Here's Paul Campos commenting on a Peter Baker view from nowhere piece in the NYT. Key Baker quote: "Yet most Americans made up their minds about Mr. Trump long before prosecutors like Fani T. Willis or Jack Smith weighed in, polls have shown. He is, depending on the perspective, a serial lawbreaker finally being brought to justice or a victim of persecution by partisans intent on keeping him out of office."
I do have a few reflections of my own on the very weird place in which we find ourselves. First, given the presumption of innocence that is fundamental to the criminal justice system, journalists and their editors have long maintained that their own profession inherits it. They use the term "alleged" so reflexively that they often continue to use it even after someone is convicted. This norm is generally a good one. What is known publicly about a case can be misleading or even just plain wrong. What investigators, prosecutors and reporters say publicly about a case can be only part of the story, out of context, or even invented.
However, the crimes of Orange Julius happened largely completely out in the open. There isn't a whole lot in the Willis or Smith indictments that we didn't already know. It isn't necessary to say that he is guilty of specific felonies to say that his actions are reprehensible and should disqualify him from ever holding any position of responsibility, let alone public office. To deny that is to exist in an alternative reality which . . .
. . . happens to be where the people in the second half of Baker's dichotomy are living. It's certainly incumbent on journalists to report their existence, but it is not incumbent to pretend that they're just people with a different perspective. What they are in fact is people who have been duped.
It is just human nature that it is very difficult to admit you've been conned, even to yourself. Sadly, the reaction to being confronted with the straight dope is often completely contrary: to dig in deeper to confirmed belief in the lie. A great misfortune has befallen us at a time of grave crisis, when we need the honest and wise leadership we in fact have in the White House right now but it's largely paralyzed by an insane cult that has eaten the brains of some 30% of the citizenry and, due to undemocratic features of our governmental structure, managed to get control of a substantial part of the leverage of power. Yes, it's scary.
3 comments:
Cervantes,
Half the country, by definition, are not in a "cult". Even 30% is not a cult.
RC Politics polls average have Trump and Biden about even,seemingly unaffected by the indictments. How is this possible?
The underlying problem is the total distrust in government institutions as demonstrated by Trumps resiliency. If this had happened in the fifties or sixties, Trump would have been toast immediately whether he was guilty or innocent. Government was trusted. Law enforcement was trusted and elections were trusted.
Decades of bad behavior, lies and deceit have eroded the public's trust and here we are.
I see no reason why 30% of the country can't be a cult. That is precisely why the small impact of the indictments on the polls is possible.
Perhaps you can point specifically to the bad behavior, lies and deceit that have eroded the public's trust. It seems to me that the most egregious examples of all of that were perpetrated by Mr. Trump and his cronies.
I can see MoT's point. I do agree, however, that the advent of Rupert Murdoch's Fucks Propaganda Network and the concomitant rise of the disgusting, immoral and porcine Newt Gingrich and the like have mutated the Republican Party into a cesspool of racism and lies. The Democratic Party is effectively still a party, while the Republican group has morphed into an abomination that must be eradicated (along with Fucks Network) in order for reality-based planning to proceed. We simply cannot endure this level of propaganda and lies, and I don't know why a greedy Australian billionaire is allowed to fuck up our national information flow.
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