DISPUTATION: Brooks and Capehart and Luntz oh my!

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2024

Friends, is RICO a crime? Dearest readers, riddle us this:

How about it? Is RICO a crime?

We ask the question because Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently said that RICO isn't a crime. On the red tribe's Fox News Channel, she's been ridiculed for making that (accurate) statement from that day to this.

Saturday night, on The Big Weekend Show (actual name!), Joe Concha described the (accurate) statement by Ocasio-Cortez as "The Biggest Fail of The Week." He did so in the part of the entertaining "cable news" program which is called "Big Weekend Flops."

At this point, a spoiler alert:

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) actually isn't a crime!

We're sorry, but no—it isn't a crime. It's a (complex) federal law! 

You can break that complex federal law by committing certain types of crimes, which would have to be named and demonstrated at some point. But the law itself isn't a crime, any more than New York State's 65 mile per hour speed limit is some sort of state crime.

We'll discuss this dumb but instructive matter in more detail later today. For now, we'll tell you this:

The ridicule to which AOC has been subjected is a good example of what can happen when disagreement and disputation are removed from the culture of big-time American journalism. 

When that occurs, we're left with big fun, and with reliable group agreement. More simply put, we're left with an imitation of life.

Concha's silly behavior will come and go, leaving barely a ripple. This morning, let's consider a disagreement about a very important matter—a disagreement which surfaced last Friday night on the PBS NewsHour.

At issue was an important set of events which will start unfolding today. Today, Donald Trump's assets could start to be seized by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

This important matter is covered in this report in this morning's New York Times. On last Friday's NewsHour, Geoffrey Bennett posed the following question to David Brooks during the program's weekly segment involving Brooks and Jonathan Capehart:

BENNETT (3/22/24): Donald Trump needs to find half a billion dollars, and he has to find it fairly quickly. He has until Monday to post a bond covering the full amount of the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him as he appeals this ruling.

And if he can't somehow find the money, the New York A.G., Letitia James—she might start seizing some of his assets to help cover that obligation.

David, for any candidate running for public office, especially the presidency, who is short on cash and who has to find $454 million, that is a serious liability, and it also raises in this case some national security questions.

To review the full transcript, click here.

Will Attorney General James start seizing Donald Trump's assets today? At this point, no one knows.

That said, here's where the disagreement started last Friday night. Responding to Bennett, Brooks said he has reservations about this whole affair: 

BROOKS (continuing directly): Yes, I mean, I have a few problems with the seizure. The Associated Press did a good survey. They looked like at 70 years of cases like this. And in cases where there was no clear victim, they have never seized assets before.

And so if the people who claim a lot of this is a political witch-hunt, I think that Associated Press [report]—I found it kind of alarming that the Trump case is not being treated like the other cases. 

Nonetheless, it is what it is. And so he's got to raise a lot of money really fast.

Brooks continued from there, but he said this case is not being treated like other cases of the past seventy years. He cited a detailed report by the Associated Press, and he said he found the situation "kind of alarming." 

We'll link to the AP report below. At this point, let's move on to Jonathan Capehart.

David Brooks said he doesn't like the way this case has been shaking out. But when Bennett threw to Jonathan Capehart, a different view emerged:

CAPEHART: ...I have to disagree with David. No, take the properties! If any of us at the table were in that situation, we would be in serious trouble.

And it would be within the right of the attorney general to say, you know what, we're going to take your golf club, or we're going to take your tower. And quite honestly, I would love to see the A.G., the New York attorney general, do that, because then it would be the most tangible sign for the nation, the world, and for Donald Trump that you have been held accountable.  

Brooks said he finds the whole thing "kind of alarming." By way of contrast, Capehart said he would love to see Trump's assets seized. 

For the record, Capehart didn't mention the AP report to which Brooks had referred. Seeming to contradict what the Associated Press said it had found, he said that anyone would be in serious trouble if they'd done what Trump has done.

As viewers watched this weekly segment, they saw an obvious disagreement about a major ongoing matter. But at this point, Bennett made no attempt to explore this difference of opinion.  

He simply moved to a different topic. Disagreement frequently dies a quick death under current arrangements.

Brooks had one reaction to this highly significant matter. Capehart's reaction was quite different.

At one time, not long ago, American broadcast journalism was built around the presentation of such disagreements. During what might be called "the Crossfire era," people with opposing views were thrown on the air on a nightly basis and invited to battle it out.

By the end of the Crossfire era, it had come to seem that this practice had outlived any possible usefulness:

Partisans stuck to their talking points through thick and thin. Moderators couldn't make anyone budge, or didn't especially want to. 

Nothing much was ever learned from these scripted pseudo-debates. In October 2004, Jon Stewart appeared as a guest on Crossfire. In the course of a single half hour, he brought the whole system crashing down, a bit like Samson of old.

Today, cable news is organized in a very different manner. The Fox News Channel is loaded with red tribe partisans who can be relied on to agree with every red tribe talking point and with every other panelist. 

MSNBC's programs are built the same way, but from the blue side of the partisan tracks.

Last weekend, no one on The Big Weekend Show challenged Concha when he ridiculed AOC for her statement. In all candor, AOC's basic statement was plainly accurate—but viewers of the Fox News program saw a panel of four reliable employees mock her for what she said.

Whatever happened to disputation? As we'll start to see tomorrow, disputation, even within the confines of the tribe, has a long and noble history here in the western world.

Today, disputation is almost totally gone from red and blue tribe "cable news," and from much other contemporary journalism.

For what it's worth, we're inclined to agree with Brooks a bit more than with Capehart concerning the current point of dispute. In part, that's because we've never seen an explanation of the unusual-seeming procedure according to which an individual may have to raise a large sum of money before he can pursue an appeal of a legal finding.

For the record, we're also concerned about what Frank Luntz recently said.

Luntz has been strongly NeverTrump for the past several years. Last week, he said that James might get Trump elected if she decides to kick him right in his assets.

Luntz's statement was widely noted—but only in red tribe circles. Despite this lonely report at the progressive site Raw Story, most blue tribe members never heard a word about what Luntz has said.

Does democracy die in the darkness? It seems to us that intelligent discourse dies in the darkness when everyone is sent on the air to stick to preapproved tribal topics and to mouth preapproved tribal points.

Tomorrow: The disputation of monarchs!