Truth in Media – Page 5 – The Wrongologist

Dems Must Persuade the Persuadable

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Jensen Beach, FL – November 2021 photo by Patrice Ostradick

More about the Dem’s messaging problem. The latest jobs report showed that we added more than 530,000 new jobs in October. And the DOL also revised its estimates for September and August, confirming an additional 235,000 positions were created.

That’s 766,000 jobs we didn’t know about until last Friday.

The news sent the Dow Jones upward (again). It ended at another all-time high, 36,327. Since Biden was elected last year, the market is up 40%. That’s $14 trillion in new wealth that has landed in quite a few pockets. But the media still covered a Biden administration in disarray. From Eric Boehlert:

“…on Friday, news consumers visiting WashingtonPost.com had to scroll down past 75 different stories and links before they found the first mention of the blockbuster jobs report…..at the top of the Post site Friday afternoon was a column about how the White House is having trouble spreading good news about the economy.”

Again, the media going all “gotcha” on Biden. And it’s having an impact on his poll numbers, which took another dive in a USA Today poll over the weekend that shows Republicans holding a lead on the 2022 Congressional ballot. It found that Biden lost support among the Independent voters who delivered his margin of victory over Trump one year ago:

46% said Biden has done a worse job as president than they expected, including 16% of those who voted for him. Independents, by 7-1 (44%-6%), say he’s done worse, not better, than they expected.
64% said they didn’t want Biden to run for a second term in 2024. That includes 28% of Democrats.

Democrats need to understand their peril. The NYT’s front-page story, “Americans Are Flush With Cash and Jobs. They Also Think the Economy Is Awful” shows their dilemma. The economy is by all accounts on fire, but consumers and voters think it’s floundering. You might question just who is flush with cash, but the negative views of the economy seem to be tied to the effects that rising prices and shortages have on families. Regardless of the exact causes, after decades where the lack of jobs drove economic sentiment, inflation now appears to be a force driving opinion about the economy.

Prices for many consumer goods are rising, and as we said yesterday, it’s impossible to win elections by telling voters that their concerns are imaginary. From Bloomberg (paywalled):

“It’s not all negativity: A record-high 74% of respondents told Gallup in October that this is a good time to find a quality job, and 65% told AP-NORC pollsters that their personal financial situation was good. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose in October and, while lower than before the pandemic, is higher than at any time between 2001 and 2017.”

The reality is that consumer prices have risen faster over the past six months than at any time since the early 1980s. And there’s increasing evidence of a partisan bias in consumer sentiment, with most people judging the economy more favorably when the person they voted for is president.

Remember that the USA Today poll says 64% think Biden shouldn’t run in 2024. Maybe some of today’s economic pessimism has to do with people downgrading their view of Biden’s competence after the surge in the Delta variant that killed so many, while our messy withdrawal from Afghanistan was seen by many as humiliating.

The Democrats’ conundrum is how to respond both to the economic concerns and the cultural attacks. They can’t win by simply pointing to their actual policies on specific issues. They must respond to the attacks on “wrong way for the country” by honing a message that works for the persuadable Independents. We live in a 40-40-20 country in which 40% percent are hard-wired for either Party, and 20% are swing voters, who are primarily located in the suburbs. They largely control the outcome of elections.

Democrats need to study the art of persuasion. The Right is driven by nostalgia: they want to go back to a “simpler time”. The Left is motivated by change, to ensure rights for all, whether that’s healthcare or fair wages. if Democrats want to win against the highly organized right-wing media ecosystem, they must find a series of messages to persuade Independents.

We need a tune for Tuesday. Here’s Willy Nile with something brand new, “The Justice Bell” a tribute to John Lewis, from his August 2021 album, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”:

Monday Wake Up Call – Messaging Edition, November 8, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Catskill Mountains and Hudson River from Rhinebeck, NY – October photo by hikingfordonuts

Wrongo on Sunday pointed out that polling shows that only 30% of Americans think the US is on the right track, despite tons of good economic news. The poll was by NBC just before the November elections. It showed that 70% thought the US is moving in the wrong direction. It also showed Biden’s job performance approval rating at 42%, a sharp drop from 49% in August and 53 % in April.

In addition to the great jobs report, the record stock market, and a booming economy, in less than a year, Biden has withdrawn forces from Afghanistan and passed a substantial Infrastructure Bill. These are two Trump priorities that he couldn’t accomplish during his four-year administration.

The Infrastructure Bill is an unambiguous case in which Biden succeeded where Trump failed. You may think that the Afghanistan exit was messy, but both Biden and Trump were on that same page, and now, we’re out with minimal casualties.

So, what’s the disconnect between Biden’s performance and perception of his performance? It’s that Democrats have a huge messaging problem. Don Draper suggested that when you don’t like what’s being said, you should change the conversation.

From Diane Feldman: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Most people want to feel safe in their communities, have health care when they need it, and have the opportunity for economic advancement for themselves and their children. Wanting those things is not very divisive along political lines nor by race, class, or gender….Voters are more likely to trust someone who articulates the goals and connects the policies to them than someone who argues the details of a particular policy or spending level. While there are differences between Democratic progressives and moderates on policy, most voters really don’t engage with those.”

It’s questionable if the Democrats could have pushed an upbeat, optimistic message in the election while they were also insisting that America urgently needed funding for social policies. That contradiction may be worth them exploring in more depth.

Virginia’s governor-elect Youngkin demonstrated that Republicans who use identity politics without embracing Trump’s extremist rhetoric can be highly competitive, including in solidly Blue states like New Jersey. And it’s worrying that Dems seem to believe that Youngkin was an extremist posing as a suburban dad (he is), who MSNBC’s Joy Reid said incited “white backlash” by exploiting “fake” and “imaginary” fears about the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT) in public schools.

But that doesn’t explain the inroads Youngkin made in Blue suburbs. Voters usually consider education to be an important issue. They tend to trust Democrats to handle it better than Republicans. But, according to one Virginia poll the week before the election, Youngkin led McAuliffe by 3% among likely voters, but by 15% among K–12 parents.

So, like it or not, parental views about CRT and local control of public education were a real thing to Virginia voters.

Democrats must develop a plan for how they can avoid further political losses when Republicans across the country emulate Youngkin’s strategy. Here’s The Atlantic’s Yascha Mounk: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“For anybody who cares about making sure that Donald Trump does not become the 47th president of the United States, it is crucial that Democrats avoid repeating the mistakes that just put a Republican in Virginia’s governor’s mansion. It is impossible to win elections by telling voters that their concerns are imaginary. If Democrats keep doing so, they will keep losing.”

Democrats are led by a group of geriatrics who no longer are able to communicate. They have no real social media skills or traditional cable media machine (MSNBC isn’t the answer) to create messaging that resonates. Sadly, the traditional media is biased against them. If you doubt that, read the sub-headlines on Saturday’s front page of the NYT:

For the NYT, a Democrat win isn’t really a win. Democrats need to be crafting winning narratives. The only way that will happen is through ongoing, targeted, year-round campaigns. Not simply more speeches by geriatrics from behind podiums.

There are Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters out there. But in Red areas, they are demoralized and are sometimes hiding in plain sight. They think they are alone. Democrats have to show these demoralized Americans they are not alone, assuming the Party expects them to turn out and challenge the looming conservative majority.

Time for Democrats to wake up! Unless the messaging changes, the endgame is that Democratic voters will continue to sort into the most populated states, and Republicans will gain a permanent supermajority in the Senate. If current trends continue, in 2040 half of the US population will live in eight states.

To help them wake up, listen to Gil Scott-Heron’s “Pieces of a Man” from his 1974 album “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”:

Sample Lyric:

I saw my daddy greet the mailman
And I heard the mailman say
“Now don’t you take this letter to heart now, Jimmy
‘Cause they’ve laid off nine others today”
But he didn’t know what he was saying
He could hardly understand
That he was only talking to Pieces of a man

Can Our Democracy Survive Trumpism?

The Daily Escape:

Bishop Creek, Eastern Sierras, CA – October 2021 photo by Scott McReynolds

CNN’s Brian Stelter asked on Sunday:

“We know what Trump will do….So what will the rest of us do?”

He’s talking about the continuing slow rolling coup inspired by the Big Lie, that’s rolling across America. Stelter presented a scenario about how Trumpism might dim our democracy between now and 2024. His perspective as a media reporter informs his view about how FOX news is reacting to the competition from OAN (One America News). He says that FOX is now simply feeding red meat to its viewers rather than reporting the news.

The result? Paranoia deepens, and Trump’s Big Lie becomes gospel to Republicans. External reality retreats into the background for the Red Hats. More from Stelter:

“There’s a clear difference between the people who pay for news…and want to know what is true, versus people who pay for views….of what they want to be true…”

Wrongo has been banging on about the state of journalism for the last few days, and not sorry, we’re doing it again.

After the attempted coup on Jan. 6, the prospect of political violence threatening a peaceful transfer of power has become a reality that America must face before it’s too late. Trumpists are dreaming publicly of violence, while a new poll by PRRI (margin of error of 2.1%), shows some scary data:

67% of all Americans disagree that the election was stolen.
But 68% of Republicans overall, and 82% of respondents who trust Fox News more than any other news outlet, say they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
That figure climbs to 97% for those who trust OAN and Newsmax more than any other news outlet.
18% of all Americans think resorting to violence may be necessary to save the nation. PRRI’s question was: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
The scary part is that 30% of Republicans agreed, while just 11% of Democrats agreed.

Stelter’s apocalypse scenario is that by 2024:

“Neighbors turn on neighbors….Normally easygoing local elections turn into existential battles….Threats of violence become real violence….while MAGA-media apps, broadcasters, and commentators justify stomping all over the Constitution as an attempt to save it.”

Let’s emphasize that this is a worst-case scenario. Stelter says “We know it could happen because it has all happened before. Almost everything I have described has already happened in one form or another.”

More Thoughts on Afghanistan

The Daily Escape:

Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley, California photo by Gerold Guggenbheul

Wrongo is as tired of writing about Afghanistan as you are reading about it, but the time to say what needs to be said is when people are paying attention. So, let’s talk about the media’s response to Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Wrongo pointed out that out of a combined 14,000-plus minutes of the national evening news broadcast on CBS, ABC, and NBC in 2020, the year Trump made his deal with the Taliban, a total of five minutes were devoted to Afghanistan. Now, many more minutes are focused on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and much of that is critical of Biden. From Eric Boehlert:

“Led by the New York Times’ and CNN’s frenzied reporting and analysis, the media have gone all in with the narrative that Biden’s presidency sits on the precipice of ruin in the wake of US’s long-expected troop departure from Afghanistan. (Fact: It does not.)”

Various Biden critics are engaging in fantasies about Kabul’s collapse: if only we’d used more force, demonstrated more will, stayed a few months longer, then the Taliban would have adopted a different strategy. Ryan Crocker, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, was sharply critical of the withdrawal of the last 3,500 troops. Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, argued that “keeping American military forces in Afghanistan indefinitely” would be “worth it.”

Another NYT column recently said that Biden should “save his presidency” in the wake of the Afghanistan controversy. Biden’s ending an extremely unpopular war and is bringing the troops home, at least so far, without a single US casualty. But he must “save his presidency”?

It is a huge relief to find out America has been filled all along with people who know, with 100% certainty, how to properly extract the US from Afghanistan.

From Cheryl Rofer: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“As we try to look past the abysmal reporting on the evacuation from Afghanistan, one of the things that strikes me is the inability or unwillingness of reporters to visualize what is required to make things happen in the real world.”

“An evacuation takes coordination among an enormous number of entities – getting the right people in the right place at the right time, along with the airplanes and their fuel, which involves other airports, air controllers, logistics people keeping track of where the planes are, and the military personnel helping out….And then there are the State Department people who are checking identities and preparing paperwork to get refugees into the US.”

Rofer closes with: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The first inclination of too many reporters seems to be to find someone to backbite someone else. It should be to understand the [physical] situation…”

The criticisms downplay the impact of the deal with the Taliban. Once the Taliban had secured an agreement that the US would be pulling out, and that forces would be reduced to minimal numbers BEFORE Biden’s presidency began, they merely had to wait. Trump’s special skill as president was that he accomplished nothing, or he made things much, much worse, in every way.

So far, the airlift from Afghanistan is performing better than the news media’s record over the past four years, when they were reporting on everything Trump said. Now they’re saying that Biden can’t eat the shit sandwich Trump prepared so well.

But here’s a subject that has gone unnoticed by the media: the cost of caring for our veterans. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They just released an update on the ongoing costs of caring for the military who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“Between 2001 and 2050, the total costs of caring for veterans of the post-9/11 wars are estimated to reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion….This estimate is double the author’s previous projections in 2011 and 2013.”

They say that most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid and will continue to accrue long into the future. The costs are $1 trillion higher than earlier estimates for two primary reasons. First, the number of post-9/11 veterans with disabilities is far higher than originally projected. More than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits.

Second, the VA has ramped up their levels of responsiveness. They have expanded the geographical footprint of VA health care, hired thousands of additional medical and support personnel, and expanded clinical specialties in areas such as women’s health, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

These expenditures are already baked into the system. We should be focusing on the fact that these costs will DOUBLE America’s projected military expenses of $2 trillion for Afghanistan.

The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military. On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans, but over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue declining. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reach their peak, few living Americans will have direct relatives who were involved in these wars.

So, two hidden costs of the Afghanistan war: A lazy media, and a 40+% casualty rate which is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle.

Saturday Soother – July 17, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Ruby Beach Overlook, Olympic NP, WA – 2021 photo by Erwin Buske

COVID-19 cases in the US have soared 121% in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations have jumped 26%. and deaths are up by 9%. Infections have more than doubled in 22 states, DC, and Puerto Rico in the past 14 days. The counties with the biggest jump in new cases are overwhelmingly in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana. The delta variant is alive and well, and on the move!

We should now be calling it the plague of the unvaccinated.

Ignorance is going to ruin this country. Look at what so many conservatives believe: The coronavirus vaccine is either harmful, useless, or a government plot to control our bodies; that the 2020 election was rigged and the Former Guy won; and that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was mostly a stroll by tourists through the building. Here’s conservative Fox News person Tomi Lahren tweeting about Covid:

Like most anti-Covid conservatives, she didn’t bother to check the facts. Perhaps she thinks that just stating what she believes makes it true. She’s wrong.

Yes, Covid has “a high survival rate for most people,” but that doesn’t mean what Lahren thinks it means. The attitude of conservatives, that Covid is only a little worse than a bad case of the flu, ignores the reality that more than 624,000 Americans have died from it so far.

Lahren contends that, “Lawlessness and thuggery in our streets” doesn’t have a high survival rate. She’s wrong again. There were 462 murders in New York City last year, but 30,000 New Yorkers died from Covid.

Despite what conservatives would have us believe, taking or not taking a Covid vaccine isn’t about personal freedom. It’s not about a tyrannical Big Government forcing people to accept an awful fate. In a world where nearly 99% of new Covid deaths are occurring among the unvaccinated, it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out what the unvaccinated should be doing.

It turns out that confidence in science is split heavily along party lines, according to a Friday Gallup poll. The survey found that Democrats are very confident in science, with 79% saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence, compared to just 45% percent of Republicans who said the same.

This also has to do with the Christian Right, which has been hostile to science ever since the Scopes trial. It’s fine if they don’t believe in evolution. But it’s a big problem when we’re trying to put Covid in the rear view. Science is true whether you believe in it or not, and their ignorance is lethal.

Conservatives like Tomi Lahren, go through life angry and suspicious of most things. It’s their brand to be anti-government and anti-science. It’s on brand for them to assume the worst of others. To the contrary, the bottom line is simple: We have a tool that can lead us out of the pandemic, but some people are too arrogant, ignorant, or suspicious to use it.

What makes this so terrible is that there are many, many times in our history when Americans have pulled together to defeat a common threat. But we no longer trust each other enough to pull together for the common good.

Americans really should be better than this. We used to be.

Time to forget about dickheads like Lahren. Time to leave voting rights, infrastructure bills and fires in the West behind. It’s time to take a beat and have a Saturday Soother! In northwest Connecticut, we’re recovering from unusual amounts of rain, precisely when it is really needed elsewhere in the country. This weekend brings trimming of the crabapple trees, attending to our tomato plants and spraying weed killer on the fields of Wrong.

But before all of that starts, let’s kick back and brew a cup of Baby Dragons coffee ($28/12 oz.) from San Diego’s Nostalgia Coffee Roasters. A review says that you should taste the resonant, long, flavor-laden finish with notes of lychee and chocolate.

Now, put on your wireless headphones, take a seat by a window, and listen to Frederic Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu in C sharp minor”, Op. 66. This piece was written in 1834, but was first published posthumously in 1855, despite Chopin’s wishes that none of his unpublished works ever be published. We’re lucky his wishes weren’t followed!

Here, it’s played by Anastasia Huppmann, a Russian-born Austrian concert pianist, live in Vienna:

Watch her absolutely amazing technique! You will recognize the melody of the Fantaisie-Impromptu‘s middle section as the music in the popular song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows“.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – End of an Error Edition

How about some good news for a change?

Flint Michigan may finally get some justice: Former governor Rick Snyder was charged with two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty in his handling of Flint’s water crisis. Six others were also charged, including the former director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the state’s former chief medical executive. They were both charged with involuntary manslaughter related to the deaths of Michiganders.

Wrongo was delighted that Biden named Jaime Harrison as Chair of the DNC. His commitment to retail funds raising and voter turnout should help change the Democrat’s chances of winning in the southern states. Harrison has done what others haven’t — organizing and getting out the vote in marginalized communities, zip code by zip code. If Harrison can keep the Party’s energy high, we may have a chance to keep the majority and win more seats in both Houses in 2022.

Oh, and TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY IS OVER, very soon. On to cartoons.

The empty promises of the past four years:

Members of Vanilla ISIS are being brought to justice:

It shouldn’t be this way:

Even GOP Congresscritters were scared:

The impeachment game:

NOW you’re ready to heal?

Monday Wake Up Call, Oppressed Majority Edition – November 23, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe, CA – November 2020 iPhone 7 photo by Julien21012101

Millennials joke about how Fox News did to their parents what the parents believed video games would do to their kids. Apparently, that’s true: A new survey from PRRI (the Public Religion Research Institute) found that Fox News watching Republicans, the 40% of Republicans who trust Fox News as their primary source of television news, believe they are the most discriminated-against Americans.

The researchers broke Republican respondents into Fox News watchers, and non-Fox News watchers, and then compared their answers to those of all Americans.

Compared to the nation as a whole, Fox News watching Republicans are whiter (81% vs. 63% for all Americans), more likely to be male (57% vs. 48% of all Americans), and older (32% are over age 65 vs. 21% of all Americans). Fox News Republicans are more likely than all Americans to identify as white evangelical Protestants (36% vs. 13%), and more likely to say they attend religious services at least once a week (46% vs. 27%). Fox News watching Republicans are more likely than non-Fox News Republicans to identify as conservatives (77% vs. 59% of non-Fox News Republicans).

The truly stunning finding is what’s said when both groups were asked if there’s “a lot of discrimination” against Christians and Whites:

Nearly 75% of the Fox-watchers feel Christians are discriminated against. They also think White people have it rough (58%), but only 36% say the same about Black people. Imagine how delusional you have to be to think White Christians have it worse than everybody else.

These people actively think the people who have the fewest hurdles to overcome in our society are at the greatest disadvantage. It seems safe to say their answers are mind-bendingly wrong.

Fox-watching Christians: Your religion is shared by between 70%-75% of Americans. Your churches are tax-exempt under federal law and are effectively subsidized by taxpayers. Somehow, despite these advantages many of you somehow see yourselves as the most oppressed group in America?

Is it even possible to be an OPPRESSED MAJORITY?

This view is held by some members of the religion that refuse to respect the constitutional separation of Church and State by claiming that your freedom to worship as you see fit is being crushed under the heel of godless secularism. Disliking those “who would ban God from the public square” doesn’t make what you are feeling persecution.

Fox News has supported Trump more strongly than any other news outlet. For decades, Fox has played a prominent role in shaping the Conservative policy agenda and supporting Republican partisan politics.

Over the last four years, Trump has used Fox as a personal platform, appearing on air hundreds of times during his presidency. Currently, the 15% of Americans who cite Fox News as their most trusted television news source, is roughly equal to the combined influence of NBC, ABC, and CBS (16%), and larger than that of local television news (12%), or CNN (11%).

Biden’s aspiration is to try to heal the divisions in the US during his term in office. But, tens of millions of Republicans support Trump retaining power by any means necessary. With America possibly facing a coup, is Biden’s hope even realistic?

Healing requires coming to a shared vision of the future. It requires some form of forgiveness and repentance by both sides for real and imagined insults. But, when we see exactly how much grievance and entitlement there is among these old, White Fox-watchers, it seems very doubtful that we can meet in the middle, understand each other, and change our behavior.

It’s not gonna happen. Take a look at this chart from Media Matters:

This covers the period starting four days after the presidential election, until 14 days post-election. It’s one thing to champion free speech, but this kind of prolonged propaganda attack will surely kill our democracy. If you doubt that take another look at how it’s Fox-watchers who believe that they are the most oppressed group in America.

Time to wake up America! How can reality be normalized when there’s no effort to ditch the propaganda? And it’s not just the old White Foxers. Nearly 74 million people voted to keep Trump in office.

NY Times’ Pointless Exercise

The Daily Escape:

Zion NP, UT – January 2020 photo by csmicfool

Wrongo is confused. The NYT endorsed both Warren and Klobuchar, apparently for the same job. But in reality, they endorsed Klobuchar, the candidate who is polling around 4%, well below the 15% it will take to win any delegates. The endorsement of Warren is secondary, even on their editorial pages, which lists Klobuchar on the left full page, and Warren on the right full page.

Here’s how the Times talked about the difference between the two of them:

“Both the radical and the realist models warrant serious consideration. If there were ever a time to be open to new ideas, it is now. If there were ever a time to seek stability, now is it.

That’s why we’re endorsing the most effective advocates for each approach. They are Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.”

They are not campaigning to be co-presidents, we will get just one nominee. The Times says there are two possible ways forward: Warren’s a radical. Klobuchar’s a realist. This all but guarantees that if Warren is the nominee, Trump’s ads will say: “Even the leftist New York Times thinks Warren is a radical.”

In case you’re unsure, Warren isn’t a radical. She’s demonstrated over and over that she’s moderately progressive, and a pragmatic liberal, with the exception of her poorly-thought-out position on Medicare for All. The NYT has its way with Warren:

“American capitalism is responsible for its share of sins. But Ms. Warren often casts the net far too wide, placing the blame for a host of maladies from climate change to gun violence at the feet of the business community when the onus is on society as a whole. The country needs a more unifying path.”

By contrast, here’s the Times’s critique of Klobuchar. It’s one paragraph plus one sentence about her poor positioning in the race:

“Reports of how Senator Klobuchar treats her staff give us pause. They raise serious questions about her ability to attract and hire talented people. Surrounding the president with a team of seasoned, reasoned leaders is critical to the success of an administration, not doing so is often the downfall of presidencies. Ms. Klobuchar has acknowledged she’s a tough boss and pledged to do better…..Ms. Klobuchar doesn’t have the polished veneer and smooth delivery that comes from a lifetime spent in the national spotlight, and she has struggled to gain traction on the campaign trail.”

The Times is playing a cynical game. They’re saying that they are endorsing both Warren and Klobuchar, but they really want Klobuchar, someone who really has very few followers.

It isn’t even clear that Klobuchar is a better moderate candidate than Biden. Clearly he’s older, but he has a national and global perspective that Klobuchar lacks. As a candidate, she’s a lesser Biden, without the black support.

And for Warren, she’s at least as formidable a candidate as Sanders, but she may have a higher ceiling with potential voters.

In most ways, the 2020 primaries so far have been Policy Minutiae on the Democrat’s side, vs. Resentment Politics on the GOP’s. Way more people are persuaded by tribal politics than by policies. If you disagree, look at this from the LA Times which says that a substantial group of Iowa voters are trying to choose between Biden and Sanders:

“Both campaigns believe there is a swath of voters — mostly white, working-class voters, including those who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 after backing Barack Obama twice — who are torn between Biden and Sanders, the race’s old-timers. Both men’s campaigns are fishing in that electoral pond as each candidate looks to expand his base in a tight contest.”

Their decision won’t be about Policy Minutiae. More from the LAT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, which includes Des Moines. ‘Ideology isn’t as important as the personality. To a lot of folks, they feel like they know and can trust both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, regardless of the ideological stuff.’”

For the NYT, the election is shaping up as a contest between a former TV personality who has generated a long list of policy failures, against either a cynical moderate, or a radical progressive, when some people think policies aren’t going to decide the election.

In 2008 and 2012, the Obama campaigns were about the healing power of centrism, without openly bashing the left. Biden and Buttigieg seem to be going that route, but Klobuchar seems more interested in pointing out that She Is NOT One of Them Lefties.

It’s like no one on the Times Editorial Board stopped to ask the question: “Wait – what exactly is the point of this exercise”?

Monday Wake Up Call – January 13, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Many Glacier, Glacier NP, MT – 2019 photo by MDodd

Let’s clear the air about Iran and their use of terror. Wrongo isn’t an apologist for Iran, although he thought that the Nuclear Deal was a positive step forward. We need to look carefully at the data supporting what our government and the US media say about Iran’s terrorist activities.

Here’s what the US State Department says about Iran and terrorism:

“Iran remains the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has spent nearly one billion dollars per year to support terrorist groups that serve as its proxies and expand its malign influence across the globe. Tehran has funded international terrorist groups such as Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

It also has engaged in its own terrorist plotting around the world, particularly in Europe. In January, German authorities investigated 10 suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force operatives. In the summer, authorities in Belgium, France, and Germany thwarted an Iranian plot to bomb a political rally near Paris, France. In October, an Iranian operative was arrested for planning an assassination in Denmark, and in December, Albania expelled two Iranian officials for plotting terrorist attacks.

Furthermore, Tehran continued to allow an AQ facilitation network to operate in Iran, which sends fighters and money to conflict zones in Afghanistan and Syria, and it has extended sanctuary to AQ members residing in the country.”

From Larry C. Johnson:

“You notice what is absent? A list of specific attacks that caused actual casualties. Plans and plots are not the same as actions. If Iran’s malevolent influence was so powerful, we should be able to point to specific attacks and specific casualties. But you will not find those facts in the U.S. State Department report because they do not exist.”

This State Department Annual Terror report details who is really responsible:

The Taliban was responsible for 8,509 deaths and 4,943 injuries, about 25 percent of the total casualties attributed to terrorism globally in 2018
With 647 terrorist attacks, ISIS was the next-most-active terrorist organization, responsible for 3,585 fatalities and 1,761 injuries
Having conducted 535 attacks, al-Shabaab was responsible for 2,062 deaths and 1,278 injuries
Boko Haram was fourth among the top-five terrorist perpetrators, with 220 incidents, 1,311 deaths, and 927 injuries

Not a single group linked to Iran or supported by Iran is identified. Here’s a table from the report’s statistical annex that identifies the worst offenders:

Iran doesn’t make the list. The attacks are predominantly from Sunni affiliated groups that have ties to Saudi Arabia, not Iran.

America takes exception to Iran because we have a long and negative history, but with justifiable complaints on both sides. Recently, Iran has thwarted the US’s actions in Syria. We should remember that Iran is a Shia Muslim state. When we removed Saddam Hussein and destroyed Iraq’s government, the Bush Administration installed Iraqi Shias in leadership. No GW Bush administration policymakers expressed any concern that these Iraqi politicians and military personnel had longstanding relationships with Iran, which naturally increased Iran’s influence in Iraq.

Iran also had a longstanding relationship with Syria. Obama decided that by eliminating Syria’s Bashir Assad, Iran would be weakened, but that policy backfired. Iran, along with Russia, came to the aid of Syria. Assad is now secure, and America’s influence in the ME has been weakened.

Time to wake up America! We need to get educated about which terror groups are committing what terror acts. Back in the 1980s, Iran was very active in using terrorism as a weapon to attack US military and diplomatic targets, but not so much lately. Iran was behind the early development of the IEDs used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many US soldiers died. That technology is now globally ubiquitous.

The real issue we should be asking our government to resolve is whether we can (or should) halt the expansion of Iran’s influence in the Middle East. Administrations since Carter have bet that isolating Iran diplomatically, ratcheting up economic pressure, and using limited military power will somehow energize the Iranian regime’s opposition and lead to the overthrow of the Mullahs.

They forget that we’ve used that exact policy with both Cuba and North Korea. How has that worked out for America?

We shouldn’t mourn Gen. Soleimani; he was a bad actor who tried to build shadow Shia militaries in many ME Countries. But Trump and Pompeo need to stop ranting about Iran and terrorism.

The actual issues driving Iran’s growing influence in the ME aren’t based on acts of terror. Our recent policies and actions towards Iran are now accelerating their cooperation with China and Russia, not diminishing it.

Is that in the long term interest of the US?

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Truth in Media

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