THE FALL: Traister spoke, and so did Putin!

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2022

Our blue tribe's route to the fall: Many voters in Ohio will adopt a different view.

That said, we pray that J. D. Vance doesn't win Ohio's Senate seat. In our view, Vance is a horror show, and we're impressed with the political intelligence of his opponent, Tim Ryan.

We wouldn't vote for Vance ourselves, though many Ohioans will. That said, we also wouldn't vote for the kind of journalism showcased directly below. 

We refer to the report about Vance in today's New York Times. In print editions, the report appears on the Times' front page. Sadly, it starts like this:

BARRY (10/28/22): Blue jeans evoked his hardscrabble upbringing, and a crisp dress shirt conveyed his success as a Yale Law School graduate, venture capitalist and best-selling memoirist—with the open collar signaling that he was still just J.D., who happens to be the Ohio Republican candidate for the Senate.

This was the J.D. Vance uniform as he spoke one October Saturday to Republican campaign volunteers gathered in a Cincinnati office, near a portrait of a brow-knitted Donald J. Trump...

They just can't quit the childish world which features silly accounts of the secret meanings of the items which make up a candidate's wardrobe.

For twenty months, they did this with Candidate Gore. They discussed his boots, his suits, his polo shirts, the height at which he hemmed his pants. 

They discussed the color of that one earth-toned suit and the reason his boots were so shiny. They discussed the number of buttons on his deeply troubling suit jackets (3), and the reason why all three were buttoned. 

They played these cards for the bulk of two years. After that, the United States went into Iraq. Today, that wardrobe game has returned.

"Man [sic] is the rational animal?" Plainly, that isn't the case.

 Major world-class anthropologists have been telling us that for quite a few years. The woods are lovely, and deep, these experts say, but we humans tend to see through a glass extremely darkly.

Today, these experts have told us to tell you about two recent presentations. Also, to mention Professor Johnson again, whose (well-intentioned) specific remarks we'll push ahead to next week.

Oddly, one presentation to which these experts refer has come from Vladimir Putin! Atop the front page of today's New York Times, Anton Troianovski's account of yesterday's speech by Putin starts exactly like this:

Playing to Western Discord, Putin Says Russia Is Battling ‘Strange’ Elites

President Vladimir V. Putin declared on Thursday that Russia’s battle was with “Western elites,” not with the West itself, in a speech seemingly aimed more at winning over political conservatives abroad than his own citizens.

Mr. Putin, addressing an annual foreign policy conference outside Moscow, appeared intent on capitalizing on political divisions in the United States and its allies that have only heightened since they began showering Ukraine with military aid to fend off the Russian invasion.

Many of the Russian leader’s themes were familiar, but they took on particular resonance given the coming midterm elections in the United States and growing discontent in Europe over the costs of the war.

“There are at least two Wests,” Mr. Putin said.

There are at least two Wests? As Troianovski continued, he spelled out what Putin meant about the competing values of the "two Wests" to which he referred:

One, he said, is a West of “traditional, mainly Christian values” for which Russians feel kinship. But, he said, “there’s another West—aggressive, cosmopolitan, neocolonial, acting as the weapon of the neoliberal elite,” and trying to impose its “pretty strange” values on everyone else. He peppered his remarks with references to “dozens of genders” and “gay parades.”

Mr. Putin, as he often does, portrayed Russia as threatened by the possible expansion of NATO—and the values of its liberal democracies—to countries like Ukraine that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Putin thinks it's strange! He thinks its strange that a certain "western elite" says there are "dozens of genders." 

Beyond that, he seems to be saying that such strange beliefs threaten his own "Christian values." But are his claims actually true?

Is there really a "western elite" which claims there are "dozens of genders?" Somewhere, we'll guess, you could find some such elite. On balance, we'd have to say—surprise, surprise!—that Putin was perhaps embellishing concerning this alleged point.

Having said that, let us also say this:

In that speech, Putin was creating a picture of the West which is often seen on Fox News broadcasts. We've seen that portrait on Tucker Carlson Tonight several times this week alone—and we're rarely able to sit through the entire hour-long broadcast. 

Indeed, live and direct from the state of Vermont, we saw a version of that portrait on Carlson's program last night! Before we offer a further assessment, let's also talk about something we saw on MSNBC this past Tuesday night.

Live and direct from Pennsylvania, the Fetterman-Oz debate had just concluded. On Alex Wagner Tonight, Wagner introduced New York Magazine's Rebecca Traister.

As we noted in Wednesday's report, Traister soon offered this remark concerning Candidate Fetterman:

TRAISTER (10/25/22): There was such intense scrutiny—often, ableist scrutiny—over how he was going to communicate.

Right out of the gate, Traister complained about the ableism directed at Candidate Fetterman. 

As before, so too today:

We aren't asking if Traister's perception was actually "accurate" here. We're asking if her instant reference to "ableism" will possibly sound "strange" to a broad swath of American voters—if it might even seem that Traister was speaking from the inside of an elite which is promoting unfamiliar concepts and values.

We hate to say it, but could it be true? Could it be that Vladimir Putin has a better understanding of our blue tribe's ongoing fail than our own tribal leaders do?

Remember—as the fall elections approach, we aren't asking if the actual values of our leaders are decent and well-founded. Pace Putin, we're asking if the way our corporate leaders express those values might seem "strange" to a wide swath of the people who help decide the outcomes of our elections.

To our eye and ear, Traister was speaking from inside a badly cosseted elite: 

To our eye and ear, her host dresses expensive and coiffs expensive. For her own part, Traister quickly turned to language which comes from far outside the standard American lexicon.

It's fairly well proven that these can be ways to convince voters not to listen. Later, Traister began to drop an array of more familiar bombs.

Also this:

In our view, the incident from Vermont which Carlson discussed last night will strike a substantial majority of American voters as being somewhat "strange." He wasn't even forced to dissemble all that much as he discussed the incident.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But in truth, the leadership of our flailing blue tribe is sometimes a bit of a self-involved clown car. 

The children of blue tribal elites—Wagner's father co-chaired Bill Clinton's presidential campaign—focus on blue tribal values. They tend to turn to aggressive name-calling as soon as Others evince different sets of reactions, outlooks and views.

We tribals! We call the Others every name in the book, then wonder why they won't do the things we tell them to do! This past Monday, we thought Professor Johnson gave a great example of this impulse on Deadline: White House.

(To our eye, Professor Johnson was quite upset, and was completely sincere.)

Is it possible? Is it possible that Vladimir Putin understands the American electorate better than Traister and Wagner do? Better than Lawrence does? Better even than Nicolle Wallace, who (given her history) struck us as amazingly disingenuous on yesterday's Deadline: White House?

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but is it possible that our tribe is in the hands of a hapless children's crusade? Are we led by a cosseted "western elite" whose defining characteristic is its love of self and its apparent contempt for Others?

How will the fall elections turn out? We can't answer that question! But does the portrait offered by Putin help point the way to a fall?

In our view, Carlson is an astonishingly disingenuous Lost Child. That said, he reported events from Vermont involving cultural values (and behaviors) which will strike many voters as strange. He wasn't even forced to play the fool all that much as he did so!

Our tribe's Lost Children are sure they're right—and they only speak to their own "dear friends." As blue tribe members, we've been strongly inclined, for the past twenty years, to get in line behind them.

Professor Johnson seemed fully sincere. But oh, what kinds of values are these "which go from bad to worse?"

Next week: Blue tribe, heal thyself!