If you are someone who follows politics and the news the way other people follow sports teams, singers, or other celebrities, the Judiciary Committee hearings were riveting.
If you just got a few sound bites from the evening news and that’s more than you were interested in, you may be wondering what’s the big deal? Democrats say this, Republicans say that. So?
I do not have cable; I watch over the air broadcasts. I usually watch the NBC evening news first followed by CBS. That’s the way the local schedule works out. The impeachment hearings were the lead stories on both, and both gave them a superficial summary of the one hand — other hand kind. (Trump being mocked at the NATO summit was the second story.)
For the average American, that’s not going to move the needle. It’s easy to just conclude it’s all just partisan wrangling if you never get to hear the full statements and the reasoning behind them.
But there’s a separate channel spewing out there too. As I’ve posted about before, there’s a constant stream of commercials calling out the Democrats for the impeachment “hoax”; they feature that scary AOC, Pelosi, and Schiff. Elise Stefanik is running them as campaign ads, but they’re feeding off the GOP narrative. Then there’s FOX and talk radio, also pumping the propaganda out full time. (Speaking of Fox, this from Driftglass.)
The only kind of push back I’m seeing is scattered ads from Tom Steyer and they mostly talk about how only he is tough enough to take on the fraud that is Donald Trump.
The problem can be laid out in stark terms; via Charlie Pierce, Professor Karlan did so:
The evidence reveals a president who used the powers of his office to demand that a foreign government participate in undermining a competing candidate for the presidency. As President John Kennedy declared, the right to vote in a free American election is the most powerful and precious right in the world. But our elections become less free when they are distorted by foreign interference. What happened in 2016 was bad enough. There is widespread agreement that Russian operatives interfered to manipulate the process. But that is magnified if a sitting president abuses the powers of his office actually to invite foreign intervention.
Pierce picks up the ball and runs with it:
If every Democratic candidate for president doesn’t adopt this framing on impeachment on the stump, then none of them deserve to win. This puts the president*’s crimes right in everyone’s living room. His abuse of power affects you as soon as you walk into the voting booth. It also has the added benefit of being true. The only effective rebuttal to this argument is to assert that, by their performance in 2016, and by the turnout figures in election after election, the American people don’t consider the franchise to be a thing of value. I don’t think I want to know the answer to that.
The media seems reluctant to acknowledge that things are that critical — it would be ‘partisan’. There’s starting to be some media pushback in the face of way over the top GOP posturing and outright lying, but it’s still more the exception than the rule. What would happen if they did a story own Trump’s deranged comments at the press conference he did hold? Would showing people exactly what Trump said uncut and unsummarized be partisan — or would it be telling us what we need to know?
Speaking of partisan, take a look at the members of the House Judiciary Committee. Compare D’s versus R’s. Draw your own conclusions.
So what are ordinary people to make of all this? The tapes sunk Nixon — but what Trump says right out in the open doesn’t seem to be enough to change minds. Bill Clinton threatened the very foundations of America for lying about getting a blow job in the Oval Office (Right Mr. Turley?); Trump brags about grabbing women by the pussy and has multiple accusations of assault/rape against him, but that’s no big deal. The brag about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue with no consequences seems truer than ever — until it isn’t. Are we there yet?
The Democrats are in a hurry to wrap everything up by Christmas. I think that’s a mistake. There’s so much more coming to light every day. The cumulative effect is wearing down Trump. It’s slowly seeping into the public consciousness. This should take as long as it takes.
I happen to have PBS on at the moment. (No, Trump and the GOP haven’t killed it off yet.) Earlier there was a short segment on Goat Yoga on a travel show. (CNN story here. It’s now a thing.) People do yoga exercises in an enclosure in which goats are also walking around, doing goat things. It’s supposed to be relaxing, fun even. There’s some interaction by chance, though not at a very profound level.
On the one hand, the people are involved in a purposeful activity that takes some focus and practice. On the other the goats are… being goats. Wandering around. Looking for food. Indulging in curiosity FWIW. They both exist in the same time and place, but the goats have no clue what the people are doing and why they are hanging out with them. It’s irrelevant to their lives unless it leads to a snack or getting petted.
As a metaphor for the impeachment hearings, media handling of same, and public reaction, goat yoga isn’t that great aside from the great disconnect on display. What might be a better metaphor is the way goats butt heads to determine dominance….
Got any metaphors that seem more on target? Share in comments.
Thursday, Dec 5, 2019 · 2:28:19 PM +00:00 · xaxnar
Another Update: Over at Washington Monthly, Julie Rodin Zebrak has more on the media gatekeeper problem. It’s not just about impeachment — it’s how it affects who gets seen as a viable candidate.
Television and print media play a tremendous role in how the public understands presidential hopefuls. [And impeachment — xaxnar] It is the media, after all, that decides which candidates are worthy of coverage—and how much of it. That makes perfect sense, but once you peel back the onion, you recognize the greater problem: who exactly makes those decisions at the most powerful news organizations in the country.
emphasis added