be made, for pushback, for clarification, etc. When people who are left of center like Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and Bari Weiss sounds like Rush Limbaugh used to re: the news industry, it's hard to dismiss it as a partisan exercise.
Better to keep it simple and just call the media liars.
The problem is no one outside of MSNBC diehards actually believes Trump was colluding with Russia, not even the people who knowingly pushed the lie. So hard to see how it could have caused anyone to believe Russia was some kind of hypercompetent opponent.
I might argue that technocrats and social scientists are great at telling us what happened and after studying it for years why. They are like 0% effective at forecasting the future or anticipating events... And don't get me started on their inability to foresee unintended consequences. The idea that the professional classes should be running things is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people... Woodrow Wilson started it and quite frankly we've been worse off ever since...
I’m glad Glenn now acknowledges that Trump is an idiot. Now, define collusion. There was clearly Russian involvement in the 2016 election, in the release of Democratic party memoranda, in the placement of social media posts, etc. The US sent home a whole nest of Russian internet manipulators. And Trump never said anything about it – – just as he has never said anything negative about Putin before or since. (And the lines of oil related high finance might well cross in Trump Tower. I don’t see anything wrong with checking them out.) So if Trump didn’t “collude,“ he abetted by not punishing or even scolding Russia for real offenses. And he did hold up money that Congress had approved for the Ukrainian army for his political benefit. Why are you not concentrating on that (as an encouragement to Putin’s invasion), rather than the question of specific collusion. You’ll never get proof of that in the form of a signed agreement. What you do see is a passive agreement to help each other out – – what more does anyone need?
Matt T: "Audiences' trust is the most important thing in media."
After 35 years, I stopped my NYTimes & New Yorker subscriptions in 2015 when I could smell not just a rat - but lots of rats....I subscribed to Matt but just stopped several months ago as well. None of you is trustworthy. It's just so rich that McWhorter is now covering for the NYTimes. And ya, I'd take Trump any day over the bumbling fool in the White House now. It's been a shameful six plus years. All of you should be fessing up. You're just very hard to read but for some reason I keep thinking you are going to say something sane again. It's like watching Saturday Night Live (SNL) hoping that it's going to get better again, but it never does. I feel bad for you folks.
Excellent content, Glenn. I only discovered you a few weeks ago, but I’m devouring what you’re putting out. Matt is solid as always, and I enjoy the pushback between John and him. I hope there’s more of this conversation made available.
Impressive triumvirate. Opposite of MSM talking heads who actively make their audiences dumber. It's almost as if they elevate those voices but not yours for a reason...