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 agree. I find it really frustrating to try to suss out what really happened, facts from opinion and analysis from partisan wishful thinking. Everywhere that claims “Russiagate is a hoax” seems to think that discrediting the most outrageous claims means there is nothing to any of it. That seems to me to be a cynical way of dealing with issues (elections and foreign interference) so intrinsic to the way our country works (or more recently, doesn’t).
If part is wrong, then it's all wrong. If part is right then it's all right. If you're not 100% with us, you're 100% against us. It what gets the eyeballs & the money. Squeaky wheels. . .!!
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.
Matt talks about that Lowery piece a good bit, and I think he's pretty firmly against the idea of "moral clarity" in journalism, and cites the Lowery as being one of the pieces that codified the squishy activist-as-journalist type that has become the default since.
From what I can tell, Matt has a hybrid view on Objectivity. He argues in Hate Inc. that it's impossible to escape bias. Just choosing the font of a pull quote and where to put it on the page is a biased decision resulting from individual choice and the sampling bias of personal experience. To sum up, I hope fairly, lack of omniscience implies lack of objectivity. Back in the day there were attempts to take a "view from nowhere" perspective to alienate as few readers as possible. Now the smart money is in getting clicks from a passionate group, hence deviation from any attempt at objectivity. Then Trump was used to make that a moral mandate. Matt does advocate for some degree of the old school objectivity, an effort to get the facts right over a narrative. I'm unclear as to what specific policies he advocates in that regard.
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?
It’s so strangely petty how you seem to need the satisfaction of someone calling Trump names. This argument reminds me of a piece by Jonathan Rauch in which he wildly moves the goalposts by now pushing an extremely expansive definition of collusion, which is apparently only applicable to Trump, while claiming the other side is the one wildly moving the goalposts to make anything short of clearly proven conspiracy the only standard. I didn’t like Trump’s demeanor at Helsinki and told a friend who is similarly uniquely obsessed with Trump (Liz Cheney is now a hero; in fact, the whole Bush-Cheney admin is now bathed in halcyon tones) that Muller had all the experience, staff, time, and money he needed to dig into these allegations and I would reserve judgment. Meanwhile people were giddily buying up “It’s Muller Time!” swag online, in hopes of all their partisan and, frankly, social class biases being confirmed, so they could celebrate the removal of a duly-elected US President. It’s funny you seem to suggest Trump may have encouraged Putin to invade by holding up funding in exchange for an inappropriate political ask - when Biden did something very similar in issuing a threat to withhold funding unless his precious son was permitted to continue using his name and access to him to rake up big bucks. I never would have imagined (I’ve been a partisan Dem nearly by whole adult life, too) the Biden family may be more corrupt than the Trump family, but there’s now good reason to believe it’s true. Putin did not grab territory anywhere while Trump was President. You can dislike Trump’s more realist approach to odious autocrats but it kept the peace and resulted in some notable peace treaties. None of this was actually surprising once one saw how Trump assailed the Bush family for the disastrous, dishonest choice to invade Iraq. And saw how neocon after neocon flocked to Hillary. I didn’t vote for either of them (nor either of Biden and Trump). But it wasn’t hard to see that Trump’s Admin combined a kind of pandering and excessive tolerance toward despots as personalities (flattering their egos) with policies which were actually substantively pretty tough. Some of the best-informed people I know from countries like Iran consider Trump a foreign policy success: talking tough at times, presenting an unpredictability which kept potential antagonists off balance, while both heavily funding the US military and avoiding unnecessary military actions and entanglements. I’m just not impressed by this continual demand that everyone endlessly, constantly join in emotional outbursts of rage and name-calling at Trump. I don’t consider him someone who possesses the character to be President. I don’t think Biden is qualified either. So far, the latter’s presidency has been near disastrous. There’s a reason large majorities say they were better off a year or so ago. But to the point about collusion, I’m far more worried about a highly-politicized FBI and national security establishment and opposing political party (with help from the incumbent administration) that’s plainly happy to make shit up and conspire to launder their own lie and smears in the courts and media in order to overrule an election, because their candidate might not be chosen by the voters under our electoral system. That’s absolutely chilling and frightening. It’s reprehensible. And the people who did it are still patting themselves on the back, with cover from comments like yours. I’ve never seen anything like this before: intelligent people on what was always “my side”, including close friends, who are obsessed with claiming most people who voted for Trump are either KKK types or Q-anon cultists, who will excuse anything crooked Trump does - and yet they have next to zero self-awareness of their giddy support to anyone and anything that’s against Trump, including warmongers and spooks and corrupt FBI personnel - people who lie for a living about matters of actual consequence - or in order to vacate a valid election based on as cynically manufactured and hypocritical a pretense as one can imagine.
What is the “valid election” you are accusing me, or your liberal friends, of trying to “vacate”? Seriously, I want to know.
Even though you were writing after the 2020 election, I have to assume you’re going back to 2016...
Today, two years after the insurrection, the clearly planned (and amply documented) attempted coup, and continued election denial by many Republicans (for 2020), you are going back to 2016? Did anyone who called for an investigation of Trump’s connections with the Russians ever go to court to “vacate” the election? (I seem to remember there was one legal gesture by someone, but it didn’t get anywhere.)
You’re trying to make a case FOR Trump based on your assumption of motives and opinions of his critics.
Yes, I DO think Trump is a morally flawed and dangerous political figure, with many dangerous followers, and many more unthinking enablers. But I have never thought the 2016 election was “stolen.” The question was not about that, it was about Glenn’s unquestioning position on collusion.
As I said, while no collusion, in the form of an explicit quid pro quo, has been proven. But Putin clearly put his hand on the scale in the Trump/Clinton election, and had reason to do so--he knew which candidate would be friendly to him, and his cronies. And Trump, as president, never pushed back.
I’m asking, why doesn’t Loury hold Trump to account for that?  Or for anything after that, for that matter, including the insurrection.
"Biden did something very similar in issuing a threat to withhold funding unless his precious son was permitted to continue using his name and access to him to rake up big bucks"
Is this what you're referring to? Or something else?
Thanks for providing a link to some careful research. Still, few here will believe that the accusation made against Biden is--on the evidence-- false. Once such a charge is even mentioned in a right-wing forum (without verifying or sourcing) it gains a kind of permanent currency, immunity from correction. Few here will think Politifact is trustworthy (though it is). Few will acknowledge that the argument us a trick, uses something Biden supposedly threatened to do (but actually didn’t) to excuse Trump for something he clearly DID do. Even Glenn Loury (who “liked” the comment) finds no fault with it.
Where did you get your information about Biden’s supposed corruption? Isn’t that exactly the same as the attacks on Trump you lament? Meaning: Partisan, salacious, and based on innuendo and association or in your words a “cynically manufactured and hypocritical a pretense as one can imagine.” You know, I’m sure, that many political family members (even Supreme Court wives, it turns out) make a living by having connections to powerful people. Does that mean the entire government is corrupt? And if we believe that, shouldn’t we demand some major ethical reforms to bring back our confidence in the system?
I was a total ignoramoose, politically, until a year ago this time. So only partial ignoramoose now. I voted for Biden. Fairly certain if it's Biden/Trump in '24, I'll sit it out. So I've come to agree with just about 100% of Your points, E.W.R. I might question this one statement:
"But it wasn’t hard to see that Trump’s Admin combined a kind of pandering and excessive tolerance toward despots as personalities (flattering their egos) with policies which were actually substantively pretty tough."
When Trump practically BEGGED Xi to let U.S. scientists in, right at the beginning of the pandemic, Xi just absolutely punked him with one word: "No." I think Trump mebbe gave the appearance of being substantively tough. That's his image of himself. Before and after this Trump said he LOVED Xi. I think that's more true than him actually being tough. That's just me.
Going back to China, I only saw one source for this: China was supposed to buy $200 B of stuff from us, according to Trump's agreement, and bought ZERO, zip, zilch, NADA. COULD be true.
Re: this article. Can't TY enough, Professors Loury and McWhorter. And M. Taibbi. My Dad was Professor of Journalism, of the old school, 60s and 70s. Mebbe 80s? AFAIK, Press is just a propaganda machine anymore, isn't it? Pretty much all media (social and MSM both)? I don't follow it, myself, so ICBW. No time, for another thing.
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.
It’s not Taibbi as much as it is his female sidekick which he’s teamed up with. She chats nonsense ‘filler’ up front and she’s often just either plain wrong on too many topics or just blindly, stupidly ideological. It’s not so much Matt as it is her but one can’t cleave the baby. He made a bad choice. At the moment, Matt is writing a book so as a subscriber all you get is her and lots of dumb. It’s a waste of time. If Matt were smart he’d realize how vapid she is.
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...
How culpable was your M-G-A complex in pushing home ownership for every identity group who couldn't afford and shouldn't have had. Financial literacy in schools not CRT!!
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 agree. I find it really frustrating to try to suss out what really happened, facts from opinion and analysis from partisan wishful thinking. Everywhere that claims “Russiagate is a hoax” seems to think that discrediting the most outrageous claims means there is nothing to any of it. That seems to me to be a cynical way of dealing with issues (elections and foreign interference) so intrinsic to the way our country works (or more recently, doesn’t).
If part is wrong, then it's all wrong. If part is right then it's all right. If you're not 100% with us, you're 100% against us. It what gets the eyeballs & the money. Squeaky wheels. . .!!
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.
Matt talks about that Lowery piece a good bit, and I think he's pretty firmly against the idea of "moral clarity" in journalism, and cites the Lowery as being one of the pieces that codified the squishy activist-as-journalist type that has become the default since.
From what I can tell, Matt has a hybrid view on Objectivity. He argues in Hate Inc. that it's impossible to escape bias. Just choosing the font of a pull quote and where to put it on the page is a biased decision resulting from individual choice and the sampling bias of personal experience. To sum up, I hope fairly, lack of omniscience implies lack of objectivity. Back in the day there were attempts to take a "view from nowhere" perspective to alienate as few readers as possible. Now the smart money is in getting clicks from a passionate group, hence deviation from any attempt at objectivity. Then Trump was used to make that a moral mandate. Matt does advocate for some degree of the old school objectivity, an effort to get the facts right over a narrative. I'm unclear as to what specific policies he advocates in that regard.
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...
Just to say 110% yeah.
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?
It’s so strangely petty how you seem to need the satisfaction of someone calling Trump names. This argument reminds me of a piece by Jonathan Rauch in which he wildly moves the goalposts by now pushing an extremely expansive definition of collusion, which is apparently only applicable to Trump, while claiming the other side is the one wildly moving the goalposts to make anything short of clearly proven conspiracy the only standard. I didn’t like Trump’s demeanor at Helsinki and told a friend who is similarly uniquely obsessed with Trump (Liz Cheney is now a hero; in fact, the whole Bush-Cheney admin is now bathed in halcyon tones) that Muller had all the experience, staff, time, and money he needed to dig into these allegations and I would reserve judgment. Meanwhile people were giddily buying up “It’s Muller Time!” swag online, in hopes of all their partisan and, frankly, social class biases being confirmed, so they could celebrate the removal of a duly-elected US President. It’s funny you seem to suggest Trump may have encouraged Putin to invade by holding up funding in exchange for an inappropriate political ask - when Biden did something very similar in issuing a threat to withhold funding unless his precious son was permitted to continue using his name and access to him to rake up big bucks. I never would have imagined (I’ve been a partisan Dem nearly by whole adult life, too) the Biden family may be more corrupt than the Trump family, but there’s now good reason to believe it’s true. Putin did not grab territory anywhere while Trump was President. You can dislike Trump’s more realist approach to odious autocrats but it kept the peace and resulted in some notable peace treaties. None of this was actually surprising once one saw how Trump assailed the Bush family for the disastrous, dishonest choice to invade Iraq. And saw how neocon after neocon flocked to Hillary. I didn’t vote for either of them (nor either of Biden and Trump). But it wasn’t hard to see that Trump’s Admin combined a kind of pandering and excessive tolerance toward despots as personalities (flattering their egos) with policies which were actually substantively pretty tough. Some of the best-informed people I know from countries like Iran consider Trump a foreign policy success: talking tough at times, presenting an unpredictability which kept potential antagonists off balance, while both heavily funding the US military and avoiding unnecessary military actions and entanglements. I’m just not impressed by this continual demand that everyone endlessly, constantly join in emotional outbursts of rage and name-calling at Trump. I don’t consider him someone who possesses the character to be President. I don’t think Biden is qualified either. So far, the latter’s presidency has been near disastrous. There’s a reason large majorities say they were better off a year or so ago. But to the point about collusion, I’m far more worried about a highly-politicized FBI and national security establishment and opposing political party (with help from the incumbent administration) that’s plainly happy to make shit up and conspire to launder their own lie and smears in the courts and media in order to overrule an election, because their candidate might not be chosen by the voters under our electoral system. That’s absolutely chilling and frightening. It’s reprehensible. And the people who did it are still patting themselves on the back, with cover from comments like yours. I’ve never seen anything like this before: intelligent people on what was always “my side”, including close friends, who are obsessed with claiming most people who voted for Trump are either KKK types or Q-anon cultists, who will excuse anything crooked Trump does - and yet they have next to zero self-awareness of their giddy support to anyone and anything that’s against Trump, including warmongers and spooks and corrupt FBI personnel - people who lie for a living about matters of actual consequence - or in order to vacate a valid election based on as cynically manufactured and hypocritical a pretense as one can imagine.
What is the “valid election” you are accusing me, or your liberal friends, of trying to “vacate”? Seriously, I want to know.
Even though you were writing after the 2020 election, I have to assume you’re going back to 2016...
Today, two years after the insurrection, the clearly planned (and amply documented) attempted coup, and continued election denial by many Republicans (for 2020), you are going back to 2016? Did anyone who called for an investigation of Trump’s connections with the Russians ever go to court to “vacate” the election? (I seem to remember there was one legal gesture by someone, but it didn’t get anywhere.)
You’re trying to make a case FOR Trump based on your assumption of motives and opinions of his critics.
Yes, I DO think Trump is a morally flawed and dangerous political figure, with many dangerous followers, and many more unthinking enablers. But I have never thought the 2016 election was “stolen.” The question was not about that, it was about Glenn’s unquestioning position on collusion.
As I said, while no collusion, in the form of an explicit quid pro quo, has been proven. But Putin clearly put his hand on the scale in the Trump/Clinton election, and had reason to do so--he knew which candidate would be friendly to him, and his cronies. And Trump, as president, never pushed back.
I’m asking, why doesn’t Loury hold Trump to account for that?  Or for anything after that, for that matter, including the insurrection.
"Biden did something very similar in issuing a threat to withhold funding unless his precious son was permitted to continue using his name and access to him to rake up big bucks"
Is this what you're referring to? Or something else?
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/apr/15/george-papadopoulos/no-evidence-joe-biden-withholding-aid-ukraine-help/
Thanks for providing a link to some careful research. Still, few here will believe that the accusation made against Biden is--on the evidence-- false. Once such a charge is even mentioned in a right-wing forum (without verifying or sourcing) it gains a kind of permanent currency, immunity from correction. Few here will think Politifact is trustworthy (though it is). Few will acknowledge that the argument us a trick, uses something Biden supposedly threatened to do (but actually didn’t) to excuse Trump for something he clearly DID do. Even Glenn Loury (who “liked” the comment) finds no fault with it.
Where did you get your information about Biden’s supposed corruption? Isn’t that exactly the same as the attacks on Trump you lament? Meaning: Partisan, salacious, and based on innuendo and association or in your words a “cynically manufactured and hypocritical a pretense as one can imagine.” You know, I’m sure, that many political family members (even Supreme Court wives, it turns out) make a living by having connections to powerful people. Does that mean the entire government is corrupt? And if we believe that, shouldn’t we demand some major ethical reforms to bring back our confidence in the system?
Outstanding insightful commentary. This is an article all by itself. Hope you publish somewhere.
I am a lifelong Republican, and agree with darned near everything you wrote. Thank you for taking the time to do so.
I was a total ignoramoose, politically, until a year ago this time. So only partial ignoramoose now. I voted for Biden. Fairly certain if it's Biden/Trump in '24, I'll sit it out. So I've come to agree with just about 100% of Your points, E.W.R. I might question this one statement:
"But it wasn’t hard to see that Trump’s Admin combined a kind of pandering and excessive tolerance toward despots as personalities (flattering their egos) with policies which were actually substantively pretty tough."
When Trump practically BEGGED Xi to let U.S. scientists in, right at the beginning of the pandemic, Xi just absolutely punked him with one word: "No." I think Trump mebbe gave the appearance of being substantively tough. That's his image of himself. Before and after this Trump said he LOVED Xi. I think that's more true than him actually being tough. That's just me.
Going back to China, I only saw one source for this: China was supposed to buy $200 B of stuff from us, according to Trump's agreement, and bought ZERO, zip, zilch, NADA. COULD be true.
Re: this article. Can't TY enough, Professors Loury and McWhorter. And M. Taibbi. My Dad was Professor of Journalism, of the old school, 60s and 70s. Mebbe 80s? AFAIK, Press is just a propaganda machine anymore, isn't it? Pretty much all media (social and MSM both)? I don't follow it, myself, so ICBW. No time, for another thing.
TY again, all.
[Edit: No TV, for another thing.]
I’m not sure I agree with everything you say (I’d have to read it all again), but you make some good points.
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.
Care to share why you unsubscribed to Taibbi’s news?
It’s not Taibbi as much as it is his female sidekick which he’s teamed up with. She chats nonsense ‘filler’ up front and she’s often just either plain wrong on too many topics or just blindly, stupidly ideological. It’s not so much Matt as it is her but one can’t cleave the baby. He made a bad choice. At the moment, Matt is writing a book so as a subscriber all you get is her and lots of dumb. It’s a waste of time. If Matt were smart he’d realize how vapid she is.
Matt's gone from Useful Idiots. He has a Call-In thing now which he does solo. I was not a fan of Katie H, either.
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...
How culpable was your M-G-A complex in pushing home ownership for every identity group who couldn't afford and shouldn't have had. Financial literacy in schools not CRT!!