Do we actually like other people?

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016

Or do we live to loathe: For starters, let's talk about Alysin Camerota.

In 2014, CNN hired Camerota away from Fox News. It was a superlative hire.

For years, we'd seen her on Fox & Friends. In general, she was cast as the sane, intelligent caretaker woman seated between the two chimpish, inane younger men.

After sixteen years, she escaped to CNN, where she now co-anchors the morning show with Chris Cuomo. We're often struck by how good her work is there. (Cuomo plainly exceeds cable news averages too.)

Today, you can see Camerota interviewing a small group of Trump voters. Kevin Drum posted part of the tape, without comment, thereby throwing a bone to his liberal herd.

The herdsters have responded gratefully with hundreds of comments, aggressively kicking down instead of kicking up.

Here's the start of the most striking interaction between Camerota and the Trump voters. It involves a claim of widespread illegal voting:

JOHNSON (12/1/16): Voting is a privilege in this country. And you need to be legal, not like California, where 3 million illegals voted.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that.

JOHNSON: I'm glad I brought that up, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Me, too, Paula. So where are you getting your information?

JOHNSON: From the media. Where else would we get it?

CAMEROTA: Which media?

JOHNSON: Some of it was CNN, I believe, and—

CAMEROTA: CNN said that 3 million illegal people voted in California?

JOHNSON: Well, it was coming all across the media. All across. If CNN didn't do it, then they were being smart this time.

Already, this doesn't seem to make sense. First, Trump voter Paula Johnson says that three million people voted illegally in California. Within moments, she says that CNN "was being smart this time" if they didn't make such a report.

Hint! We the people aren't a gang of geniuses. Regular people will often say things, and reach judgments, which don't make a lot of sense. This is especially true where partisan desires are involved.

BREAKING! This sort of thing doesn't just happen among Them! The liberal web is crawling with the stupid shit we liberals churn every day. Our dumbness tends to take different forms, but We are often transplendently dumb, just like The Others are.

Let's return to the transcript. Here's what happened when Camerota questioned Johnson further:

CAMEROTA (continuing directly): Do you think that 3 million illegal people voted?

JOHNSON: I believe in California that there were illegals that voted.

CAMEROTA: How many?

JOHNSON: I don't—to tell you the truth, nobody really knows that number.

CAMEROTA: But do you think three dozen, or do you think 3 million?

JOHNSON: I think there was a good amount because the president told people that they could vote and it happened in Nashua we caught some people—

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

JOHNSON: That they went into Nashua and they said, "The president said I could vote. I'm here illegally."

CAMEROTA: Did you hear President Obama say that illegal people could vote?

JOHNSON: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I did.

JOHNSON: I actually did hear it.

CAMEROTA: On what— Tell me where.

DIBARTOLO: On— You can find it. Google it. You can find it on Facebook.

Johnson ends up saying that she thinks "a good amount" of illegal voting happened in California. She and others say this happened because Obama said it was OK.

If you watch the rest of the tape, you will see Camerota track this claim to what she describes as a doctored report on Fox Business News. That report tracked to an interview Obama did with actress Gina Rodriquez. You can watch the interview here.

In fairness, Rodriguez asked Obama a jumbled, confusing question—a question Obama failed to clarify. Watching the tape, it almost sounds like Rodriquez is asking if undocumented people can vote.

Because Obama doesn't clean up the confusion lodged in her question, it almost sounds like he is saying that such people can vote.

So it goes when Democrats ask movie stars and comedians to help out at election time. You can watch the jumbled Q-and-A at the 3:20 mark of that tape.

Over the past thirty years, the rise of partisan propaganda orgs has taught us a powerful lesson. We've learned that people will believe all kinds of improbable claims, especially where the improbable claims helps advance partisan scripts.

Over here in our liberal tents, we pretend that this only happens with conservatives. In posting the tape without any comment, Drum gave his droogs a chance for hours of pleasure kicking down at Them.

In fact, our liberal comment threads teem with all manner of bullshit. Folk like Drum don't have the courage or the integrity to tell their readers this.

We liberals often enjoy kicking down at the regular people who get conned by disinformation. We're less inclined to kick up at the people who deliberately deceive them, or at other powerful entities which enable the endless deception.

For years, we've said the following: When major figures deceive the public, that in itself is news. Back in 2011, it was news when Donald J. Trump paraded around peddling all that birther bullshit. The New York Times and the Washington Post should have been aggressively reporting his conduct as news.

Right to this day, those big newspapers have run away from this problem, which started long before Trump. Sadly, people like Drum would jump off the Golden Gate Bridge before they'd challenge such gutless conduct on the part of the Post and the Times—before they'd insist that the New York Times report the deliberate spread of disinformation as front-page news.

Today, Drum gave the herd a day of free play. Our unimpressive, loathing-fueled "liberal" team is part of this nightmare too.

What Yevtushenko said: As it turns out, we the people are extremely gullible. That's why we have an FDA, in case you didn't realize.

(When music men would come around, we people would buy their trombones.)

People believe the darnedest things! This seems to be the nature of people—"whom we knew as faulty, the earth's creatures," as Yevtushenko said.

Our liberal herd can be very dumb too. At some point, you have to make a decision:

Do I actually like other people? Or do I live to loathe?