There is an article in the NY Times from conservative radio talk-host-turned-truth-teller Charlie Sykes that talks about fake news and why no one on the right cares that Donald Trump lies.
For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.
The news media’s spectacular failure to get the election right has made it only easier for many conservatives to ignore anything that happens outside the right’s bubble and for the Trump White House to fabricate facts with little fear of alienating its base.
Unfortunately, that also means that the more the fact-based media tries to debunk the president’s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines.
That’s true as far as it goes, but misses an essential: on the left, on the right and in the center, honesty still matters. If the right gives Trump a pass, it isn’t because they don’t see him as honest (“He’s a truth teller!!! He tells it like it is!!”), it’s because we don’t agree on what the truth is. Nonetheless, and crucially, we still agree on the importance of honesty.
Perhaps the best illustration of this is the near universal desire, even among Republicans, of seeing Donald Trump’s taxes released (views of abstract “ethics” issues are partisan and split, but concrete examples like taxes are not.
Seventy-four percent of the public thinks Trump should release his taxes. Honesty is a shared value. Tax returns are proof of honesty:
Views on tax returns shift decidedly away from Trump’s position. Seventy-four percent overall say he should release his tax returns; that includes 49 percent of his own supporters, as well as nearly all of Clinton’s (94 percent) and 83 percent of those who had another preference, or none.
The same thing can be said for the Rule of Law. Donald Trump’s executive order regarding visa restrictions (we call it a Muslim ban, they call it a safety moratorium, to Charlie Sykes’ point) nonetheless was enacted in secret and on a larger scale than first understood:
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday that 109 people were detained or inconvenienced by the immigration order on Saturday.
But it was then revealed:
Tens of thousands of visas have been revoked from travellers heading to the US under Donald Trump's travel ban, according to a US Department of Justice lawyer. The State Department confirmed "fewer than 60,000 individuals' visas were provisionally revoked".
The number came during a Virginia court hearing for a lawsuit filed by two Yemeni brothers who had flown in to Dulles International Airport last Friday and were quickly put on a return flight to Ethiopia.
"The gasp was audible in the room," Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represents the brothers, told The Independent.
And when you combine those two, dishonesty and lawbreaking, it is a potent reminder that these shared American values have credence and power. Peggy Noonan, Republican establishment wordsmith, says it like this:
What went wrong has been fully adjudicated in the press. But this should be said: The president and his advisers are confusing boldness with aggression. They mean to make breakthroughs and instead cause breakdowns. The overcharged circuits are leaving them singed, too. People don’t respect you when you create chaos. Prudence is not weakness, and carefulness is a virtue, not a vice.
The handling of the order allowed the organized left to show its might, igniting big demonstrations throughout major cities. And not only downtown—they had to make it out to the airport to give the media the pictures, and they did. In Washington I witnessed a demonstration of many thousands of people carrying individualized, hand-lettered signs.
If all this was spontaneous, the left is strong indeed. If it was a matter of superior organization, that’s impressive too.
Indeed it is. While the story of the protests can be twisted and manipulated
(see “5 Ways Powerful People Trick You Into Hating Protesters”), the salience of these shared values being abrogated is what’s powering the spontaneity, size and continuing power of the demonstrations. They are a threat to what the Trump WH is doing because they highlight exactly what the Trump WH is up to: rewriting the definitions of what those shared values are.
In trying to keep a focus on this, and not be distracted by the multiple examples being provided every day, I have used the descriptor Chaos, with Trump and Bannon as Chaos agents. Chaos as a strategy, not just as a tactic. Chaos used to hide and conceal (see visa program, size and scope), which in itself is a rewriting of those shared values of honesty and Rule of Law.
My shorthand for this is how Trump tells his narrative. Step 1 is to define the issue. Steps 2-9 are generally the ways the problem will be solved, the issue will be addressed (process, laws, programs) and Step 10 is the solution.
In Trump’s case, he had a unique communication style. Step 1, the problem, is jobs and security. Step 10 is I, Donald Trump. I am rich. I know the system. I am strong. I am the solution. Don’t worry about Steps 2-9. That’s Paul Ryan’s business (and if it fails, his problem). Trump supporters hear jobs, safety, and ignore Steps 2-9 (also known as “But How?”).
Hillary Clinton had Steps 2a through 9z, lots of intermediate steps, lots of policy but no clear Step 10 and her narrative was lost. Bernie people saw that (Why is she running? What is her Step 10?) and opted for a clearer narrative. She still won the primary, and nearly the election, because Steps 2-9 still matter, but not as much as Step 10. And in the process of election politics, her vague Step 10 (continuity, validate Obama policies) was overwritten by Trump (She’s corrupt! That’s why she’s running! Lock her up!). Many voters heard only Step 10 and voted Trump, skipping Steps 2-9 as he wished. Many others went through the intermediate steps, some of them, and jumped ahead to Step 10 because some of us think that way (and yell at those of us still processing steps 2-9.) Some of us saw that Trump has no intermediate steps and recoiled at his Step 10. Actually, 3 million more of us, but not in the right places, and Trump won the election.
Post-election, we have a bigger problem in Trump and Bannon introducing chaos, but also we also have stronger defenses. (See Eliot A. Cohen on “the resilience of Americans and their institutions.”) Nonetheless, I see Trump and Bannon deliberately attempting to take our American exceptionalism, our Step 10, honesty and Rule of Law, and trying to overwrite it just as he did with Clinton. It’s a strategy and not just a tactic, and we cannot allow it to succeed.
“What I’ve heard from behind the scenes,’’ Moulton said during a telephone interview on Monday, is that Mattis and others who were left out of Trump’s decision-making loop on the immigration order are asking one another, “What will make you resign? What’s your red line?”
We progressives are already there, but not everyone is. This is why I say to conservatives and those who supported him: What is your Step 10? What is your red line? What does he have to cross for you to oppose him? Think on it now before it’s rewritten in a way you cannot accept.
Tuesday, Feb 7, 2017 · 3:15:44 PM +00:00
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Greg Dworkin
Armando adds an important shared value to go with honesty and Rule of Law: competence. For many Trump voters (not core rally attenders, but marginal ones, those who chose in last month or because of James Comey), this is the biggest Trump weakness. He and Bannon cannot write over these as important shared values.