Simon Rosenberg/”Hopium Chronicles” on Substack:
Sure, there’s November 2024 to think about, but first things first.
If you can’t help yourself, here’s a trio of November 2024 pieces to chew over before the much discussed New York Times/Siena poll below:
And there you have Punditry 101. Choose your adventure.
Nate Cohn/New York Times:
Thomas Zimmer/”Democracy Americana” on Substack:
And more on media pathology from Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:
Washington Post:
A reminder:
Politico:
Ian Dunt/Substack:
From Matt Robison:
YouTube Video
There Are Elections On Tuesday, and We Have A Lot of Work To Do
Some Early Thoughts on The NYT Polls
We Have Really Important Elections on Tuesday, And Need To Stay Focused - 2023 has been a very good year for Democrats, and we need to close strong. Whatever you are doing to help us win Tuesday, perhaps do a bit more. We do not have the luxury right now of wallowing in worry - we need to go to work. So make your calls, do your canvassing, donate a bit more and if you are looking for something to do please help the Hopium campaign to help us win Virginia.
Sure, there’s November 2024 to think about, but first things first.
If you can’t help yourself, here’s a trio of November 2024 pieces to chew over before the much discussed New York Times/Siena poll below:
- John Della Volpe/New York Times: Joe Biden Is in Trouble
- David French/New York Times: Joe Biden Knows What He’s Doing
- Josephine Harvey/HuffPost: Veteran Political Scientist Predicts How Trump-Biden Polling Will Evolve
And there you have Punditry 101. Choose your adventure.
Just some headlines from the fall of 2011. pic.twitter.com/2TdwL8JkHp
— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) November 5, 2023
Nate Cohn/New York Times:
Why Biden Is Behind, and How He Could Come Back
A polling deficit against Trump across six key states is mainly about younger, nonwhite and less engaged voters. Kamala Harris performs slightly better.
But if the poll indicates that it shouldn’t be so hard to beat Mr. Trump, it also indicates that it might still be very challenging for Mr. Biden to do it. Overall, 49 percent of registered voters say there’s “not really any chance” they’ll support him, including many of the voters who seem as if they ought to be available to Democrats.
Even the Kamala-not-Joe voters start the campaign voicing deep skepticism. More than half of these voters say they support Mr. Trump against Mr. Biden; nearly 43 percent say there’s “not really any chance” they will support Mr. Biden.
It’s not clear whether survey respondents should be taken at their word on a question like this — not with a year to go, not before the campaign gets underway. But taken seriously, Mr. Biden’s path to re-election would be quite challenging. Whether he could ultimately win them back might depend on the exact source of his challenge, whether there’s anything he can do about it, and whether his campaign can refocus the electorate’s attention on Mr. Trump and other more favorable issues.
Polls 1 year out are going to be more of a referendum on the incumbent president's popularity. Next year's election will be a referendum on an anti-democratic former president who likely will have been convicted of several felonies by then.
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) November 5, 2023
Thomas Zimmer/”Democracy Americana” on Substack:
“Faith and Family” vs Democracy
On the normalization of Mike Johnson, the media’s inclination to accommodate power, and the perpetuation of “real American” extremism
On Sunday, one of the nation’s leading papers published a dispatch from Shreveport, Louisiana, titled: “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana hometown guided by faith and family.” It is ostensibly an investigation into Johnson’s roots, written by a Post reporter whose beat is described as “Red states.” Yet the final product is indistinguishable from a political ad campaign for the politician at the center of the “reporting” – or from a sympathetic home story for a reality TV contestant. This is a rather bizarre kind of political journalism: It is “reporting” in the sense that a reporter goes to a place and collects impressions and interviews. But the result is a tendentious collage that entirely obscures that which it supposedly set out to illuminate.
The reason to dwell on this piece is not that it is uniquely awful, or that the author is singularly inept and/or disingenuous. If only! On the contrary, this reporting is indicative of pathologies that characterize too much of mainstream political journalism and the political discourse in general: A tendency to launder and normalize extremism for a broader audience, an impulse to accommodate and naturalize power, no matter where it resides – and an inclination to perpetuate ideas that form the bedrock of the ethno-religious nationalism that has galvanized behind Trump.
“The lesson the former president learned from his first term is don’t put guys like me … in those jobs,” John Kelly said. “The lesson he learned was to find sycophants.” https://t.co/wu2wtffveB
— Max Boot(@MaxBoot) November 5, 2023
And more on media pathology from Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:
With the world on fire, a cowardly, timid news media is a threat to U.S. democracy
News organizations are using cowardly words to describe killing abroad, fascism at home — downplaying the danger to democracy.
There was a shocking and incredibly important story on the front page of the New York Times last week. As reported by an A-team of journalists including two Pulitzer Prize winners, the Times warned its readers that Donald Trump — if returned to the White House in 2025 — is grooming a new team of extremist government lawyers who would be more loyal to their Dear Leader than to the rule of law, and could help Trump install a brand of American fascism.
You say you didn’t hear anything about this? That’s not surprising. The editors at the Times made sure to present this major report in the blandest, most inoffensive way possible — staying true to the mantra in the nation’s most influential newsroom that the 2024 election shouldn’t be covered any differently, even when U.S. democracy is on the line.
“Trump Allies Want a New Style of Lawyer if He Returns to Power,” was the original online headline for the piece, as if maybe they were talking about colorful drawling Southerners with seersucker suits, rather than rabid-dog ideologues who would do the dirty work of overturning an election that career government attorneys refused to do before Jan. 6, 2021.
I would like to remind people there is exactly one person who has managed to beat Donald Trump in an election. And it’s not “generic Democratic candidate”. https://t.co/e9kD8xLZ0Y
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) November 5, 2023
Washington Post:
How Speaker Mike Johnson’s plans for a Christian law school unraveled
Johnson vouched for the school -- and agreed to serve as its dean -- without seeing a key feasibility study, he would ultimately admit
For more than a year, Johnson — the dean of the not-yet-opened law school — had been telling donors and the public that the institution, which would focus on training Christian attorneys in northwest Louisiana, was not only achievable, but inevitable.
“From a pure feasibility standpoint,” Johnson, then 38, told the local Town Talk newspaper in 2010 after becoming dean, “I’m not sure how this can fail because … it looks like the perfect storm for our law school.”
But he had still not actually seen a feasibility study commissioned by the parent school, Louisiana College, a private Southern Baptist college in Pineville, La., now known as Louisiana Christian University.
The aide soon returned with disturbing news: The study had been buried in a filing cabinet. And it was all but useless.
Six months later, in August 2012, Johnson resigned as dean of the new school, which never opened even though the college spent $5 million to buy and renovate a Shreveport headquarters, among other expenses detailed in local media accounts.
A reminder:
Virginia gets the lions share of attention heading into Tuesday. But really Pennsylvania is the one that matters most for *national* politics — and that’s the one you’ll hear about in 2024. And that it’s so much more under-radar could have consequences with turnout. Let’s see. https://t.co/smqtiopoSV
— Taniel (@Taniel) November 4, 2023
Politico:
Around the world, the left is tearing itself apart over Israel
The Gaza-Israel war has upended left-wing politics far beyond the Middle East. With elections looming, the price could be high.
When Hamas attackers killed 1,400 civilians in a series of horrifying raids on October 7, politicians across the West voiced their shock and pledged their backing for Israel.
But as the Gaza conflict has unfolded, with Israeli forces killing thousands of Palestinians, that political consensus has fractured. And across the West, it is politicians on the left of the political spectrum who are struggling the most.
In the U.S., Joe Biden is under pressure from Muslim voters who see his staunch support for Israel as a betrayal. In the U.K., Keir Starmer — who is on course to become the next Labour prime minister — is facing his gravest test so far amid bitter disputes within his party.
Ian Dunt/Substack:
A newsletter of despair
It's so easy to give in to hate and tribalism, but it won't save a single life.
When things get tough, other people turn to the Bible, or Marxist analysis, or some angry conspiracy theory messiah on YouTube. I turn to the Jewish philosopher Isaiah Berlin.
No-one ever really talks about him. They never will. His views are too difficult to emotionally accept. But he has the advantage of speaking truth.
Berlin believed that the world is composed of competing values: Hedonism, tradition, freedom, control, equality, hierarchy, whatever. They exist in cultures, which prize certain values above others. They exist in people, who do the same. And they exist within the beating heart of each individual.
We all want things which cannot be put together. Maybe we value family but we've fallen in love with someone they disapprove of. Maybe we're a Ukrainian who wants to fight for their country but whose father is sick at home without anyone else to care for him. Berlin warns you to be wary of those who say that there is a right answer to these questions. He warns you to distrust those who say there is a future utopia where these difficulties have been conquered.
They cannot be conquered. Life is composed of inevitable tragedy: the tragedy of competing values. There will never be a happy ending. It will never be solved, because humanity cannot be solved.
Especially relevant given bleak new swing-state polls for Biden, interesting take from anti-Trump, ex-Bush 43 aide @davidfrum. "The president has a popularity problem. He needs to remind Americans who he isn’t." Could it really be this simple? Gift link: https://t.co/2GfBAlroIr
— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) November 5, 2023
From Matt Robison:
YouTube Video