TWO SILOS: When is a salad more like a meringue?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2024

Enlightenment values must die: Candidate Trump was waxing poetic out on the campaign trail.

It happened yesterday, in Detroit. As far as we know, no one has yet discerned what he may have been talking about in the highlighted passages shown below.

As anyone can see from the videotape, his rumination proceeded as shown. For the record, and in full fairness, the candidate seemed to mean "rockets" when he referred to "engines:"

TRUMP (10/10/24): And then all of a sudden, you hear that [manufacturers are] leaving Milwaukee, or they’re leaving wherever they may be located. It’s very sad to see it. And it’s so simple. 

I mean, you know, this isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land within twelve inches on the moon where they wanted to land. Or he gets the engines back. That was the first I realized. I said, “Who the hell did that?” I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming—cylinders, no wings, no nothing. And they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom.

Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill them up. But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don’t know. I don’t know. Couldn’t fill up the eight circles. 

I always loved those circles. They were so beautiful. They were so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person that did them—that was the best thing about his—the level of that circle was great. But they couldn’t get people, so they used to have the press stand in those circles because they couldn’t get the people. 

Then I heard we lost. Oh, we lost. No, we’re never gonna let that happen again. But we’ve been abused by other countries. We’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.

So spoke the major party nominee who may well win this race.

As far as we know, no one has figured out what those "eight circles" were. With that, we offer an instant warning:

Below, we'll show you the previous inexplicable comment by Trump which was cited on the front page of Monday's New York Times. In that case, it was obvious, and a matter of record, what the candidate was talking about—except atop the front page of Blue America's paper of record.

That said, what was the candidate talking about yesterday in Detroit? We don't have the slightest idea at this time! Then too, and in a slightly similar vein, there was the front-page "Political Memo" about Candidate Harris which we cited at the start of the week. 

As we noted on Monday, the lengthy, front page political memo was written by Rebecca Davis O'Brien. O'Brien is a Harvard graduate—and as we noted on Monday, we tended to agree with her basic points.

On the whole, we agreed with her basic points—but then, she kept on going! Right at the end of paragraph 5, O'Brien was now saying this:

POLITICAL MEMO
Harris Has a Lot of Strengths. Giving Interviews Isn’t One of Them.

[...]

In her dizzying ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket, Ms. Harris has proved to be a disciplined and effective debater and a tireless campaigner, nimble and energetic in rallies. But one-on-one televised interviews with journalists have long been a weakness in her political arsenal. She often winds her way slowly toward an answer, leaning on jargon and rehearsed turns of phrase, using language that is sometimes derided as “word salad” but might be better described as a meringue.

According to this lengthy front-page memo, Candidate Harris is sometimes derided for her "word salad." But according to the New York Times, the alleged "word salad" in question is really more like "a meringue!"

Question! Did anyone reading this lengthy memo have any idea what that meant? As published, the memo makes no attempt to explain. 

Perhaps O'Brien wrote it that way, or perhaps the published form of her memo was the work of some unnamed editor. But in the face of such manifestations, we recall the prophetic words of Hector, son of King Priam, as recorded at the dawn of the West, way back in the Iliad:

Sacred Troy must die.

Sacred Troy must die, the noble prince told his generous wife. As every Greek citizen knew for generations after that, his statement proved to be prophetic.

For ourselves, we were somewhat puzzled by O'Brien's lengthy memo. We agreed with her basic assessments, but the memo spun downhill from there.

In fairness, part of the word salad v. meringue critique was perfectly accurate. At that time, Candidate Harris was in fact being derided—was being mocked and derided around the clock—for her alleged "word salad."

Around the clock, from morning till night, she was being derided in that specific way on the Fox News Channel. As published, O'Brien's laborious memo doesn't cite that high-profile source of derision—but it soon echoed what was occurring on Fox without ever citing a source:

These days, when Ms. Harris gives an interview, she hews to a set of well-rehearsed talking points, at times swimming in a sea of excess verbiage. Her first answer is often the most unsteady, a discursive journey to the point at hand. Like all politicians, she sometimes answers the question she would prefer to address, rather than the one actually asked of her—but not always artfully.

She tends to muddy clear ideas with words or phrases that do not have a precise meaning. On Wednesday night, in response to a question about how the federal government could encourage the building of affordable housing despite stringent local regulations, she used the word “holistic” three times in the space of one long sentence:

“For example, some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.”

Shocking, isn't it? As part of the meringue which wasn't really a salad, Candidate Harris had used "holistic" three separate times "in the space of one long sentence!"

In our view, that presentation by Harris wasn't the most perfectly crafted statement we'd ever seen a candidate make.  At the same time, and under the circumstances, we wouldn't necessarily say that this merited front-page treatment in the Times—and for the record, this:

At that time, the monkeys on the Fox News Channel were playing the tape of that very same statement pretty much around the clock. They were playing tape of that very statement as part of their relentless derision campaign. 

Was O'Brien taking dictation from this "cable news" channel? Frankly, we began to wonder—and then, continuing directly, her memo moved on to this:

She relies on rhetorical touchstones: In many ways. Let’s be clear. And when she is asked about her economic agenda, in particular, she tends to begin with a familiar windup: I grew up in a middle-class family.

“I think we can’t and we shouldn’t aspire to have an economy that just allows people to get by,” she said on Wednesday night. “People want to do more than just get by. They want to get ahead. And I come from the middle class.”

Seriously? During her interviews, Harris employs such locutions as In many ways and even Let’s be clear? Can any serious person really explain how this could be part of any journalistic analysis, let alone a lengthy analysis on the front page of Blue America's paper of record?

We said we found this memo to be especially strange "under the circumstances." The principal circumstance to which we refer is the circumstance in which Harris is running against Candidate Donald J. Trump, whose bizarre behaviors, in his interviews and in his speeches, had gone largely unexamined at that time within this famous newspaper.

Now, Candidate Harris was being frisked within an inch of her life! We'll admit that we found ourselves asking such questions as these:

Did it really make sense to give such prominence to this lengthy memo so late in this White House campaign? 

Would it have been possible to publish a pair of his-and-her memos? His-and-her memos which examined the interview styles of each of the two nominees?

We'll admit that we wondered about such things. Having made that admission, we must quickly add this:

Whether about Candidate Harris or Candidate Trump, there is no excuse for publishing a murky journalistic stew which contrasts an alleged "word salad" with an unexplained "meringue." The American discourse has died on the vine when we the people are fed such gruel by an experienced, highly "educated" journalist (or by her editor) at our nation's most famous newspaper.

When is a salad more like a meringue? According to our best reckoning, only The Shadow knows! 

In fairness, the Times proceeded to drop a stand-alone bomb on Candidate Trump this Monday morning. In print editions, the profile appeared atop the front page. It appeared beneath this headline:

Trump’s Speeches, Increasingly Angry and Rambling, Reignite the Question of Age

Coming amazingly late in the game, this was a highly unflattering profile of the candidate's speeches. In our view, it adopted a framework we'd describe as tapioca, even as it touched upon a decade of highly unusual conduct:

As you can see in the headline, this profile of Candidate Trump adopted the framework of advanced age. Candidate Trump may be in a familiar type of decline, like Candidate Biden before him. 

In full fairness, it may be true! It may be true that Candidate Trump is experiencing some sort of age-related cognitive decline.

That said, the larger problem with his behavior has long preceded some such possible state of affairs. It involves the possible sociopathy first warned against, in great volume and in great detail, back in 2017.

This possible sociopathy has manifested itself through a decade of crazy factual claims, accompanied by an angry attraction to violence and a highly unusual apparent disregard for standard democratic norms: 

Also, through a decade of false or unsupported factual claims—highly inflammatory factual claims which the candidate has kept repeating in the face of relentless correction.

The Times has largely chosen to avoid establishing this major anomaly as a fundamental news topic.  When it finally offered Monday's report, it took the safest approach to establishing a framework, focusing on what Candidate Trump has perhaps been like "lately."

As he ages, is this candidate experiencing some sort of cognitive decline? That's certainly possible. But in 2017, dozens of medical and psychological specialists described his psychological condition as "dangerous"—and they explicitly said that his apparent clinical disorders would only get worse.

From the start, the New York Times has taken a dive on that possibility and on those behaviors. Now, it fills its front page with lengthy analyses in which we learn that the other candidate uses such terms as "Let’s be clear" when she sits for an interview. She does it all the time!

A dirty little secret seems to be lurking here. That secret involves a basic question about human intellectual and moral capability. 

Are we humans up to the task of playing this game? In the end, are we wired for the challenging task of maintaining Enlightenment values?

If you've watched the Fox News Channel lately, you may be starting to see the shape of an answer to that question. 

That said, the New York Times has decided that what happens on the Fox News Channel will stay on the Fox News Channel.  The spotless minds of Times subscribers won't be encumbered with any of that. 

(For better or worse, the corporate suits at MSNBC have made the same decision.)

We'll set aside for another day the early example in Monday's report which the Times somehow failed to fact-check. For now, we'll leave you with this:

The New York Times is a newspaper which is willing to let us know when an alleged word salad is actually more like a meringue. It's a paper which almost seems to be taking dictation from Fox without ever identifying the detractors to whom it alludes—which actually goes to its front page to tell us that one nominee is inclined to say such things as these:

In many ways. Let’s be clear.

One of the nominees does that! The other nominee has been parading about bare naked for years, repeating highly inflammatory claims in the face of endless correction, with his endless array of crazy statements generally going unmentioned.

Sacred Troy must die, Hector prophetically said. In the face of to the so-called "democratization of media"—as we see what our tribe's Harvard grads are actually like—we can't help asking if that's also true of "our democracy," imperfect as it has been.

Putin says we aren't going to make it. There's no word salad there.

He's a classic pre-Enlightenment strongman. Could it be that this strongman is right?