I firmly believe that our news media is largely responsible for Trump’s victory in 2016. While the editorial boards of nearly every newspaper in the nation lined up against Trump, reporters were incapable of figuring out how properly to deal with stories generated by selectively released hacked emails, fake news stories trending in social media based on manipulated algorithms, the Benghazi investigation aggressively pursued, in bad faith, by Republican legislators, and the whole FBI investigation that grew out of the Benghazi investigation, which was itself rife with partisan Republican leaks, and was terribly mishandled by the DoJ, largely because of the massive pressure exerted by right wing forces.
Reporters overwhelmingly reported uncritically news based upon the leaked emails, trending news stories, FBI leaks, Republican press releases, and reactions to these things.
Almost no news outlets did a good job of putting these things in perspective. It certainly wasn’t because they were in the bag for Trump or Republicans. They simply weren’t intellectually prepared to deal with the fire hose spray of bad faith breaking news that came at them.
I am afraid that we are facing the same thing again. One issue I see is how the impeachment process is being reported on. Too many news outlets are willing to accept the framing that one’s views on the matter are largely driven by one’s partisan affiliation, and are ignoring another possibility, namely that one side (Democrats) are basing their views on impeachment on objective evidence while the other side (Republicans) are ignoring evidence based upon partisan loyalty.
This brings me to the meaning of the title of this diary. It is a reference to the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy.
The no true Scotsman fallacy, also known as the “appeal to purity” was identified by philosopher, Antony Flew, and is so because he illustrated it with a parable which more or less go as follows:
A Scottish man read a newspaper item about a horrifying crime committed in Glasgow. “You can be certain of one thing,” the man averred to a companion. “It was no Scotsman who committed this crime, because Scotsman is capable of so hideous an act.”
The following day the Scottish man’s companion showed him an article in which it was reported that the criminal had been apprehended, that he had confessed to the terrible crime, and that he was indeed a Scotsman.
”How does this change your views on Scotsmen?” the Scottish man’s companion enquired. “Well, he’s not true Scotsman,” the Scottish gentleman replied. “For no Scotsman is capable of such a thing!”
The idea of the fallacy is that in the face of contradictory evidence, one can seek to maintain some claim of universal truth by simply changing definitions on an ad hoc basis such that their original claim remains true.
I thought of this because of Justin Amash. There’s a lot of speculation about how much of Democrats’ desire to impeach Donald Trump has been driven by partisanship. So, I asked myself is Justin Amash driven by partisanship?
Now it’s true that Amash is now an independent rather than a Republican, but the only reason he is an independent is because he was driven out of the Republican Party because after he read the Mueller Report he said that Trump ought to be impeached for his actions to obstruct justice.
Amash is a very conservative congressman. His natural home is the Republican Party based on 90% of his political views. But he is apparently a man of individual conscience and core principles who will not put party over conscience. This, apparently makes him irrelevant, because he is almost never discussed in connection with the impeachment proceedings even though, if you look at his twitter feed, he is not shy about sharing his thoughts.
Similarly many lifelong Republican supporters have found themselves conscience bound to support the President’s impeachment. Take Fox News contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano, for example. Napolitano has always given every indication that he was 100% in the bag for the Republican Party. But for whatever reason, he has felt the need to use his Fox News platform to say that the case for impeaching Donald Trump is open and shut.
Take also the witnesses who testified at the impeachment hearing. Some of them had been studiously nonpartisan their entire careers. Others, most notably Williams and Sondland, had partisan Republican backgrounds. And yet, all witnesses agreed that what the President did was highly irregular and improper.
And yet the story of impeachment reported in most media outlets continues to be a story of a sharp partisan divide rather than Republican intransigence because as long as all Republicans are unified against all Democrats, both sides are just sticking with their party line, and only the opinions of elected Republicans and Democrats matters, and no Republican ever will support the impeachment of Donald Trump, because no true Republican ever would support the impeachment of Donald Trump.