THE ROAD TO HELPFUL: Can the nation long endure?

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2023

We offer a basic suggestion: "Now we're engaged in a great civil war," Abraham Lincoln once said.

He made the statement at Gettysburg at the start of a famous address. Here's the well-known fuller passage:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

In Lincoln's assessment, this new nation, at its very birth, had been "dedicated to the proposition that all men [sic] are created equal." He said the war to which he referred was testing the ability of any such nation to endure.

Our situation today strikes us as painfully similar. It isn't obvious that there's any clear way out of our current mess.

The so-called "democratization of media" has turned out to be quite unhelpful. Yesterday, Kevin Drum offered a sketch of the relevant history within the other tribe.

Personally, we'd skip his use of the phrase "the common man," which was probably offered tongue in cheek. Also, we'd include Jerry Falwell's relentless pimping of the claim that the Clintons murdered all those people. 

There was no Internet at that time, so the very reverend fellow had to stampede around pimping his lurid film.

Other than that, here it is! This is a reasonable history the way the "democratization of media" has played out within the red tribe:

DRUM (2/2/23): Before the late '80s, there was really no choice except print if you wanted to get a daily dollop of right-wing opinion. That meant George Will and William F. Buckley and a bunch of other hyper-educated conservative elites, none of whom really appealed to the common man.

But the demise of the fairness doctrine upended the airways, and later on cable news became a staple. When that happened, everything changed.

First up was Rush Limbaugh. Maybe no one really remembers it now, but he was completely nuts! It was all feminazis and Billary and Vince Foster—and the common man loved it.

But Limbaugh needed the Clintons as foils and lost some of his mojo when they left the White House. The 9/11 attacks opened up new opportunities, and the Fox News prime-time trio of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Bill O'Reilly seized it by upping the outrage—and the common man loved it.

Eventually 9/11 faded and Iraq turned into an unpopular debacle. Then Barack Obama took office and that demanded a whole new level of outrage. The old Fox News gang didn't seem quite suited to the era of the tea partiers, so Glenn Beck took over. He was so deranged he made the rest of them seem like Ivy League scholars—and the common man begged for more.

Glenn couldn't keep up the craziness forever, so he quit. Up stepped Andrew Breitbart, whose website was willing to go where even the lunatics hadn't dared tread before—and the common man was ecstatic.

But Breitbart died and times changed. Tucker Carlson, shrewd and calculating man that he is, decided there was a vacuum to fill. The way to fill it, as usual, was by dialing up the outrage yet again, so that's what he did—and the common man loved it even more than ever.

"The common man loved it even more than ever." We'd skip Kevin's use of that particular phrase, but that's largely the way the democratization has gone Over There, within the devolving red tribe.

We don't know how to assess the motives and psychology of Tucker Carlson. Other than that, we largely agree with that capsule history, while noting that those various players have occasionally made valid points.

That said, it's always easy to see the history as it plays out in The Other Tribe. It tends to be harder to see the errors and failures of the tribe to which we ourselves belong.

Concerning that, consider this:

"Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans," Langston Hughes beautifully wrote. This past Monday, Charles Blow penned a column about what had just happened in Memphis.

Charles Blow is a good, decent person. Headline included, the column started like this:

Tyre Nichols’s Death Is America’s Shame

The spectacle of a televised countdown to the showing of the video in which Tyre Nichols was savagely beaten by Memphis police officers doesn’t just theatricalize Black death; it is a damning indictment of American perversion.

It was horrific, as promised, but unfortunately not singularly so. It was instead yet another data point in a long line of videos showing the torturing of Black bodies by the police. It was more snuff porn with Black victims, in a country becoming desensitized to the violence because of its sheer volume.

The newly anointed President Trump once spoke of "American carnage." Given the perilous state of the nation, was it helpful when Blow began this column with a reference to "American perversion?"

Was it helpful to take that stance? Please note what we're asking:

We aren't asking if Blow's assessment can be viewed as accurate in some way. (He seemed to be speaking of CNN's "televised countdown" last Friday night, though that isn't clear.) 

We aren't asking if Blow's obvious anger was understandable or justifiable. In our view, it's obvious that such anger is understandable. Justifiable is a whole different play.

We're asking a different question. We're asking if Blow's reference to "American perversion" was helpful, given the current very dangerous state of play. 

We ask that because, not unlike Lincoln, we think a test is underway of a certain highly imperfect way of life. We think events are testing whether some semblance of our modern "diverse democracy" can long hope to endure.

You'll note that Blow's first few paragraphs sketch a picture which Karen Attiah rendered a few days later, though in a less nuanced manner. 

In Blow's rendering, the video of Tyre Nichols' beating death was another example of "snuff porn." A few days later, Attiah used similar language. 

Back to Blow! Did the airing of that video represent an attempt, by major news orgs, to inform the public about a brutal case of police misconduct? Or did it simply represent a decision to "theatricalize" black death?

Blow's prose was a bit obscure on that point. A few days later, Atiah took the harder approach, calling it "entertainment."

We asked if Blow's presentation was helpful. We've asked that for a reason.

If we're now engaged in a great tribal war—if it really could turn out that our form of government won't long endure—then we the people may want to be careful about the things we do and say.

We may want to be careful about "own goals"—about the kinds of presentations which may empower the other side and help defeat ourselves. Such presentations may be understandable, or even justifiable. But could they help bring the democracy, such as it is, crashing to the ground?

Over here, within our blue tribe, we don't seem all that sure. Sometimes we act like that actually matters. An enormous amount of the time, we act like it pretty much doesn't. 

We thunder and storm and talk to ourselves in self-admiring ways. Eventually, Rachel jumps in with her incessant childish clowning, helping us learn how to love her. 

(On Monday night, as she burned time away about poor Stormy Daniels, Rachel went on, at some length, about how embarrassed she is when she has to say David Pecker's last name. Also, when she has to say the word "affair!")

No tribe which tolerates bullshit like that can expect to long endure. That said, how has the so-called "democratization of media" affected life in this struggling nation?

The red tribe is now routinely awash in crazy belief. And over here, within our blue tents, we routinely behave in ways which give aid and comfort to Tucker Carlson and others.

Our silly blue tribe just piddles along. The truth is, we aren't super smart.

We like to scream and yell about the conduct we see Over There. (George Santos is such a liar!) Next week, we'll focus on our floundering tribe's "own goals," on the three million ways we insist on defeating ourselves.

Lincoln said the nation might not endure. Do we think that's true again today?

Routinely, we say that we believe some such thing. Routinely, we act like we don't.

In our view, all physicians within our blue tribe need to devote a bit more time to the task of healing ourselves. We need to get on The Road to Helpful—or in the end, is it possible that we don't really care?