RED AND BLUE BLUE CHRISTMAS: "This whole [culture] is out of order!"

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2023

Red and blue headed for war: "This whole trial is out of order," Al Pacino famously said.

The same could be said, perhaps hyperbolically, of our flailing nation's political / journalistic order. 

This morning, we'll walk you through a pair of examples. This afternoon, we'll try to tell you what we saw on the Fox News Channel last night—and we'll provide the links which will let you watch for yourself.

For this morning, a pair of manifestations:

Disappeared at the Times once again:

Has this been a practice all along? This morning, the New York Times has done it yet again!

In its online editions, the Times has disappeared an important news report—a news report which sits atop the front page of its print editions.

In print editions, the news report appears in the upper left-hand corner of this morning's front page. It sits beneath a pair of headlines. That dual headline says this:

Many Voters See Criminality But Support Trump Anyway
Indictments No Obstacle Among G.O.P., Poll Show

As we noted yesterday, so too here:

The report emerges from a recent New York Times / Siena national survey. In our view, that second headline overstates the findings of this survey, but few people are likely to give a flying fig about that.

This news report does exist online, but readers of the New York Times are unlikely ever to see it.  As was true yesterday, so too today:

This news report doesn't appear among the listing of articles at the Times' "Today's Paper" website. If they work from that site, people who read the Times online won't know that this news report even exists.

So too for readers who peruse the paper's second major website, nytimes.com. There too, we can find no sign that this news report even exists. 

In print editions, it sits atop the Times front page. Online, it has essentially been disappeared. 

This is the third time we've seen this pattern at the Times in recent weeks. Have we failed to notice this peculiar practice on other occasions? At some point, we'll attempt to check back through earlier editions of the Times and let you know.

As for today's disappeared report, you can peruse it here. We found it in the bowels of the Times by using the paper's search engine—by searching on the name of its principal writer.

If you read the print edition of the Times, the report sits atop page 1A. If you read the Times online, here's the key nugget you'll almost surely miss:

GOLDMACHER ET AL (12/20/23): Mr. Trump’s primary lead has swelled since the summer, even though the share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who believe he engaged in criminality rose to 27 percent from 17 percent in July. Mr. Trump is leading not only because he dominates among the large share of Republicans who see him as innocent, but also because he is winning one in three Republican voters who think he engaged in serious criminality.

According to that account of this national survey, 27 percent of "Republicans and Republican-leaning independents" believe Trump has committed a crime. (As you can see at this link, the survey question specifically asks whether Trump has committed "a serious federal crime.")

For the record, only 22 percent of Republican respondents answered in the affirmative. For the record, something like 78 percent of Republican respondents said they do not believe that Trump has committed some such crime.

According to the Times account, Trump is winning one-third of those Republican voters. That would be one-third of the 22 percent. 

That doesn't strike us as a giant number. On that basis, it seems to us that the headlines in the print edition overstate the sweep of this finding.

At any rate, this news report tops the front page of the Times—but only in print editions. Online, readers have no obvious way to know that this news report even exists. This seems to be a very strange and yet recurrent pattern.

Trump removed from the ballot:

Yesterday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Candidate Trump cannot appear on that state's ballot next year. 

This decision, perhaps hyperbolically, strikes us as insane. On this morning's Morning Joe, everyone lauded the decision until Walter Isaacson finally showed up

Isaacson finally showed up at roughly 7:15 Eastern. Speaking as politely as possible, he said that he regards the decision as insane. 

Tomorrow, we'll be able to show you the precise words Isaacson said. Meanwhile, will the decision be upheld when it reaches the Supreme Court? 

Will the decision be upheld? We did jot down what Isaacson said on that point:

"I wouldn't be surprised if it [the ruling] is unanimous."

For ourselves, we have no way of knowing what the Supreme Court's ruling will turn out to be. Regarding the way our red / blue "cable news" culture now works, we couldn't help noticing this:

Today's Morning Joe program began with a lengthy discussion of this topic. All four guests in the program's initial hour agreed that the ruling was great. 

Three of the guests were these:

George Conway: Back in the day, Conway joined forces with Ann Coulter, serving as one of the "elves." According to Conason and Lyons, the elves were "an informal group of conservative attorneys" who wanted our political discourse to center on the alleged "distinguishing characteristic" on President Clinton's private member. 

That doesn't mean that Conway is dumb, because, of course, he isn't. He wouldn't necessarily be our first choice for balanced political / cultural judgment.

David Frum: When he was working for President George W. Bush, Frum was hailed as the author of the catchphrase, "axis of evil"—the catchphrase which helped lead us into our disastrous war in Iraq.

That doesn't mean that Frum is dumb, because of course he isn't. We will note this:

Back in late August, Frum wrote a lengthy Atlantic piece saying that any such ruling would be a disaster. (Among other problems, "It would become a dangerously convenient tool of partisan politics.")

This morning, Frum misleadingly finessed that earlier position away. Our "cable news" tends to be like that. 

Mike Barnicle: We're so old that we can remember when Barnicle begged Candidate Gore to stop contesting the Florida vote in December 2000 because Barnicle's grandchildren couldn't stand the suspense. 

That doesn't mean that Barnicle is dumb, because he certainly isn't. In fairness, his statement had him perfectly aligned with the mainstream press of that time.

None of those "cable News" voices are dumb. That said, we were struck, as we watched Morning Joe, by the collection of Never Trumpers upon whom blue tribe ConsensusThink now relies.

In our view, it's to their credit that Conway and Frum have emerged as Never Trumpers. For the record, tens of millions of voters disagree with our view about that. We regard those voters as neighbors and friends, and of course as fellow citizens.

In our view, our nation is lunging today toward a more open version of political war—toward a type of national war no one can actually win. That's happening today as a group of four (4) Democratic-appointed judges rule that Donald J. Trump can't appear on their home state's ballot. 

In our view, it's much as Elvis predicted:

It seems to us that our warring and segregated red and blue tribes are aggressively lurching toward a very blue, blue Christmas.

We'll discuss the merits of the Colorado ruling tomorrow. For today, we'll close with this:

In our view, Isaacson—like everyone else, Einstein included—wasn't able to make Einstein easy in his otherwise fascinating 2007 biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe.

In our view, Issacson couldn't make Einstein easy. It seems to us that he got the Colorado ruling right when he appeared on today's Morning Joe..

That said, we close today with our basic question:

Al Pacino famously said that a whole trial was out of order. Can the same thing be said, perhaps hyperbolically, about our disintegrating national culture?

Under current journalistic arrangements, red and blue are kept far, far apart. Does this practice have us hurtling toward a blue, blue Christmas? Also, and quite important:

What comes after that?

This afternoon: What we saw on the Fox News Channel

Tomorrow: What was an insurrection or rebellion?