Well, I fond Hillary’s stance on the issues (and that of the entire regressive Democratic Party) anathema. So there is that. Really was not in favor of electing the Antichrist.
David > On Nov 11, 2016, at 5:27 PM, Chris Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > > With all the self-flagellation going on by the press, the pundits, and those > who didn’t see the Trump electoral college win coming (like me), I continue > to stand behind my pre-election revulsion about a President of the United > States who bragged about sexual assault. Might he crank out some meaningful > change? Yes. I and I might applaud things he gets done, but his character > and temperament are still deeply troubling to me. > <> > From: BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 12:55 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: [RC] The unbearable smugness of the press > > CBS News > > By: Will Rahn > > Commentary: The unbearable smugness of the press > > > Last Updated Nov 10, 2016 12:01 PM EST > > The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so. > > It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we > were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish > in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, > we also missed the story > <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary-donald-trump-candidate-of-change/>, > after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what > was going on. > > This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual > failing: its unbearable smugness > <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hot-takes-are-written-by-the-winners/>. Had > Hillary Clinton won, there’d be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a > sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic. > > So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of > the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true > when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver > not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. > Trump knew what he was doing > <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/yes-trump-can-beat-hillary-clinton/>when he > invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, > and have for some time. > > And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult > their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on > Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the > other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid. > > It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. > There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin > country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on > the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters > are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that > backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their > false god and accept our gospel? > > We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical > problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as > a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable > facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced > understanding of justice. > > You’d think that Trump’s victory – the one we all discounted too far in > advance – would lead to a certain newfound humility in the political press. > But of course that’s not how it works. To us, speaking broadly, our diagnosis > was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger than we realized. > > This is all a “whitelash,” you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so > there must be more racists and sexists than we realized. Tuesday night’s > outcome was not alogic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate named > Clinton > <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-privately-concedes-in-phone-call-to-donald-trump/>; > no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and progress. Let the > new tantrums commence! > > That’s the fantasy, the idea that if we mock them enough, call them racist > enough, they’ll eventually shut up and get in line. It’s similar to how media > Twitter works, a system where people who dissent from the proper framing of a > story are attacked by mobs of smugly incredulous pundits. Journalists exist > primarily in a world where people can get shouted down and disappear, which > informs our attitudes toward all disagreement. > > Journalists increasingly don’t even believe in the possibility of reasoned > disagreement, and as such ascribe cynical motives to those who think about > things a different way. We see this in the ongoing veneration of “facts,” the > ones peddled by explainer websites and data journalists who believe > themselves to be curiously post-ideological. > > That the explainers and data journalists so frequently get things hilariously > wrong never invites the soul-searching you’d think it would. Instead, it all > just somehow leads us to more smugness, more meanness, more certainty from > the reporters and pundits. Faced with defeat, we retreat further into our > bubble, assumptions left unchecked. No, it’s the voters who are wrong. > > As a direct result, we get it wrong with greater frequency > <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-did-many-polls-seem-to-miss-a-trump-victory/>. > Out on the road, we forget to ask the right questions. We can’t even imagine > the right question. We go into assignments too certain that what we find will > serve to justify our biases. The public’s estimation of the press declines > even further -- fewer than one-in-three Americans trust the press, per Gallup > -- which starts the cycle anew. > > There’s a place for opinionated journalism; in fact, it’s vital. But our > causal, profession-wide smugness and protestations of superiority are making > us unable to do it well. > > Our theme now should be humility. We must become more impartial, not less so. > We have to abandon our easy culture of tantrums and recrimination. We have to > stop writing these know-it-all, 140-character sermons on social media and > admit that, as a class, journalists have a shamefully limited understanding > of the country we cover. > > What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with > too few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like > they’re some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when > reporters tweet out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly > suggest that they must be upset about free trade or low wages. > > We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting > fun to gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the > process > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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