THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2024
Two examples—one tiny, one large: In this morning's report, we mentioned David Frum's new essay for The Atlantic.
For whatever reason or reasons, Republican office holders and officials have largely fallen in line behind Donald J. Trump. At one point, Frum cited three people who haven't:
FRUM (1/16/24): None of this is hard to explain. Republicans who get crosswise with Trump lose their career. There aren’t many volunteers to follow Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, or Mitt Romney.
Frum named two major Republicans—Senators Risch and Rubio—who have meekly fallen in line with Trump. He then named three others who haven't.
Two were boys and one was a girl. By way of contrast, consider the manifest silliness which broke out during yesterday's Morning Joe.
Early in the 7 o'clock hour, the gang was discussing a similar topic. At 7:09, inexplicably, the exchange shown below occurred.
The exchange was triggered by an odd remark by Jennifer Palmieri. An array of off-camera male panelists rushed to agree with what Palmieri had said:
PALMIERI (1/17/24): I will just note who, following up on what Donny [Deutsch] said— Who in the Republican Party has stood up to Donald Trump? Liz Cheney—
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: The women—
PALMIERI: Yeah.
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: There you go.
PALMIERI: Cassidy Hutchinson. Sarah Matthews, the [inaudible] press secretary that, you know—
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: I love that.
PALMIERI: Relatively low-level women in the Trump White House, the ones who are standing up and saying that this is—you know?
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: Absolutely.
PALMIERI: Those are the ones.
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: Says it all.
To watch the tape of this exchange, you can start by clicking here.
In fact, Palmieri's peculiar statement doesn't "say it all." By our reckoning, her peculiar side-trip to Storyline seems to say about half of it.
An array of Republicans, men and women both, have stood up to Trump. The number hasn't been especially large, but it hasn't just been "the relatively low-level women," with Liz Cheney also thrown in.
Initially, Senators Corker and Flake went down the tubes due to their opposition to Trump. Senator Romney followed suit, then announced his retirement from the Senate.
Rep. Cheney (G) played a major role on the January 6 committee, but she was joined, within the House, by Rep. Kinzinger (B). They both lost their legislative careers, much as Frum describes.
(Ten Republicans in the House voted in favor of the second impeachment. Nine of the ten were men. Their subsequent careers have gone rather poorly.)
It's utterly silly—and yes, colloquially it's "woke"—to claim that it's only been a handful of low-level women who "stood up to Donald Trump" (with Liz Cheney thrown in).
It's hard to know why someone would say that, or why so many others would want to chime in. But it's a very bad and a very dumb look, and such performative punditry isn't good for Democrats or for progressive interests.
We're sorry, but members of our flailing our blue tribe behave quite frequently in ways which are colloquially "woke." Also, everyone knows what that term now means.
It doesn't help to lecture the world about what that word may have meant at some earlier time. As everyone knows, it now refers to claims or behaviors which emerge from "identity politics" in a way which is hard to reconcile with basic facts or with common sense.
For the record, this sort of thing happens all the time. The incident on Morning Joe was utterly trivial. but it was also utterly daft.
The segment in question ended with an oration by Donny Deutsch. The oration went like this:
DEUTSCH: Where I grew up in the school yard in Queens, we had a word for people like this, and it's not very appropriate to say—
SCARBOROUGH: No, it's not.
DEUTSCH: Where are the men? and I think Jen Palmieri really hit it. What's fascinating is, it's the women who have bene standing up to Trump, as opposed to the sniveling, weak men. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror as men.
Exhibiting his old-world, macho-man gender politics, Deutsch went out of his way to get in line with what Palmieri had said.
It's the women who have been standing up to Trump, he said—thereby eliminating Corker, Flake, Romney and Kinzinger, and even candidates Christie and Hutchinson, from the very short list of Republican opposition figures.
According to Deutsch, only the women have stood up to Trump. The men are a bunch of P-words!
So the gender politics goes on our blue tribe's morning "cable news" program. The conversation involved a silly insertion of "identity" issues into a fact field where it simply didn't belong.
Our world is full of such incidents—and some of them are important. If you still haven't noticed this obvious fact, you are part of the ongoing problem.
We have met the tribal enemy and it often turns out to be us! Make no mistake—the person who insists on this sort of identity-based posturing is working against blue interests.
A much larger example of this sort of thing emerged from Baltimore within the past week. The Fox News Channel adores this stuff, and yes, it's currently known as "woke" within the American language.
I ain’t woke.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that there are fewer women in politics, adjusting for the baserate suggests there may be disproportionately more women standing up to Trump, not less. It makes sense because (1) Trump is a bully who will push women around and give unwanted sexist attention to women not men, and (2) women care more about being made second-class citizens and have stopped suporting Trump in larger numbers generally.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with wokeness but with actual gender differences.
Women voters disaffected with Trump are part of how Biden beat Trump in 2020. Somerby is an idiot if he thinks demographics don’t matter in politics because they are “identity issues”.
ReplyDeleteNo one said men haven’t stood up. Recognizing women doesn’t eliminate Romney or Christie. Somerby’s buttons are too easily pushed. But this outrage does show how easily some men are triggered by paying even this small attention to women’s contribution to a he-man macho arena like politics where babes should be seen and not heard.
ReplyDeleteIt’s sad and curious that the males on MoJo pretty much are a bunch of teenage girls. Mika puts Joe back into his Barbie (TM) case every night.
ReplyDeleteObviously, you’ve never seen a naked Ken doll.
DeleteCorrect. I don’t play with dolls.
DeleteWhat’s wrong with teenage girls? Why use that term as an insult? Is this 1952?
DeleteAnonymouse 8:02pm, if you’re a teenage girl, being a teenage comes with the territory. It shouldn’t with grown men.
DeleteWhy did you add “girl” to teenage? Why not just say “teenager?” Because calling a manly man a girl is , oh, such an insult. 🙄 I know teenage girls who are more mature than so-called grown men.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:41pm, because there are differences between teenage girls and boys. Adolescents (and their hormones) are often very moody and emotional, going from joy to despair in five seconds. Girls are more apt to outward expressions of their moods, whereas boys, tho they share all the feelings, are more apt to express them in other ways, or suppress them.
DeleteNot so with adult MoJo bros.
Thanks for your stereotypes, cecelia. We are not surprised.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:04pm for comment board that started with this statement:
Delete“This has nothing to do with wokeness but with actual gender differences.”
…you sure are doing a backflip.
What else is new.
An actual gender difference is that more men support Trump than women. This isn’t wokeness but voter demographics. So-called women’s issues matter to women. It is not woke to say so.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:36pm, you weren’t arguing with me about wokeness, you said that I was perpetrating gender stereotypes.
DeleteWhat’s more of a gender stereotype than to suggest men aren’t concerned about the treatment of women, as much as women are concerned, because they are men?
You’d never make that same statement as to women’s concern about the treatment of *everyone.
Men eliminated abortion rights to control women’s sexuality, not because they are “concerned” about women. Women are using the vote to take back their bodily autonomy. That’s why Biden won in 2020 and why Democrats did well in 2022. It is why Trump is NOT supported by as many women as men among Republicans and why Biden has greater support from women. It may be the main factor reelecting Biden. This has nothing whatsoever to do with wokeness.
DeleteHow many times do you think Hutchinson had to endure Trump and his male cronies’ sexist remarks? Trump likes to hire attractive women. They have turned on him because of his crimes but also because one can only take so much of that crap, and even less from someone you no longer respect. She turned on Trump when she discovered that the attorney Trump gave her was protecting Trump, not her interests, by telling her to lie to investigators. Imagine her anger (use your empathy). Trump did that and it has nothing to do with Morning Joe being woke. But Somerby pretends it does. How stupid is Somerby to float that idea?
Anonymouse 10:08pm, you think being pro-life solely comes with a penis and so you dismiss all the women who are pro-life as being inconsequential, or being rubes.
DeleteConversely, you minimize the male politicians and male voters who are pro- choice, as though they don’t exist, because, you know, they’re men. .
Then you launch into a screed on sexual harassment as though every guy in the universe is on board with that.
They ain’t worried about chicks.
This sort of gibberish is the essence of wokeness. It’s exactly what drove the bullshit that went down on Morning Joe.
I didn’t say ALL women, I said more women support Biden than Trump.
DeleteI’ll bet you can’t name a pro-choice Republican elected to office.
You have confirmed the idea that woke gibberish simply refers to whatever liberals support. Calling women’s health issues gibberish isn’t going to win women’s votes.
This whole conversation illustrates why I find it hard to believe Cecelia is female.
Delete10:08 - You say: Somerby pretends that it was Trump’s hiring a corrupt lawyer for Hutchinson that, somehow, caused Morning Joe to be woke.
DeleteHow stupid are you to float that idea?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:41pm, it is woke gibberish. With this sort of thinking everything is a gender issue if there isn’t a balance of support.
DeleteIs Biden less supportive of the issues that are of concern for men because more women are voting for him? Is he pro woman and less so toward men?
Biden isn’t sensitive to men. Why aren’t things framed in that manner?
If a candidate is pro keeping babies from being sucked out the womb, how is that essentially pro man, rather than pro baby of both genders?
This stuff comes with a ton of presumptions that are partisan to the core, but you insist there’s no wokeness in the world. This is all perfectly logical and reasonable, when it’s utterly skewed to your political beliefs.
Anonymouse 10:43pm, you say that because you’re sexist and prone to stereotyping.
DeleteI’m fine with that. Call me Cecil or Cid. Just call me dinner, babe.
Many progressives feel that as a matter of courtesy we should give people the right to express any gender identity that they wish. Yet there are progressives here who refuse to afford this courtesy to CC - and none of the other fine progressives here ever call them out.
DeletePied Piper, I watched all of Hutchinson’s testimony and I am repeating what she said about why she “stood up” to Trump. Somerby seems to think that praising women like Hutchinsin was wokeness. I didn’t say that. I said Trump caused women to stand up to him by mistreating them, generally and specifically, because Trump is sexist and women won’t be mistreated forever, then I compared these stand-up women to women voters. Try to keep up and stop putting words in my mouth. The word woke was redefined by the right to attack the left. I wouldn’t accuse Joe of being woke because I am not a right wing moron.
DeleteFake claims on the internet bear no reaemblance to the identity a personpresents in real life. Ccecelia is a troll.
DeleteI notice that Cecelia has not named any pro-choice Republican elected to office. Too hard to look up and she clearly doesn’t know any off the top of her head. Cecelia, why would a pro-life conservative man pay for a girlfriend’s abortion? Ask Trump, who bragged about it to Howard Stern on air. But Trump says he is pro-life now. He wants to lock up women who seek abortion because “there should be some consequences for the woman” Trump said, on air. This is why a lot of women stopped voting for him. Wokeness has nothing to do with this.
DeleteRepublican man, that is. There are some pro-choice Republican women.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:01am, why would I bother to counter your statement about there being no Republican pro-choice politicians when the party is overwhelmingly pro-life?
DeleteWhat in hell would be the point of that other than to validate your self-referential argument that being pro-life is anti-woman.
I’m supposed to run and prove to you that we are not guilty of the sin of being pro-lifers?
That blinkered presumption and demand on your part is called wokeness.
You are the one who said some Republican men are pro-choice. I didn't. And now you cannot name one.
DeleteEstablishment leftists are hypocrites in that they will offensively stereotype white males, MAGA supporters, and even all Republican voters right here in the comments and then feign being offended by a remark like "teenage girls" which was obviously just a way to convey a characterism of what these guys are like in a quick way and not actually a condemnation of teenagers or girls at all.
DeleteIt's one of the biggest problems with the new establishment left. They are fake and people pick up on it. They ought to try being genuine. But then they'd have to confront their own ugly attitudes that they are in denial about.
So it goes...
They are genuine.
DeleteAs self loathing narcissists? Perhaps.
Delete'Self loathing narcissists' is too smart a description for me. 'Hateful fools' would do.
Delete11:27,
DeleteThe people throwing temper tantrums over a rainbow on their beer can call the Leftists "Snowflakes".
That's the problem with the media. Those people are fakes, and the media doesn't pick up on it. Instead, they take theses fakers serious.
No one has ever thrown temper tantrums over a rainbow on their beer can. It's a figment of your overexcited imagination.
DeleteYes, that's the other great fault of the establishment left. Any criticism they see of themselves, their reaction is typically to point to some behavior on the right. They seem incapable of self reflection.
DeleteWomen have less to lose by standing up to Trump because he doesn’t consider them players. Neither does Somerby.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bob 100%. A great deal of our news is dumb. There is a lot more to people than their skin color and sex. The Republicans who turned against Trump are individuals. We political junkies would like pundits to tell is specific things about our political leaders. Of course, that would require the pundits to know more than just someone's sex and race.
ReplyDeleteHere’s one: Trump is a delusional narcissistic sociopath.
DeleteIs that you, Bob?
DeleteHe’s also a pathological liar. Would Bob say that?
DeleteAnonymouse 8:48pm, as part and parcel with being mentally “disordered”, I would think so.
DeleteHave you been reading this blog at all, Cecelia? Are you familiar in some slight way with Somerby’s objections to calling Trump a liar?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:04pm, he prefaces that on two objections that apply to everyone.
DeleteA lie is not defined as a false, illogical, or outlandish opinion/belief.
and
Depending upon the person’s history, opinions that fit those descriptions could be the result of some mental disorder.
Not even close to Somerby’s stated objections.
DeleteAnonymouse, not even “close”, huh?
DeleteNo, he said you can’t call Trump a liar without knowing whether he believes what he is saying is true or not. So your suggestions are not at all the same as Somerby’s objection, no matter how plausible your bluff.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:55am:
Delete“A lie is not defined as a false, illogical, or outlandish opinion/belief.”
In other words someone is not lying simply because they uttered a statement that is false, illogical, or outlandish.
Why are they not lying? Because they may actually believe what they are saying.
AND the reason they believe this thing… could be because they are mentally disordered.
No cigar, huh?
No, because you didn’t say that first time around. Anyone can get an answer right after someone tells them what it is.
DeleteIt’s exactly what I said.
DeleteNo, it isn’t.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:42pm, is it a lie to believe the earth is the center of the universe? (It’s false)
DeleteIs it a lie to believe that aliens attacked Miami last month? ( That’s outlandish)
Is it a lie say “the sphere is flat and square” ( its illogical)
None of those things are lies UNLESS the person conveying these ideas knows better.
*That should not need to be spelled out to anyone.
Anyone here can read what you said above. Repeating Somerby’s objection over and over, after I had to remind you what it was, doesn’t change that you didn’t know until I told you. Now you are pathetically wasting words.
DeleteWhat you didn’t have to do is to play dumb. A lie is defined by the intent of the human uttering it.
DeleteIt is not a false, outlandish, or illogical statement.
I didn’t say it was. You said that part. You didn’t know what Somerby said, pretended you did, and got caught in a wrong answer. The rest of this is defensive blathering. No one ever appointed you the keeper of Somerby’s thoughts.
DeleteAnonymouse 12:05am, generally, I’d give you credit for not playing dumb, since you are dumb. However, you’re playing it here.
DeleteAlmost as if stereotypes build barriers between ourselves and other people. Even walls you might say.
DeleteSo stop doing it then.
DeleteBoth Republican men and Republican women have lost careers by courageously standing up to Trump. Suggesting that only women have done so is readily-rebutted, and thus it is a distraction from the task of persuading potential voters to vote for Biden.
ReplyDeleteMuch better to focus voters’ attention on Biden’s age, and tell them he’s a low-energy terrible candidate, just like Bob does. That’ll reel ‘em in.
DeletePied Piper, performative wokeness was part of the point.
DeleteStraw man invented by Somerby. No one said only women were standing up to Trump.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:27pm. I didn’t see the show, but if you don’t think the boys aren’t trying to score woke points with this, it’s largely because of your opinion of Bob.
Delete“PALMIERI (1/17/24): I will just note who, following up on what Donny [Deutsch] said— Who in the Republican Party has stood up to Donald Trump? Liz Cheney—
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: The women—
PALMIERI: Yeah.
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: There you go.
PALMIERI: Cassidy Hutchinson. Sarah Matthews, the [inaudible] press secretary that, you know—
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: I love that.
PALMIERI: Relatively low-level women in the Trump White House, the ones who are standing up and saying that this is—you know?
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: Absolutely.
PALMIERI: Those are the ones.
OFF-CAMERA MALE VOICE: Says it all. “
“.DEUTSCH: Where are the men? and I think Jen Palmieri really hit it. What's fascinating is, it's the women who have bene standing up to Trump, as opposed to the sniveling, weak men. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror as men.”
Well, it isn’t Mark Meadows or Rudy G, is it?
DeleteSince the right wing gets to define things as they choose, it was my understanding that wokeness was inherently performative, ie there can never be non-performative or genuine wokeness. Thus, it is redundant to say “performative wokeness”. Shall we check with Chris Rufo?
DeleteMorning Joe lasts 4 hours. This two minutes is Somerby’s big gripe?
ReplyDeleteJen Psaki talked anout Trump’s demeaning views on women during today’s Morning Mika online show this morning. Trump’s hatred of E.Jean Carroll has been on full display lately, which will not endear him to female voters or the judge and jury of his latest defamation trial. Trump was found to have committed sexual abuse of Carroll, found liable for defamation and was required to pay $5 million at his last trial. He has not stoped defaming her since then.
ReplyDeleteThis isn’t about wokeness but about Trump’s behavior, which in this case is illegal.
True, but beside the point Somerby is making. What “this” is about is that performative wokeness damages the credibility of liberal messengers.
DeleteWe don’t agree that the show displayed wokeness performative or not.
DeleteIn right wing parlance, (and they get to define words now for all of us, apparently), liberal “messengers” have no credibility because they are liberal, which now means “communist” in present-day America, because Chris rufo said so.
Delete"In right wing parlance"
DeleteMy fellow citizen, once you are translating you're losing. Stop coping and say what you're for rather than disqualifying your counter-argument before yours is made!
Semantics aside, the point is that false, gender-based insults harm credibility.
ReplyDeleteI remember when rush Limbaugh called Sandra fluke a slut. He later was awarded the presidential medal of freedom. Trump said Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her whatever, and later was heard bragging about grabbing p***y, and was elected to the presidency. I’m going to go out on a limb and say their credibility amongst republicans was/is undamaged.
DeleteWhat gender based insults are you referring to, pied piper? I didn’t see any on morning Joe. I did see Cecelia call the men on Morning Joe “teenage girls.” Did that lose her some credibility with you?
Delete
ReplyDeleteAll I know is I am inherently racist. I am woke.
I sniff my fingers. They smells funny. Somerby is an ass.
I am Corby.
Keep your fingers to yourself. I am Korbi.
DeleteYou are a deplorable right winger.
DeleteI am woke. I smell my fingers.
I am Corby.
I stand with Korbi. Keep your fingers to yourself! I am Quorbie.
DeleteI am nice. I am inherently racist.
DeleteSomerby hates women. Somerby is no liberal.
I am Corby.
Women standing up to Trump? Give me a break. A majority of white women voted for Trump twice. That's how women lost their reproductive freedom.
ReplyDeleteThis is wrong. Women voted for Biden 55-57% and for Trump 42-43%. That is a substantial gender gap.
Deletehttps://cawp.rutgers.edu/gender-gap-voting-choices-presidential-elections
In spite of his insistence to the contrary, it's apparent that Our Host doesn't know what "woke" means.
ReplyDelete