Excellent post by Heather Cox Richardson: Chuck Todd, Turley on impeachment, media / disinformation

[erronis]

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-26-2019

Today began and ended with Trump melting down. This morning, after a silence during the holidays, he came out swinging at the Democrats generally, and at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically. Then this evening, apparently against the advice of his lawyer, he retweeted a story that named someone claimed to be the whistleblower, a person who currently has a security detail for protection, not in a foreign war zone, but in our own nation’s capital.

It seems clear that Trump cannot bear that Pelosi—whom he is calling “Crazy Nancy”-- is not rushing to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial… a trial that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already promised will exonerate Trump. It is worth noting that it has been only a week since the House passed the articles of impeachment, and we have had major religious holidays in that time, and yet Trump is obviously angry and desperate for movement on impeachment. But he’s got to wait even longer. The House will not be in session again until January 7—twelve days from now—and the Senate calendar for January is still in flux.

In other impeachment news, you will recall that Noah Feldman, the Harvard Law Professor who testified before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of impeachment, wrote an op-ed last week saying that Trump was not officially impeached until the House sent the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. Trump jumped on this idea, and has been saying that he is not really impeached. Today one of the other law professors who testified, George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley, who was called by the Republicans and was opposed to impeachment, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “I testified against Trump’s impeachment. But let’s not pretend it didn’t happen.” The title pretty much sums it up. As Turley concluded: “The House speaks in its own voice and in its own time. It did so on Dec. 18, 2019.”

For all the drama of these two stories, I have been more interested in what feels to me like a changing trend: it appears that media is finally recognizing that it cannot simply report “both sides” of the news as if they are equally valid when one side is lying. On the evening of December 24, Rolling Stone magazine published a short interview with Chuck Todd, an NBC journalist who moderates Meet the Press and who is the Political Director for NBC News. On December 29, Meet the Press is doing a show on disinformation and how it is weaponized, and this interview was a teaser.

It's really important to understand that “misinformation” and “disinformation” are different things. “Misinformation” is bad information caused by errors-- someone makes a mistake. “Disinformation,” though, is deliberately false information intended to manipulate public opinion. Another word for disinformation is propaganda.

In the interview, Todd laments that he has been “absurdly naïve.” Right up until he had Senator Cruz on his show recently and Cruz echoed Russian propaganda, Todd apparently believed that the Republicans were acting in good faith when they talked to the media. Todd says he was “stunned” by Cruz’s embrace of Russian disinformation, especially since he was the third senator to do exactly that on the show. Cruz had asked to come on, and Todd thought that since Cruz had always been a Russia hawk, he wanted to set the record straight. When, instead, he followed the party line, Todd finally got it: Trump Republicans are using the media to spread propaganda.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, responded to this revelation by pointing out that it was on Todd’s own show in January 2017 that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway launched the concept of the administrations lies simply being based on “alternative facts.” But, Rosen writes, media leaders nonetheless treated officials’ lies as hyperbole, just Trump and his spokespeople being ridiculous.

The upshot is that, three years later, Trump’s base is divorced from reality, while other Americans are so tired from incessant gas lighting we have lost faith that we can still perceive reality. This is why gaslighting is effective propaganda: having lost confidence in their own perceptions, people are so eager for peace they are willing to accept a strong leader who will promise to create stability.

I’m with Rosen on this. There is no excuse for such “naivete” on Todd’s part. He’s the Political Director for NBC News, after all, and should have had a better handle on the well-known methods at play here.

Even more, it has been very clear that today’s Republican Party has risen to power by rejecting facts and creating its own reality. After World War Two, Republicans and Democrats both shared a belief that the government had a role to play in regulating the economy, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting infrastructure. Indeed, that belief about government was so widely embraced it became known as the “liberal consensus.”

In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr., fresh out of college, wrote a book attacking that consensus by attacking fact-based argument. In God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom,” Buckley said that trying to reach the truth by constructing arguments out of facts—the premise of the Enlightenment-- was a worse superstition than the Dark Age traditions the Enlightenment tried to root out. When presented with fact-based arguments, voters kept choosing the liberal consensus. So far as Buckley was concerned, that consensus flew in the face of God’s laws. So, Buckley concluded, it was imperative to stop arguing based on facts, and simply promote a “Conservative” view of the world by whatever means necessary.

The construction of a narrative undercutting the popular liberal consensus took the modern Republican Party further and further away from a fact-based reality, until by 2002, journalist Ron Suskind had this extraordinary exchange with one of President George W. Bush’s aides.

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles…. He cut me off. 'That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. '…When we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”

Ten years later, in 2012, Thomas E. Mann from the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute warned that it was imperative to stop saying “both sides do it,” because the parties were not equally polarized. “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics,” they wrote. “It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

We now have a president who has made more than 15,000 false or misleading claims in fewer than three years in office, and it has become increasingly clear recently that those lies echo Russian propaganda. Senior officials repeat his claims to the media, creating their own reality.

It is my sense that Todd’s revelation is a sign that media figures are starting to see how they are being used to advance disinformation. There has been discussion emerging of how to report the news without providing a platform for lies. If it takes hold, there will be an important shift in media coverage of the administration and congressional supporters in the new year.

[underpants]

1. Wow Chuck Todd

[gratuitous]

4. It only took three Republican guests for chucktodd to figure it out?

The man's a certified . . . hmmm. Not "genius." Is there another word? "Cretin"? "Stooge"? "Nincompoop"? It's not like people haven't been screaming at chucktodd in social media for years that he's such a dupe. There has to be a personal effort factor to his stone-brained vacuity.

[lunatica]

51. I call it cement brained.

But yeah, if they haven’t gotten the message from the viewing public then it’s pretty obvious the viewing public simply doesn’t count for much. That’s what propaganda is.

[olegramps]

9. Todd was chosen to director for the very reason that he can be easily manipulated.

[Wellstone ruled]

38. So agree,

a failed Presidential Campaign Manager whom seemed to bullshit his way around DC spewing his both side do it garbage. Happened to have a very brief encounter with this Sucker in 1992 and let's say this,how the hell did he every get his job at NBC.

Nuf said.

[True Blue American]

19. Wow!

[underpants]

2. Great post. The quote from William F'ing Buckley is telling

Thanks

[JHB]

11. Buckley isn't actually quoted...

...HCR just relates the main thesis of his God and Man at Yale.

The quote that comes just after that, of Ron Suskind quoting a Bush aide, has been attributed to Karl Rove.

[JohnQFunk]

20. If there were truth in packaging...

Buckley's book would have been titled, "God and Privileged Gin-Soaked Bigots at Yale".

I swear that toward the end of his life he looked self-mummified.

[Perseus]

36. Karl Rove said it in front of a microphone

You are correct, that is Karl Rove.

My take on Karl Rove, and I may be wrong, but I feel he started this wave of republicans ignoring subpoena. He received a subpoena which he immediately ignored, Democrats turned the other way and didn't fight it, now we have republicans ignoring them and none being held accountable.

Karl Rove is a monster who should not be enjoying free time, he should be in jail.

[Takket]

3. Todd is one of the worst offenders but the disease is media wide

The media has been so scared by calls of “bias” when they say a lie is a lie, that they don’t know how to do their job anymore. Combine that with companies like Sinclair buying up local media and turning them into propaganda outlets and it isn’t hard to see where we got lost.

Until they return to actual journalism we are screwed. As the meme says, if someone says it is raining and someone says it is dry, the media shouldn’t be quoting them both, it should be looking out the window and telling us who is saying the truth.

[maxsolomon]

30. I read somewhere recently (a critique of an NYT politics reporter IIRC)

That the media has been "performing fairness" instead of reporting fairly.

[malaise]

5. The assault on reason is not new

Ask the Catholic Church about Galileo - my truth or you're going to pay.

Fuck Chuckie Toad- he has long been part of the problem. He has been one of the leading proponents of both-sideism.

[MontanaMama]

14. This.

And I have full confidence that Toad will be back to both-siderism early and often.

[malaise]

21. All the best for the coming decade

[MontanaMama]

24. And to you and yours, malaise.

[rickyhall]

27. The Repugs get a lot from the Old Church...

After the Old Church keep Western Man down for a thousand fucking years, from Christian Rome till Renaissance Italy.

[malaise]

42. I was even longer but the Renaissance was an important

moment

[madaboutharry]

6. It took well over a year into Trump's presidency for the media to call a lie a lie.

It could be that they have now been pushed too far. Maybe it was Mulvaney telling them to "get over it." Journalist and the media know more than is reported. White House correspondents no doubt have been witness to downright bizarre shit that they can't for a variety of reasons report. They are most likely frightened by the madness and have decided that the ordinary rules of trying to present all sides as equally valid no longer apply.

[erronis]

22. Yeah, but at least Mulvaney spoke some truth. I hear he's on his way out....

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Yes, Trump is not the anomaly but the essence of Conservatism

Last edited Fri Dec 27, 2019, 11:22 AM - Edit history (1)

It's been bubbling up in theory and sound bites over the decades, like they were prepping us for this corruption of reality

And I wonder if some of the origins don't stem from a business orientation. In MBA school we were consistently taught to tweak the numbers, the assumptions, the model or plan to produce profits, the more the better. Facts were fungible. In pursuit of profit, I doubt even the professors realized the methods they were using. To me, that is what is behind conservatism - the pursuit of more money, more private property, amassing wealth for the owners.

In regards to Chuck Todd, I'd draw a comparison. Chris Wallace has been throwing facts at Republicans for months in interviews. I really don't watch him enough to know if he's been doing it all along, or when it began. I think he does it in the interest of journalism, a healthy nod to the stature of him and especially his dad. Chuck Todd is late to the game and a dim-witted entry.

[maxsolomon]

33. I think * is a Con Man who's hijacked Conservatism and the GOP.

He DGAF about its "Principles", whatever those are. He recognizes suckers when he sees them.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Recommending the OP. Excellent. Been known to us a long time, but well stated & researched. . . . nt

[PatSeg]

10. Thanks for posting

An excellent read.

[Raven]

12. If media figures like Todd are going to call these people out, their outlets

are going to have to change their business plans. They want these assholes to come on their shows and if the talking heads start calling them out, they won't come.

[TheRealNorth]

39. Less Republicans using the media as a political ad to spew propaganda

...would sound like a "win" to me.

[JHB]

13. What's worse is that this isn't new, it's not something that suddenly sprang up with Trump

We can easily date it back to the 50s and Buckley's crowd, but if you limit it to this brand of blatant brazenness, of blowing off norms and consensus, of just putting out BS and simply ignoring the fuss, it's been Republican standard operating procedure for a quarter century.

Chuck, and nearly all of his colleagues, have ignored this for the entirety of their careers.

[B Stieg]

15. K&R and Thanks!

A thoughtful and seemingly accurate account.

[billh58]

16. 11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a manipulation tactic used to gain power. And it works too well.

Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.

Gaslighters typically use the following techniques:

1. They tell blatant lies.

You know it's an outright lie. Yet they are telling you this lie with a straight face. Why are they so blatant? Because they're setting up a precedent. Once they tell you a huge lie, you're not sure if anything they say is true. Keeping you unsteady and off-kilter is the goal.

2. They deny they ever said something, even though you have proof.

You know they said they would do something; you know you heard it. But they out and out deny it. It makes you start questioning your reality—maybe they never said that thing. And the more they do this, the more you question your reality and start accepting theirs.

3. They use what is near and dear to you as ammunition.

They know how important your kids are to you, and they know how important your identity is to you. So those may be one of the first things they attack. If you have kids, they tell you that you should not have had those children. They will tell you'd be a worthy person if only you didn't have a long list of negative traits. They attack the foundation of your being.

[Snip]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting

As with these, the rest of the techniques fit the Orange Anus-Mouth to a tee.

[erronis]

23. Thanks for that. I've read 'gaslighting' and thought I understood it. This gives clarity.

[uponit7771]

37. +1,

[Kid Berwyn]

17. That's why Chuck shoulda finished college and J-school.

The money really doesn’t matter as much as the truth, when it comes to history and one’s name.

Todd hasn’t read too many books, nor, going by his public utterances, newspapers.

Who was it at NBC that said, “Integrity is for paupers!”

[PWPippinesq]

18. Chuck Todd has, to me, always been a bit suspect and more than a bit of a disappointment.

If a journalist, he is a poor one. The shift of media coverage cannot come soon enough. Finally, the Liar in Chief is being called out even by one of the meekest moderators in the media.

[calimary]

49. In my "game" of "if I ran MSNBC," he'd be the first one replaced.

I might ask Rachel Maddow to be the new MTP host. Or Joy Reid maybe. Maddow’s show is too important to the prime time lineup to mess with.

[PWPippinesq]

50. I agree.

There are rumors that Chris Hayes might be replaced by Maddow. That makes no sense to me timewise and Chris seems to be doing excellent and innovative programs. Rachel dominates and is vital where she is. Surprising to me, I have come to appreciate Nicole Wallace, even though she no doubt would return to a sane Republican Party and her position as Palin's handler taints her historically.

[calimary]

53. Agreed about Nicolle Wallace. Her show has kinda grown on me.

Same with Maddow. She’s the anchor of MSNBC’s nighttime.

I’d replace Chuck Todd.

I’d retire Chris Matthews. Enough with the mangled fast talking and misspeaking and blowing people’s names and spit spew. I think he’s aging out. While Joy Reid languishes on the weekends. Maybe she should switch with Matthews. Ease him out and let him relax during the week, bring him in to schmooze all the way through convention season. And let him fade after the next election or inauguration.

I’d keep him on the MSNBC website, though. Maybe give him special op/ed space for a regular written column. He’d sound good in print and make all his good points and they’d be totally coherent because I’d give him a good editor. He could have a closing minute or 90-seconds at the end of “Hardball,” maybe every Friday, kinda like a “David Brinkley’s Journal” kind of thing for a distinguished elder journalistic statesman in career denouement.

But we need somebody fresh in that slot.

I like Nicolle Wallace but, since she’s a Republican, I still don’t feel like dropping my guard. She may merely be anti-trump, not against the general 13th-century mindset of the GOP.

I STILL want a two-hour block on Friday nights after the Brian Williams hour. Two hours of satire and topical comedy, some music, and hosted by John Fugelsang. Do another one Saturday evening. And they both repeat.

And I’d bring (or try to bring) Keith Olbermann back on Sunday evenings for two hours of the “Angry Man thing”. And repeat THAT, too. I’d like to develop the whole weekend and get rid of that “Dateline” crap reliving old crimes.

[DanieRains]

25. Billionaires Own And Control Most Of The Media

They pay Chuck Todd to distract us while they extract more while the planet burns.

4 monster hurricanes in one year, a Gulf of Mexico 5 degrees warmer than normal and ZERO MENTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON CNN OR MSNBC.

There is no gaslighting if they don't broadcast it.

Unchallenged lies and propaganda.

Dont look at the 50 Trillion the 1% has. Save your pennies while all your bills double.

Corporate tax rate 11%.

Folks we ain't gonna survive....

[Fullduplexxx]

26. Trump Republicans are using the media to spread propaganda.

[FM123]

28. this pretty much sums up the toll it's taking on so many folks out there....

"Americans are so tired from incessant gas lighting we have lost faith that we can still perceive reality"

[TheRealNorth]

40. This is what scares me the most in 2020

There is going to be so much bullshit out there that more voters inclined to support our side are going to get sick of it/frustrated and tune out and not vote.

[FM123]

41. Yes, this battle fatigue is real.

Hopefully, there are enough of us to drive enough of them to go vote (both literally & figuratively).

[coti]

52. It is, and we have to recognize that that's part of what they want. And get tough.

Stop letting them affect how we feel through their disinforming initiative.

[barbtries]

29. one can only hope.

i wonder why she didn't name gw's aide who said we create reality; IIRC it was karl rove.

[erronis]

34. That quote has been attributed to Rove - a bit belatedly

https://theweek.com/articles/601420/left-vs-realitybased-community

It feels just like yesterday: the crisp fall day in 2004 when I met a friend for lunch who told me about a Ron Suskind article set to appear in the upcoming issue of The New York Times Magazine that included a blockbuster quote from an unnamed source in the Bush administration (later revealed to be Karl Rove).

[barbtries]

35. I must have read the interview whenever it came out.

it gave me a lot of insight into the sociopathic nature of the republican party.

[calimary]

48. Yep. Rove was also the one whose preferred battle strategy was

to attack an opponent at his strengths, not his weakness.

[AllyCat]

31. I hold out no hope that Todd will stop giving the Nazis a platform

After all, it’s ratings, money, and safety that are possibly at risk.

[MartyTheGreek]

32. Morning Joe was chummy with Trump through May 2016...

It was great for ratings I'm sure. Sometime in June 2016, Morning Joe took a hard left and within weeks, Trump was trashing the show while FOX reality TV, was building Trump up. Now here we are three years later and Trump is trashing FOX for reporting news while Trump Truthers are now encouraged to get their Cult feed from right wing nut web media outlets.

It's way past time for NBC to do their job and report what's really going on. With respect to shows, Rachael Maddow can improve her show by not being so giddy when serious shit is discovered. Lawrence O'Donnell and Brian Williams have been pretty consistent.

[certainot]

44. media completely misses trump parading limbaugh to intimidate senators with notable timing, while

fox gets fox gets a lot of the 'credit' for getting trump elected and keeping out of jail. fox actually has to pretend to be 'fair and balanced' and they can't go all in with trump

media needs to stop ignoring talk radio but will continue until democrats stop ignoring it

trump and limbaugh played golf the day after the mueller report was released, and this weekend they had lunch together. both times to send a message to senators thinking of crossing him. lmbaugh noted on his monday show that pictures of them together only get released if trump wants it to happen. trump does not intimidate anyone with hannity, except maybe lindsey graham

fox has basically always been the cartoon cliff notes for the repeated lying and attacks that only radio can do, with limbaugh setting the tone and his dittohead callers keeping the local blowhards in line

[MartyTheGreek]

54. I like how you covered that...

I think a nice chunk of the Ditto heads are gonna break away driving up the polls for removal in the Senate. I think he'll resign before Bolton or other key witnesses testify.

I remember Rush Limbaugh back in the late 80's during the Iran / Contra illegal gig. At first, Rush appeared to be all about the law and the Constitution when good ole, Ollie North was on the hot seat especially after Fawn Hall shredded all the evidence.

It was as if Ollie North, overnight with that pic of him raising his right hand to testify, he transformed from a liar to Patriot getting bullied on. Then he became a Right Wing Nut hero from then on.

[certainot]

55. i hope you're right. democracy needs all the help it can get. the iran contra rewrite and

deification of reagan and escape of the bush gang was one of the first big success for rw radio

[gilligan]

43. Good luck with that.

News media seeing they are being used.

[Kurt V.]

45. Recommended.

[DallasNE]

46. Reagan And Bush Got Away With Iran-Contra

And that has been the operating model for Republicans every since so I do not look for much of anything to change. Think not, just look a the corporate ownership of all of the networks. Anything that happens will be in spite of the media.

[Joinfortmill]

47. Great post

And Todd needs to find a new career, along with a few others I could name.

[ooky]

56. Kicked

and Recommended, and bookmarked. Great post, thank you. I certainly hope this is embraced by M$M.

[erronis]

57. Thanks. I now get her posts in my inbox daily.

Along with Marcy Wheeler and others, there is some great independent coverage. Not sure how the M$M can monetize this - that's what they want to do after all.