To include something in a links column or exclude it? That’s the question when you come across analysis where part of it screams for inclusion and part seems misguided or wrong. That happened in several instances this week as I sifted through potential stories. The dilemma, of course, is the entire goal of this column is to provide the best information and analysis from the past week or two weeks in one accessible place.
But often times, one column or analysis gets a lot right — and a lot wrong. Generally, when that happens, I err on the side of sharing things that might be useful. Yet, rather, than just leave it up to you to judge these pieces, this week I thought I’d throw in my two cents:
The first piece in this category is a warning about the risks of a Trump dictatorship from conservative columnist Robert Kagan (a Bush-type neoconservative). Kagan nails the dangers of a second Trump term, and why the prospect should alarm Americans. That segment of his column should be a must read for every American voter.
But Kagan also seems to see a Trump victory as fairly probable, whereas I’d put the odds under 50%. It’s absolutely possible that Trump wins. Our society is unsettled enough, his floor is high enough, and people so loathe politics as usual that we’d be deluding ourselves to think otherwise.
Even so, Kagan has a lot of analysis about the relative advantages for Trump and President Biden with which I disagree. Instead, it’s far easier to paint the scenario in which Biden gets reelected. It’s more consistent with history, and everything required has a decent probability of happening.
The economy continues to improve, inflation ebbs, and popular sentiment starts to match underlying economic data. Biden has a few strong leadership or campaign moments that assuage voters about his age. Trump reminds people who voted against him in 2020 why they did so with erratic behavior, outrageous statements, etc (this is almost guaranteed to happen). He also gets convicted of serious crimes. The warnings about Trump and the danger he poses on issues crucial Democratic constituencies hold dear drive them to vote, regardless of whether they’re excited about Biden. People opt for the steady hand over the chaos agent.
All of that seems reasonably plausible, though far from guaranteed. The election will be close regardless. We’re too polarized for it not to be, but if it’s a 52-48 type toss up, Biden is still the 52 as of December 1, 2023.
The other piece that I’ve included despite disagreeing with some of it is an analysis of the rise of Speaker Mike Johnson by New York Times Capitol Hill guru Carl Hulse. Everything Hulse says is worth you time. But his underlying premise — that the rise of Johnson begins with the Tea Party — ignores a far deeper history that directly contributed to the extremist mess that is the House GOP in 2023. Hulse is describing the last 20% of a half century of transformations instead of the entire story. His insight is still valuable, but it must be understood in that context.
The week’s must reads include excerpts from two new big books — Liz Cheney’s upcoming Oath and Honor and reporter Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Alberta is one of the best chroniclers of the right, and he has unique insight into the evangelical church that makes the book (and the long excerpt linked below) a must for anyone who wants to understand our broken politics and fractured society. Cheney has juicy details that expose just how much Republicans have soiled themselves and sold their souls over the last few years. Both are worth your time and will leave you with a better sense of the macro level forces driving our politics.
The week’s third must read is a cogent analysis of the situation in Israel from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She makes a strong case for why a cease fire is a bad idea, and why peace is impossible so long as Hamas remains a viable entity. I found myself nodding along as I read it.
The last piece you should read this week if you only have time for four is a Media Matters analysis of how much more coverage Clinton received in 2016 when she branded the opposition “deplorables” than Trump did when he recently called his opponents vermin — a depiction that was highly alarming because, historically, it has been deployed by dictators.
Not only does the analysis raise questions about the media’s coverage of Trump, but it also helps explain why Democrats are so dismissive of conservative claims of media bias. From their perspective, regardless of the cultural orientation of newsrooms, the press still relentlessly flogs negative stories that do major damage to Democrats and which, arguably, helped decide the exceedingly close 2000 and 2016 elections. In both cases, Democrats felt like their candidates got a raw deal from the media, which latched onto things about Al Gore and Clinton respectively that Democrats thought warranted far less attention. Both times, data indicated afterwards that the stories damaged the candidates.
These stories reflected how the post-Watergate media sees itself as a watchdog, and therefore looks for negative stories that might expose politicians’ lies and get beneath what reporters are sure is a facade hiding the real person (the sense that politicians are all hiding something is why blunt spoken, accessible candidates like John McCain are so popular with the media). This has definitely been a two-way street, damaging Republicans as well. But it’s hard to convince Democrats that the media is on their side when it sees data like what Media Matters dug up.
Additionally, the analysis raises questions about whether the media is equipped to cover Trump. There is just so much to focus on — from crimes, to constant invective and outrageous statements, to extreme policy ideas, to constant drama — that sounding like some of the most vicious dictators in history doesn’t rate the same attention that it would with someone else. But resisting the temptation to say, “oh it’s just Trump being Trump and saying something incendiary,” and instead really laying out the risks of a Trump presidency for viewers, listeners, and readers is going to be incumbent on reporters over the next year. The failure to do so risks, as Kagan discusses in his piece, a Trump dictatorship.
The rest of the 25 stories and four tweets linked below cover a potpourri of topics.
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