What You Need to Read About Politics 10/24

My roundup of the week's most important

Photo by Matt C on Unsplash

I’ve started this column about 10 times in the last 10 days, and worked on it for close to a week — which explains the 33 links below. But each time I’ve put off posting it, because news on the two massive stories dominating public attention has been changing so rapidly that the pieces I linked became outdated almost immediately.

It’s why you’ll find fewer links on the paralysis gripping the House of Representatives as it hits three weeks without a speaker. The topsy-turvy situation has seen Republicans fail to install two separate speakers, while screaming and sniping at each other both publicly and privately. Most reporting on the topic has been good for 24 hours tops, before the circumstances change dramatically. Republicans have now selected Majority Whip Tom Emmer as their latest speaker designee, but it’s unclear whether he can secure the votes of 217 Republicans on the House floor.

If the answer is no — and former president Donald Trump and his allies have blasted Emmer — then absent a bipartisan deal that secures Democratic votes, the House will remain paralyzed. At some point, a group of Republicans will be sufficiently embarrassed and fed up that they’ll strike a bipartisan deal — despite the howls it will elicit from the far right.

Anyone who tells you they know whether there will be a speaker by the end of the week — let alone who that would be — is lying to you. The Republican House members themselves have no clue either. Their plans regularly haven’t even made it past lunch over the last few weeks.

Overall, the story is one that points to how changeable politics are in our high velocity, ever changing, 24/7/365 political world. Most of the links I have below, therefore, look at the historical roots of the situation, or provide broader lens analysis, as opposed to up to the minute information. They’ll help you contextualize what is happening, regardless of where things stand when you read this column.

Because I teach a class on conservatism and Republican politics, and wrote a book on conservative talk radio, I wrote a piece for Politico explaining the role of conservative media in creating this crisis and appeared on Vanity Fair’s podcast The Hive, to talk about the topic. Both are linked below. Keep your eye out for an appearance on WNYC’s popular On the Media that should post tomorrow as well.

The other story dominating the month has been the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the war that has resulted from it. It has provided a textbook example — this will be taught in journalism classes down the line — of how quickly news can change, and how deeply important it is that the media focus more on accuracy than speed. Last week, many major American news outlets, including the biggest ones, fell for Hamas propaganda accusing Israel of bombing a hospital with catastrophic consequences. These outlets sent push alerts, and splashed the story across homepages.

The problem was within hours we found out that Israel wasn’t the one who bombed the hospital. Rather it an errant rocket by Palestinian Islamic Jihad — another extremist group that did the damage. American intelligence made that clear, as have politicians in both parties. But by the time this was confirmed, the damage had already been done, inflaming the anti-Israel, often anti-Semitic protests in the U.S., infuriating Arab populations throughout the Middle East, and further ripping college campuses apart.

It was a shockingly irresponsible moment in which the media dropped the ball by moving too quickly and failing to comprehend that Palestinian officials are tied to Hamas and therefore have every incentive to propagandize and zero incentive to provide accurate information. I’ve included several stories on the fiasco to explain what went wrong and why it was problematic, including an editor’s note from the New York Times owning up to the flub.

The episode was a good reminder of how much value there is moving with caution on ever changing stories, especially when they provoke fierce emotions and conflict. A mistake can benefit one side and once mistakes are made, most people never see the retractions and corrections.