Purple Prose
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One of the most distinctive aspects of Wide World of News is the ideological span of my audience.
I’ve got readers who spend the vast majority of their waking hours darkly reliving Donald Trump’s past and agonizing over his future.
I’ve got readers who write me daily about Vice President Harris’ laugh, Hunter Biden’s predilections, and what they view as Joe Biden’s cluelessness.
I’ve got readers who have never voted for a Republican and ones who have never voted for a Democrat.
I’ve got readers who have left the Republican Party (but who almost universally describe the Republican Party as having left them) and readers who think there is not a dime’s worth of difference between The Squad and Tim Kaine.
I’ve got readers who thank me for promoting The Presumption of Grace and those who mock me for it.
I could go on, but you get the point.
Are there a lot of journalists or news products these days with such a diverse audience?
You know the answer to that question.
If I’m not unique, I’m certainly distinctive in this respect.
I will save the why that is for another day, but today (on the occasion of the first 1/6 hearing) I would like to engage on the implications of this reality (by which I am humbled) for the way I process the news each day, including this morning.
As I observe the passing parade to put Wide World of News together, consuming news and communicating with a wide range of sources, I look for facts and historical patterns around which to build my own analysis and content.
But I am also simultaneously drawing on my experience (for instance, I live in Manhattan, and I talked to Donald Trump backers in about 30 states in 2016) to envision how Blue and Red America are experiencing the news cycle.
There are a lot of symmetries between the two tribes, particularly regarding how the incentives in the politico-media system both embolden and empower the extremes, making them the loudest voices on the national town square and giving them tremendous leverage with their parties’ titular leaders.
But there are some asymmetries as well.
Two big ones (but/and they aren’t the only asymmetries, to be sure): (1) There is nothing on the left like Donald Trump’s distorting hold over tens of millions of voters; and, (2) the leftward bias in the Dominant Media tilts the playing field to an unmeasurable (but very high) degree, with equally unmeasurable (but, also, very high) impact on both real world outcomes and the anger of the right about this truth.
All of which is to say that my Blue readers (and I) are royally PO’ed about the Reds hocus pocus spin on the events of 1/6 and on gun safety efforts.
And my Red readers and I are fuming at Joe Biden’s blatant hiding from the press and at the relatively limited coverage in the Dominant Media of the threat made against Justice Kavanaugh (Imagine if this happened to Justice Kagan while a Republican Speaker of the House was holding up security money for the High Court’s members…)
Regarding 1/6 and tonight’s primetime hearing, many of my readers I hope will join me in thinking two things at once:
1. The truth needs to out here, with a clear record, accountability, and recommendations to deter such a thing from ever happening again – and Republicans who stand in the way of any of that need to be called out for being under the corrupt spell of a man who cares more about how members and guests view the quality of the steak at his private club than he does about our most sacred governmental and political traditions and laws.
2. David Brooks has the single truly essential read of the day, under the headline “The Jan. 6 Committee Has Already Blown It,” from which I quote at length:
What is the Jan. 6 committee for? Committee members and Democratic operatives have been telling reporters what they hope to achieve with the hearings that begin Thursday evening. My Times colleagues Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater wrote an article with the headline, “Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message.” Democrats, they reported, are hoping to use the hearings to show midterm voters how thoroughly Republicans are to blame for what happened that day.
Other reports have suggested other goals. The committee members are trying to show how much Donald Trump was involved with efforts to overturn the election, so he is forever discredited. They are expected to use witnesses like the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to show exactly what went on inside the administration that day and in the lead-up to it. One lawmaker told The Washington Post that voters have shifted their attention to issues like inflation and the pandemic, so it is key to tell a gripping story that “actually breaks through.”
No offense, but these goals are pathetic.
Using the events of Jan. 6 as campaign fodder is small-minded and likely to be ineffective. If you think you can find the magic moment that will finally discredit Donald Trump in the eyes of the electorate, you haven’t been paying attention over the last six years. Sorry, boomers, but this is not the Watergate scandal in which we need an investigation to find out who said what to whom in the Oval Office. The horrors of Jan. 6 were out in public. The shocking truth of it was what we all saw that day and what we’ve learned about the raw violence since.
We don’t need a committee to simply regurgitate what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. We need a committee that will preserve democracy on Jan. 6, 2025, and Jan. 6, 2029. We need a committee to locate the weaknesses in our democratic system and society and find ways to address them.
The core problem here is not the minutiae of who texted what to chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6 last year. The core problem is that there are millions of Americans who have three convictions: that the election was stolen, that violence is justified in order to rectify it and that the rules and norms that hold our society together don’t matter.
Those millions of Americans are out there right now. I care more about their present and future activities than about their past. Many of them are running for local office to be in a position to disrupt future elections. I’d like the committee to describe who they are, what motivates them and how much power they already have.
This is a movement, not a conspiracy.
We need to have an America where more people in the media and more citizens with platforms are willing to say point (1) above and also say what David Brooks wrote. Both are true.
And, to turn all the cards here as we wait for the hearing to begin, I’m hoping to use my platform to help free this country from the polarized tyranny of the extremes.
For over a year, I conducted a weekly focus group of four Biden voters and four Trump voters from all over the country. I believe that experience was unparalleled by literally anyone else in America.
The willingness of the focus group participants to convene and engage was a gift to me as a journalist and a balm for my soul.
To paraphrase Roy Scheider’s inconic Brody in “Jaws,” it looks like we are going to need a bigger table at Lauriol Plaza.
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For the many new readers joining us this week, I wrote all of the above on Thursday morning – nothing prepped in advance, even the idea.
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ESSENTIAL READING
* The Washington Post and New York Times look at the left and far left of the Democratic Party grappling with the issue of crime in the midterms, and you will enjoy many of the cameos, particularly by those on the left, such as Joe Biden’s pollster and Rick Caruso’s pollster.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Biden administration is considering ways to reconfigure tariffs on imports from China as a means of helping to ease decades-high inflation.
Ms. Yellen, speaking at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday, said she expected the administration to have additional information on its plans in the coming weeks, although there is no firm timeline.
“I think some reductions may be warranted,” Ms. Yellen said of the tariffs, adding it could help to bring down prices. Tariffs were imposed on certain Chinese imports during the Trump administration.
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* Peter Baker on Jared and Ivanka moving out.
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