THINGS HAVING FALLEN APART: In the wake of officers being beaten...

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2021

Roxane Gay had a better idea: We were struck this morning by a news report in the Washington Post.

In print editions, the report appears atop the front page of the newspaper's Metro section. It concerns one aspect of last Wednesday's mob attack at the Capitol. 

The report appears beneath the headlines shown below. With lightning speed, we thought of Roxane Gay's recent piece in the New York Times:

Injured officers face long recovery
Dozens beaten, trampled, hit with bear spray during riot at Capitol

The report describes the injuries suffered by police officers during the crazed insurrection. Hermann and Zauzmer prepared the report. In part, they reported this:

HERMANN AND ZAUZMER (1/12/21): The number of injuries suffered by police as they attempted to fend off supporters of President Trump who seized the U.S. Capitol last week runs long.

[...]

More than 58 D.C. police officers and an unknown number of U.S. Capitol Police officers were injured in the hours-long riot and assault on Wednesday as lawmakers were formalizing the election victory for Joe Biden as president. It was a battle in which police were outnumbered. One Capitol Police officer died in circumstances that remain unclear.

“I’ve talked to officers who have done two tours in Iraq, who said this was scarier to them than their time in combat,” acting D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III said Monday...

Videos circulating on the Internet show horrific scenes, including one of an officer, identified by the police union as from the D.C. force, being dragged down stairs outside the Capitol and beaten by people with clubs, a crutch and a pole with an American flag attached. The officer was rescued by other officers swinging batons.

[...]

In a statement the day after the riot, then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned Friday, said officers were attacked with metal pipes, chemical irritants and other types of weapons. Several Capitol Police officers were hospitalized with serious injuries.

The report goes on and on, even describing injuries caused by that bear spray and also by lazers. It focuses on  D.C. Police more than on Capitol Police, perhaps because the latter agency has issued few public statements in the wake of Chief Sund's resignation.

Yesterday afternoon, we watched as Nicolle Wallace described the beating administered to the officer who was "being dragged down stairs outside the Capitol." Wallace is a devotee to script, as she was in her earlier life, when her scripts targeted same-sex marriage and promoted the war in Iraq.

(Back then, she worked for George W. Bush. Today, she's one of the gods most widely loved over here in the streets of Our Town.)

What actually happened last Wednesday? In fact, many things happened that horrible day. To the extent that such a thing is possible, a full account of what actually happened will only emerge over time. 

Information will always develop slowly—but Storyline can emerge, and has emerged, with remarkable speed. That's why we thought of Roxane Gay's instant essay for the Times, in which, in an act of instant self-pity, she instantly offered this:

GAY (1/7/21): On Wednesday, Jan. 6, Congress was set to conduct a largely ceremonial count of the electoral votes. There were rumblings that a few ambitious, craven politicians planned to object to the votes in several states. The president openly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the vote ratification—something not in Mr. Pence’s power to do.

But I don’t think any of us expected to see radical, nearly all white protesters storming the Capitol as if it were the Bastille. I don’t think we expected to see Capitol Police basically ushering these terrorists into the building and letting them have the run of the place for a ridiculous amount of time while the world watched in shock and disgust...

Eventually, the Times gave this essay its highest platform, publishing it in last weekend's Sunday Review. But in the very flash of an eye, Gay had been willing to appear on line, telling citizens of Our Town that "Capitol Police" (no qualifiers appended) had been guilty of "basically ushering these terrorists into the building and letting them have the run of the place for a ridiculous amount of time."

Let's repeat! According to Gay, she (and we) had seen "Capitol Police" (no qualifiers) basically ushering these terrorists into the building and letting them have the run of the place.

Plainly, that was terrible conduct. But how many "Capitol Police" had done that? Gay didn't bother to say.

Indeed, had any member of the force done that? Even now, six days later, we aren't sure we've seen any footage which could fairly be described in that manner.

As she continued, Gay treated herself to the power we described, decades ago, as "the power of pluralization." She did so by saying this:

"I don’t think we expected to see some of those police officers taking selfies with the intruders." So Gay wrote, in an instant burst of narrative construction. 

Question! Did Gay really see "some of the officers" (plural) taking selfies with the intruders? 

Even today, only one such instance is described in this Washington Post front-page report. Even there, the Post says it isn't clear whether the officer in question posed for the photograph, or merely allowed it to be taken.

This morning, the Post is still describing only one instance—and the probe of that incident is still underway. 

Did Gay know of multiple incidents? No links supporting this apparent claim were provided in her essay when it instantly appeared, and no such links appear in her essay even today. 

Gay's overall essay, rich with self-pity, was suffused with the joys of what might be called unsupported apparent overstatement. On the brighter side, Our Town's intellectual leaders were quickly assembling the Storylines we burghers would most like to hear.

In recent mornings, on MSNBC, those Storylines have been bellowed by a certain red-faced shouter. Yesterday, in an especially loco two hours, the red-faced shouter was accompanied, supported, enabled and echoed by a mob of acolytes. 

Yesterday, the shouter explicitly repeated what he had shouted last week. Once again, he explicitly said that, if the insurrectionists had been black last Wednesday, Capitol Police "would have shot every one of them in the face."

The shouter may not have realized that he was slandering Capitol Police when he shouted this red-faced remark. In somewhat contradictory fashion, his gaggle was also reciting hero claims about officers' heroic actions against the other mob.

This morning, the red-faced shouter was suddenly calm. Just a guess—management had decided that it was time to scale back the lunatic tone of the program. They even began running ads again! The show's waters were suddenly calm.

That said, these manifestations are all part of an anthropology lesson—a lesson about the way we in our species tend to behave when things start falling apart.

Fellow sapiens, can we talk? As a general matter, things had already fallen apart by the time this invasion started.

We began to build this site in 1997 because we thought things had largely fallen apart even then! We're talking about the upper-end journalistic squalor which has played so large a role in this story up to this point—in the story of how a person as disordered as Donald J. Trump ever reached the White House.

(Four years later, disordered supporters of the disordered president finally reached the Capitol building.)

Within our species, what tends to happen when things have fallen apart? You're asking for an anthropology lesson—an anthropology lesson involving the all-too-human mental wiring shared by those in our species.

The psychological breakdown is most striking and most apparent in the case of President Trump. The craziest of his insurrectionist supporters are almost surely nuts too.

That said, the anthropology lesson spreads out from there, even to the streets of Our Town. Behaviors here in the streets of Our Town have helped to drive this fall right from the beginning. 

Not unlike ancient history's Gaul, the anthropology lesson here has (at least) three parts. Tomorrow, we'll start with the aforementioned commander-in-chief—with the apparent "psychopathologies" the widely-praised leaders in Our Town steadfastly refused to discuss.

Tomorrow: There's pretty clearly something about what Mary L. Trump said

CNN cites a point of concern!

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2021

Fred Kaplan explains the nukes: We don't have the transcript yet, though CNN will provide one.

That said, we just heard an intriguing report from Jim Acosta. 

Once again, Acosta reported that Vice President Pence hasn't abandoned the possibility of using the 25th Amendment to remove the commander-in-chief from office. 

In our view, it's amazing to see Pence letting such reports go uncorrected and unchallenged. Acosta then reported this:

Pence's staff say they're reluctant to move in that direction out of concern that such action might inspire Trump to do something destructive. Speaking of which, we'll link you to Fred Kaplan's report about those nuclear weapons.

We hadn't yet seen Kaplan's report when we did our own post on Saturday. Over at Slate, Kaplan had already delivered the bad news. To give you the gist of what he said, the headlines read like this:

Trump Still Has the Power to Blow Up the World
And as long as he’s in office, there’s not much anyone can do about that.

As we'd pretty much thought, there is no "fail-safe" in place to restrain this disordered man. Or at least, so says Kaplan.

Woody Guthrie said it best. "So long, it's been good to know ya," the Dust Bowl survivor cried.

It's a lovely performance, with clever, wry lyrics. What else are you doing today?

Jennifer Senior gets it right!

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2021

Chait's report disappears: In her column in this morning's New York Times, Jennifer Senior gets it right—again. Here's an early chunk of her column:

SENIOR (1/11/20): Our president has always been out there. But on Jan. 6, 2021, he clearly reached escape velocity and hurtled into space.

We shouldn’t be surprised. The president’s flight into the ozone of crazy was as inevitable as the country’s descent into anarchy—and almost certainly intertwined. Trump, as I and many others have noted, impeccably meets the criteria of a malignant narcissist, and he has a defect in moral conscience that is emblematic of psychopaths. People like this do not react well to being fired, divorced or kicked out of any club. They’re ego hemophiliacs. Their self-esteem cannot self-repair. And so the president is now doing exactly what all pathological narcissists of the malignant, conscience-free variety do when they’ve been given the boot. They behave dangerously.

We'll go ahead and dispute one point, while being grateful that we have, on the rare occasion, an upper-end columnist as good as Senior.

Here's the point we'll semi-dispute:

In the highlighted passage, Senior says that she "and many others" have taken note of Trump's apparent psychiatric state. 

That's certainly true of Senior herself. To her vast credit, she broke through the press corps' embargo on such discussions with this column, published on April 5. 

Amazing! Semior wrote a column about the president's dangerous psychiatric state, even after the Times had instructed the upper-end guild that they mustn't go there!

(Giving credit where it's due, the Times published both of Senior's columns.)

Once again, Senior's new column includes a very sensible discussion of Trump's apparent psychiatric disabilities / disorders. That said, we'll quibble with the statement that, along with Senior herself, "many others" have taken note of this dangerous state of affairs.

Senior offers two links in support of her statement. She links to this essay by George Conway, one of the crackpot conservative world's original anti-Clinton elves. Conway's essay appeared online, on October 3, at the web site of The Atlantic.

In his essay, Conway discussed Trump's (apparent) "personality disorders" at substantial length. Yes, it was rather late in the game. But few other journalists did this. 

Senior's other link goes to this book review in the Washington Post—a review of three books about Trump and/or the American people.

This review appeared in September 2017. One of three books was The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee's collection of essays about Trump's allegedly dangerous clinical state.

A few months after that review in the Post, the New York Times published an editorial saying that journalists shouldn't conduct discussion of Trump's psychiatric state. 

As usual, journalists fell into line. Aside from the (very) occasional person like Senior herself, there has been almost no discussion of the dangerous state of affairs described by Lee's contributors.

To an almost total extent, the upper-end press corps has agreed—the state of Donald Trump's mental health mustn't be discussed. You've almost never seen such discussions on cable, a point we may discuss in a bit more detail tomorrow.

We'll quibble, therefore, with that one statement by Senior. In fact, the press corps' refusal to discuss Trump's apparently dangerous psychiatric disorders is one of the several ways we managed to reach this (dangerous) point.

That said, Senior's new column is superb. It  follows her original column, in which she broke the rules of the game by discussing Trump's apparent disorders. 

Again and again and again and again, the others have agreed not to go there. Also, please don't eat the daisies—and please discuss the nukes!

Today, we'll cite one other recent essay—this essay by Jonathan Chait for New York magazine. He discusses ongoing research about the accomplishments of charter schools, especially when it comes to the education (and well-being) of lower-income black kids.

Is it true, as Chait claims, that this research is beginning to look very good? We have no idea, and this topic will never be discussed in the wider press.

Our press corps doesn't care about that topic, and it never will. More enjoyably, we're now immersed, all over again, in impeaching Donald J. Trump.

Endless posturing to the side, our Hamptons-based, upper-end press corps doesn't care about black kids. Quite plainly, they don't care about kids like that, and they never will.

Chait's essay appears beneath this heading: THE NATIONAL INTEREST.

In one way, that's very true. In another way, what a laugh!

STARTING TOMORROW: Things Fallen Apart!

MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 2021

Plato, Achebe described it: We foolishly thought we'd seen it all. Then we watched the first two hours of today's Morning Joe. 

Who knows what may have transpired during the program's third hour? That said, by roughly 7:52 A.M. Eastern, Joe Scarborough had us thinking of an earlier "red-faced shouter," MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

Matthews served at the top of this crackpot army in 1999 and 2000, when the war which brought Donald Trump to the White began within this guild. The lunacies he broadcast at that time were tolerated and ignored by one and all, year after year after year.

"Cable news" was much less extensive back then. That said, it was a major way to build careers, and Matthews was one of its gatekeepers. 

(In May 1999, he almost got one journalist killed. Everyone ignored that too.)

Matthews went on and on, for quite a few years, helping create a set of demonologies. Those demonologies allowed two Republican presidents to reach the White House in the narrowest possible ways, while losing the popular vote.

The second such president was Donald J. Trump. This morning, the red-faced shouting from the Morning Joe gang sounded almost as crazy as the lunacies Trump has been spewing since 2011, when he began his birther campaign.

We foolishly thought we'd seen it all. Then we watched Joe and Mika, and Kasie and Yamiche, and Jonathan and even Rick Wilson. 

At one tiny point, Joyce Vance may have suggested that the gang should consider toning their fervor down a notch. We think she may have done that. Taking notes, we weren't entirely sure, and MSNBC leaves no transcripts.

Last Wednesday, a mob of crazies entered the Capitol and taught an anthropology lesson. This morning, Joe Scarborough, a red-faced shouter, conducted a similar class.

It's an anthropology lesson in the limits of human discernment. According to anthropologists, our human discernment has never been especially strong—except in our flattering self-portraits, in which we tend to cast ourselves as "the rational animal."

The Morning Joe gang was crazy today, but the lack of discernment has been general over the guild in the past five days. We'll be discussing this problem all week.

Today, we'll start with Plato, then with Yeats. But first, we'll start with Achebe:

Who was the late Chinua Achebe? The leading authority on his life and work starts by telling us this:

Chinua Achebe (16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature....

"Things fall apart!" Achebe's title was a reference to Yeats' famous and famously gloomy poem, The Second Coming, which starts exactly like this:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand...

Full disclosure: The best do not "lack all conviction" today, though it's hard to be sure who they are.

Yeats thought he saw things falling apart—mere anarchy being loosed on the world—in the aftermath of World War I. He thought the best no longer cared, while the worst were on the prowl.

Achebe chose to refer to that poem when he wrote his widely acclaimed first novel. For whatever it may be worth, we all saw a great deal of intensity last Wednesday at the Capitol building—but also this morning, as a red-faced shouter and his followers explored the limits of careful, considered discernment. 

We'll link Achebe back to Plato as well. Achebe wrote about the cultural problems attendant upon European colonialism in Africa. The leading authority on his life reports this part of his experience:

When the region of Biafra broke away from Nigeria in 1967, Achebe became a supporter of Biafran independence and acted as ambassador for the people of the new nation. The civil war that took place over the territory, commonly known as the Nigerian Civil War, ravaged the populace, and as starvation and violence took its toll, he appealed to the people of Europe and the Americas for aid. When the Nigerian government retook the region in 1970, he involved himself in political parties but soon resigned due to frustration over the corruption and elitism he witnessed...

Once again, it might be said that things were falling apart! We thought of Plato's Seventh Letter, in which Plato describes his experience as a young man after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War produced an oligarchic revolution (404 B.C.). 

In Athens, a group called The Thirty ascended to power; they began to settle scores. Many years later, Plato described the disgust he felt at the human, all-too-human behavior he saw occurring around him (Professor Lee's translation):

PLATO: The existing constitution, which was subject to widespread criticism, was overthrown...and a committee of Thirty given supreme power.  As it happened some of them were friends and relations of mine and they at once invited me to join them, as if it were the natural thing for me to do. 

My feelings were what were to be expected in a young man: I thought they were going to reform society and rule justly, and so I watched their proceedings with deep interest. I found that they soon made the earlier regime look like a golden age. Among other things they tried to incriminate my old friend Socrates, whom I should not hesitate to call the most upright man then living, by sending him, with others, to arrest a fellow-citizen, and bring him forcibly to execution; Socrates refused, and risked everything rather than make himself a party to their wickedness. When I saw all this, and other things as bad, I was disgusted and withdrew from the wickedness of the times...

Already, things were falling apart; before long, things would get worse. When he saw those things, and others as bad, Plato said he was disgusted and "withdrew from the wickedness of the times."

We've long assumed that Donald J. Trump is some version of mentally ill. Tomorrow, as a point of reference, we expect to start with his niece's published account of his various "psychopathologies."

It's also true that we the humans, as a group, tend to have very poor discernment. We're strongly inclined to divide into tribes and march ourselves off to tribal war. A certain segment will always be prepared to rally behind The Thirty when things seems to be falling apart.

The reigning commander-in-chief seems to be crazy or ill. So too with the craziest of his followers. That much should be easy to see for people who live in Our Town.

That said, for at least the past thirty years, similar types have engaged in red-faced shouting all through the mainstream press corps. We actually thought we'd seen it all. Then we watched Morning Joe.

We focus on the press corps' behavior at this site. At present, they're teaching anthropology lessons through their excited behavior. We'll start that discussion tomorrow.

Our conclusion for today:

"The worst are full of passionate intensity?" For the record, we prefer to judge actions, not people.

But a group of people were very intense inside the Capitol building last week. The same can be said for the people we saw shouting agreement with each other on today's Morning Joe.

Their guild has been shouting for at least thirty years. The demon tales they constructed over the years played a very large role in placing Donald J. Trump where he currently is—and in creating the fever dreams inside insurrectionists' heads.

For everyone who lives in Our Town, it's easy to see that the one mob was wrong. But how about the other mob, the one on today's Morning Joe?

Speaker Pelosi forces the issue!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2021

Incomparable web site prevails: In today's print editions, the New York Times has pushed its report all the way back to page A14.

The Times has refused to credit this site. Very frankly, we understand their reluctance.

That said, the question of Mister Trump and the nuclear codes was finally being discussed last night, even by some of the children on Our Town's "cable news" programs. As the Times has reported, Speaker Pelosi finally forced the verboten topic out into the light.

Sanger and Schmitt prepared the New York Times' report. Their report begins as shown below, hard-copy headline included:

SANGER AND SCHIMTT (1/9/21): Pelosi Pressed Pentagon on Safeguards to Prevent Trump From Initiating Strikes

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California on Friday took the unprecedented step of asking the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about “available precautions” to prevent President Trump from initiating military action abroad or using his sole authority to launch nuclear weapons in the last days of his term.

In a phone call to the chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, Ms. Pelosi appeared to be seeking to have the Pentagon leadership essentially remove Mr. Trump from his authorities as the commander in chief. That could be accomplished by ignoring the president’s orders or slowing them by questioning whether they were issued legally.

But General Milley appears to have made no commitments. Short of the cabinet invoking the 25th Amendment or removing Mr. Trump through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, it is unconstitutional to defy legal orders from the commander in chief.

Ms. Pelosi’s request [was] announced to the Democratic caucus as an effort to prevent “an unhinged president” from using the nuclear codes...

As we've noted throughout the past year, the children have been aggressively disappearing the two topics involved in Pelosi's action. We refer to the question of President Trump's mental health, and to the related question of his ability to launch nuclear strikes.

Timorously, Mika Brzezinski seemed to raise the question of the nukes on Thursday's Morning Joe. Timorously, she then joined the rest of the gang in failing to follow up on her initial timorous comment.

So it has gone among the children. For this reason, it was left to Pelosi to push these issues into the light.  

Through some miracle of discernment, Pelposi is concerned by the fact that an "unhinged" commander-in-chief continues to have the ability to employ the nuclear codes. Pelosi raised these issues with General Milley, then discussed their conversation in public. 

As a result, the children were finally discussing the nuclear matter, at long last, last night. 

These "cable news" children today! How hard they've worked, down through the years, to avoid discussing topics which haven't been approved by the corporate owners who pay them their seven- and eight-figure salaries!

(Nowhere has this obedience been more striking than on the Maddow Show, the TV show most often heard as one walks through the streets of Our Town. We may present the long list of those disappeared topics at some point next week. Then again, what's the point?)

At any rate, as of last night, Pelosi's actions had finally pushed this pair of topics out into the light. Having said that, there's no assurance that our disordered commander-in-chief couldn't drop a nuke on Iran, or perhaps on Michael R. Pence's home town:

SANGER AND SCHIMTT (continuing directly): Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for General Milley, confirmed that the phone call with the speaker had taken place but described it as informational. “He answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority,” he said.

But some Defense Department officials clearly resented being asked to act outside of the legal authority of the 25th Amendment and saw it as more evidence of a broken political system. They said that some political leaders were trying to get the Pentagon to do the work of Congress and cabinet secretaries, who have legal options to remove a president.

Mr. Trump, they noted, is still the commander in chief; unless he is removed, the military is bound to follow his lawful orders. While military officials can refuse to carry out orders they view as illegal—or slow the process by sending those orders for careful legal review—they cannot remove the president from the chain of command. That would amount to a military coup, the officials said.

As far as we know, there's no legal way to refuse Mister Trump if he decides on a nuclear strike. This is why we asked, a day or two ago, if any such "fail safe" procedure exists.

At any rate, with twelve days to go, the issue has finally been joined. A commander-in-chief who seems "unhinged" is in charge of our nuclear weapons. 

A commander in chief who seems "unhinged" is in charge of our nuclear weapons! But all year long, and long before that, the children to whom we turn for "news" and analysis have refused to discuss the apparent mental illness and the access to nukes.

At this site, we kept on pushing. Now, it has become our most frequently asked question:

Did Speaker Pelosi decide to act as a result of our own relentless behavior? 

In the face of this obvious question, we always take the humble approach:

It's true that we both have Baltimore ties, we somewhat sadly admit. 

As seen in the Washington Post: The Washington Post placed its own report atop page A2 in today's print editions. 

The Post was willing to put the word "nuclear" right in its hard-copy headline. In some ways, though, the Post's assessment sounds even gloomier than the one found in the Times:

LAMOTHE ET AL (1/9/21): The U.S. nuclear command-and-control structure gives the president sole authority to order the launch of nuclear weapons.

[...]

As it stands, the president has latitude to order a nuclear strike, even if the United States has not been attacked first with a nuclear weapon.

If the president is considering a nuclear strike, top military and defense officials normally would convene in person and by phone to brief him on options and offer advice, including on whether the action conforms to laws of armed conflict. Then, if the president proceeds, the National Military Command Center would authenticate the president’s launch codes before any strike was carried out.

Milley, as Trump’s senior military adviser, is not in the chain of command and does not have the ability to stop a launch. But he could try to persuade others not to comply. He does have informal influence as the military’s senior officer, so he could try to persuade others not to launch.

“Legally, I can’t think of anything Milley could do beyond reminding everyone who is actually involved in the chain of command that it is illegal to execute an illegal order,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I can’t think of anything else he can do legally.”

On the brighter side, Acton used the word "legally" at least two separate times. Also on the brighter side, we'll guess that discussions like this have been underway, behind the scenes, dating back to 2017. 

Have provisions been made to refuse to honor a command to launch a strike—on suburban Indiana, let's say? We have no way of knowing.

But on cable news, the various children have always refused to go to these worrisome places. Instead, they've spent the past several years selling us the product we like:

Sugarplums in which we're encouraged to imagine all The Others locked up.

That's the product the children have sold. Eagerly, we self-impressed people here in Our Town have lapped that product up.

Jake Tapper does it again!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2021

The culture of accurate statement: Jake Tapper has done it again. Yesterday, late in the four o'clock hour, he excitingly told viewers this:

TAPPER (1/7/21): Our thanks to CNN's Elle Reeve, with that firsthand look at the assault perpetrated by the MAGA terrorists on the heart of American democracy. As you heard, many of those that stormed the Capitol did so motivated by all kinds of false beliefs, including conspiracy theories. Yet another considerable challenge facing America in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.

And let us not forget, the horror that unfolded yesterday took place on one of the darkest days of the pandemic. The U.S. now nearing a daily average of 4,000 dead Americans every day. Hospitals across the country are overrun, and despite the ones promising silver lining of this vaccine, distribution issues continue to plague the entire nation, and they are proving that this pandemic is far from over, as CNN's Erica Hill reports.

Jake assailed the terrorists' "false beliefs," then authored one of his own.

"The U.S. [is] now nearing a daily average of 4,000 dead Americans every day," he said, referring to Covid deaths. But as Tapper made this gloomy statement, the Washington Post and the New York Times were reporting these seven-day averages:

Covid deaths per day, 7-day rolling average, through January 6:
The New York Times: 2,687
The Washington Post: 2,678

There's no perfect measure of daily deaths. But there's also no sign that the United States is experiencing anything like four thousand Covid deaths per day—at least, not at this point.

Tapper just won't stop doing this. In fact, was the United States really "nearing a daily average of 4,000 dead Americans every day" as the CNN tyro spoke?

Below, you see daily reported deaths as tabulated by the Washington Post for the previous eight days as Tapper spoke. We'll let you be the judge of Tapper's exciting statement:

Reported Covid deaths each day:
December 30: 3,862
December 31: 3,321
January 1: 2,620
January 2: 2,353
January 3: 1,453
January 4: 1,609
January 5: 3,478
January 6: 3,915

On January 6, for that one day, the Post did list almost four thousand reported deaths. But two and three days earlier, the number of reported deaths had been roughly 1,500 each day.

We've explained this bone-simple point about a million times. Anyone who has ever looked at any Covid data set will recognize this pattern, in which reported deaths drop over the weekend, with the reporting backlog made up on subsequent weekdays. 

(Holiday weekends tend to exaggerate the reporting delays.)

Has Tapper ever looked at any data set? If so, he's seen this familiar pattern. But as he spoke yesterday afternoon, there was exactly zero reason to make his exciting claim.

As Tapper spoke, the seven-day average was well under three thousand. He bumped it up almost to four. In fairness, though, there's a reason for this type of performance:

Within our multimillionaire press corps, there is amazingly little allegiance to the culture of accurate statement. When it comes to accurate statement, these titans simply don't care.

The children work from Storyline, the more exciting the better. This is the way we humans work. According to major anthropologists, this is the way we are.

Too perfect! Jake savaged the terrorists' false beliefs, then advanced one of his own! 

This is what we humans are like, according to major top experts. For this reason, long ago, we called it The Daily Howler.

How dangerous / crazy is Donald J. Trump?

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2021

Wolf Blitzer asks Colin Powell: How dangerous is Donald J. Trump in these last two weeks? 

We raised the question yesterday. During last evening's six o'clock hour, Wolf Blitzer asked Colin Powell.

The interview was strange at its start; Powell even became annoyed with Blitzer's peculiar questions. Eventually, the rubber met the road, with Powell saying this:

POWELL (1/7/20): I think [Trump] should be rebuked in some way. I'm just not sure that the right way is to try to invoke the 25th Amendment, which I doubt would be done by the 20th of January. And I think the same thing goes on with an impeachment.

But if the Congress wants to try it, that's their business, not mine. I would focus on the man himself, and make sure we know what he's doing for the next two weeks...But it's only, what, thirteen days?

BLITZER: Thirteen days.

POWELL: How do we get anything done in thirteen days in this? No, let's just get him out of office. I think he's teed up to get out of office.

Some people think he's going to do something, something crazy, some kind of military action. I don't think so, because I don't think he would have anybody in the government who would give him that kind of support.

Powell doesn't think that Trump will do something crazy. Some people think he will, but Powell isn't among them. 

Would Trump really need "support" from others to take military action? Blitzer didn't ask. Later, though, Powell said this:

BLITZER: The former Defense Secretary, William Cohen, a man you and I know well, he said today that President Trump's behavior—and I'm quoting him now—"calls into question his mental status."

Do you have concerns about his capacity, his mental fitness right now?

POWELL: You can't not have concerns about his mental fitness, when you see the way he behaves, the way he acts, and the things he does, and how he sort of gets off the rail.

He says one thing and then does something else. So, I think there's something to what Bill Cohen said. That's something else that we can do, turn over to mental authorities on the thirteenth day from here.

Powell is concerned about Trump's mental fitness, but he doesn't think the commander will do anything crazy. Also, we can have him locked in a padded cell after he leaves office!

This morning, on Morning Joe, the very alert Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) expressed a somewhat different view. 

"Everybody's really on edge," she said, concerning the possibility that Trump will take military action in Iran. She specifically cited the recent routing change of that aircraft carrier. No one asked about nukes.

Slotkin is impressive and sharp. Nobody asked her how crazy she thinks the commander probably is.

As a society, we bought this dilemma a long time ago, starting with Diane Sawyer. 

"Was sex with The Donald the best you ever had?" Sawyer posed the question to Marla Maples, who went ahead and answered. 

This bit of lowbrow entertainment helped build Sawyer's "journalistic" career. On the downside, it helped make Trump a very big man, and it's been straight downhill from there.

"Everybody's really on edge." So said Slotkin, to Mika and Joe.

BABEL AND GOMORRAH: Warnock pledges to speak to The Others!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2021

Morning Joe changes its tune: Who were all those people? Who were the people we're starting to see in all those photographs, in all that videotape?

Who were the people inside the Capitol, sometimes carrying furniture out, sometimes looting offices? Also, who were the people who stayed outside—the ones who didn't go in?

On the front page of today's New York Times, Tavernise and Rosenberg start trying to answer those questions. Due to the large number of people involved, it isn't the easiest job.

A whole lot of people were inside the Capitol, but even more stayed outside. In part for that reason, there will never be a bumper sticker which can tell us who they all were. 

To their credit, the journalists are trying to develop some answers. As we read their report, we were struck by the thought that some of the people who entered the Capitol may not be especially sharp:

TAVERNISE AND ROSENBERG (1/8/20): Some of those who had also surged forward in the crowd seemed to show a bewildered wonder at what they were seeing in front of them. A few remarked on the opulence of the Capitol building and offices, a quality that seemed to confirm their suspicions about the corruption of Washington.

“Yeah look at all this fancy furniture they have,” said a man in a winter parka and red hat, standing on the west side of the Capitol and peering through the glass at empty desks, computer screens and ergonomic chairs. Several people banged on the windows with their fists, including one man who shouted, “Put the coffee on!” One man hit his head, not seeing the outer layer of glass was there, it was so clean.

[...]

Aaron, the construction worker from Indianapolis, and his two friends had heard people talking about going to Ms. Pelosi’s office. So once inside they decided to instead find Senator Chuck Schumer’s office. Both are Democrats.

“We wanted to have a few words” with Mr. Schumer, he said. “He’s probably the most corrupt guy up here. You don’t hear too much about him. But he’s slimy. You can just see it.”

But they could not find Mr. Schumer’s office. He said they asked a Capitol Police officer, who tried to direct them. But they appeared to have gotten nowhere near the minority’s leader’s office. They ended up smoking a few cigarettes inside the building—“We can smoke in our house,” Aaron said—and one of his friends, who would not give his name, joked that he had gone to the bathroom and not flushed.

A woman in a coat sat on the couch in a small room with a blue carpet and watched as a man ripped a scroll with Chinese lettering hanging on the wall.

“We don’t want Chinese bullshit,” the woman said.

For a while, the reporters' anecdotes continue along in that vein. For the record, "those who stormed the Capitol were just one slice of the thousands of Trump supporters who had descended on Washington." Or so the reporters say.

In fairness, there actually is a lot of opulence inside the Capitol Building. Also, there actually is a fair amount of big-money corruption there. 

Of course, similar things can be said about our upper-end press. Similarly, many people within that guild aren't overwhelmingly sharp.

At any rate, one of Aaron's invader friends didn't choose to flush. A woman in a coat on a couch didn't want any Chinese bullshit. 

In these passages, it sounded like the invasion was staged by Dumb and Dumber—and, to some extent,  some of it surely was.

We humans! We're inclined to be somewhat tribal and somewhat dumb, no matter where you may find us. We're also somewhat inclined to end up in groups which may at times resemble cults, as was true with some of the people who were marauding within.

One such person, an unarmed woman, was shot and killed on Wednesday. As an aside, we've never seen so much disinterest, here in the overwrought streets of Our Town, at the news that an unarmed person was shot and killed by police! We've never heard the crickets so loud here in the streets of Our Town!

At any rate, some invaders sounded like Dumber. Others sounded worse.

It sounded like some were simply insane. Others seemed even more fallen:

TAVERNISE AND ROSENBERG: As the authorities try to identify those in the mob, some will be less hard to pin down than others. The group included some well-known figures from the conspiratorial right, including Jake Angeli, who has pushed the false QAnon claims that Mr. Trump was elected to save America from deep-state bureaucrats and prominent Democrats who worship Satan and abuse children. He was pictured sitting in Congress in a viking helmet and furs. Mr. Angeli, who is known as the “Q Shaman,” has been a fixture in the pro-Trump protests in Arizona since the election, and there are indications that he and other right-wing activists had planned to spark a confrontation with authorities ahead of Wednesday’s rally.

There were also leaders from the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose participants have espoused misogynistic and anti-immigrant views, such as Nick Ochs, a failed Hawaii state legislature candidate and member of a collective called “Murder the Media.” Chris Hood and members of his National Socialist Club, a neo-Nazi group, posted photos on Telegram from outside the Capitol on Wednesday. And the Three Percenters, a far-right armed group, were seen gathered in Washington’s Freedom Plaza on Tuesday night, most wearing helmets and Kevlar vests adorned with the group’s symbol, a Roman numeral three.

Some invaders may be something resembling insane. They may believe that Pelosi and Schumer are cannibalistic child abusers. Also, Pizzagate! They may have been driven by that!

Others are violent haters, members of "militias." They paraded in Viking helmets and furs, but also in Kevlar vests.

Along the way, we're now told, something like fifty officers were injured during the invasion. We're told that some of these officers were injured when they were attacked with lead pipes. 

We're told that something like fifteen officers have been hospitalized. One officer lost his life.

(Yevtushenko: "When a person dies, what is lost is not nothing.")

Today, on the basis of this new information, Morning Joe flipped on one of its group talking-points. 

Yesterday, the children on the exciting program kept dropping dark insinuations about Capitol Police posing for selfies with the invaders. This morning, while playing the exact same videotape, the children effusively praised the officers for all the courage they'd shown.

Yesterday, the program's backup videotape made no earthly sense. Today, that very same tape was explicitly cited as proof of one officer's courage. 

For the record, Joe and Mika and Willie were asking a perfectly valid question today. They were asking why the force had been understaffed and poorly supported when the invasion began. 

They were asking about the inadequate planning, an important question to ask. By today, they were even blaming Mayor Bowser for what had come about.

Ever so slowly, information will develop concerning the lack of adequate planning. Slowly, we'll get a better idea of how Wednesday's security breakdown occurred.

As we move slowly in that direction, "journalists" will leap into the void. They'll offer pleasing  narratives which focus solely on race.  After decades of total disinterest, this comes close to being the only play our "journalists" currently know.

This morning, the instant novel is everywhere. Apples are being compared to oranges, with kumquats and raisins thrown in.

The Storyline tends to be the same, and it's highly pleasing. We humans! In the streets of all our towns, information develops slowly. Narrative travels quite fast.

These Elite Journos Today! They keep inventing our modern Babel, a nation populated by tribes which can't speak to each other. No one has done this more than Trump, but it's also the way our famous journalists are strongly inclined to play.

Late Tuesday night, in Georgia, the newly-elected Senator Warnock worked from a different songbook. In a familiar, measured way, he promised to speak to all the people. He left no voter behind.

"Will we continue to divide, distract and dishonor one another? Or will we love our neighbors as we love ourselves?" 

This was part of what the newly-selected senator chose to say.

"Will we seek to destroy one another as enemies, or heed the call towards the common good, building together what Dr. King called the beloved community?" He said he would speak to all the people—even, imaginably, to those who aren't thoroughly sharp.

Following the footsteps of Dr. King, he said he'd speak to all the people, even perhaps to the fallen. Jesus Christ once said the same thing, and look where it got him!

He said he'd speak to all the people, even perhaps to the Morning Joe gang.

He said he'd speak to all the people.  All the people! Remember them?

Providers do the darnedest things!

 THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021

A day of annoying delays: Our WiFi provider went down this morning. They do the darnedest things!

This meant that we couldn't post for most of the day. Also, we couldn't check facts!

 

Information develops quite slowly!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021

Script emerges fast: On this morning's Morning Joe, we heard the following factual claims. We don't know if they're accurate:

We heard that the Capitol Hill police force has a total of 2200 officers. Only 500 were on duty yesterday, when the insurrection began.

Are those numbers accurate? We have no idea. 

We also heard that it's the House of Representatives, not the White House, which is in charge of that police force.

Is that statement accurate? We don't know that either!

We ask these questions for an obvious reason. During yesterday's insurrection, it looked like the police were badly outnumbered when the thundering herd arrived.

This morning, almost everyone seemed to agree that the police had been badly understaffed. But who was responsible for the apparent lack of foresight which went into staffing decisions?

Given the buildup to yesterday's action, why were so few officers on duty, and who had done the planning? As of this morning, no one seemed to know.

We'll make one basic point. Information tends to develop slowly. But script emerges very quickly, and everyone starts to recite.

Over here in the streets of Our Town, a pleasing script quickly emerged concerning yesterday's chaos. This pleasing script was built around race, as almost all favored Storylines currently are in Our Town.

Even in this morning's newspapers, everyone was reciting this new script. We humans memorize fast!

Nicholas Kristof recited the script. So did a news report on the Washington Post's front page. So did some letters in the New York Times. We just saw Biden state it.

On Morning Joe, they recited the instant script in extremely graphic ways. If the insurrectionists had been black, Joe himself said, "they would have been shot in the face!"

(He said that shortly after he unloosed his shouted performative F-bomb.)

Joe and Mika kept claiming that police officers had been posing for selfies with members of the horde. For whatever reason, they aired no photographs and no videotape of this alleged behavior. On the brighter side, this let us see how much they (suddenly) care about racial justice.

As we noted a week or so back, we sometimes seem to love our scripts more than we love life itself. In the last few years, all our scripts seem designed to show how much we care about racial justice, after decades of total disinterest.

That said, how accurate was this instant script? We can't tell you yet. We expect to return to that question in the days ahead, after information develops.

That's right—information. Information! Remember that?

BABEL AND GOMORRAH: Mika finally mentions the nukes!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2021

After that, silence prevails: Yesterday, as were typing our afternoon post, our nation's Babel exploded.

We had turned off our color TV during McConnell's original speech. By the time we'd finished our post, the insurrection had started.

Things were spinning out of control, in a way everyone could see. Today, at 8:08 A.M. Eastern, someone raised the ultimate question about the next thirteen days. 

It was Mika Brzezinski, co-hosting on Morning Joe. Mika raised the ultimate question as she introduced Colin Powell.

Like Fox, MSNBC no longer creates any transcripts, so can't post Mika's full statement. But in the course of her introduction, as she worried about the next thirteen days, we did transcribe, word for word, this seminal remark:

"The president has access to the nuclear codes."

Finally, someone had said it! In the course of asking a worried question about "the next thirteen days," Mika had raised the issue of Donald Trump's access to our nuclear weapons.

Donald J. Trump does in fact "hold the nuclear codes." Plainly, Mika was pointing to the possibility that he might choose to employ the codes before his term expires.

Citizens, how about it? Might the commander actually choose to use the nuclear codes?

We'd say the question answers itself.  Of course he might choose to do that!

In the course of the interview session with Powell, Mike Barnicle referred to Trump as being "badly deranged." But could he be so badly deranged that he'd use the nuclear codes?

Is it possible Trump is that badly deranged? Sadly, of course it is!

We're not saying that the troubled commander will decide to use the codes—we're simply saying there's no guarantee that he won't. We've cited this possibility all year long, as our corporate pundits gamboled and played and worked from their top Storylines.

This morning, it finally happened! With perfect clarity, a worried Brzezinski cited the fact that our "dangerous / deranged" commander in chief "has access to the nuclear codes."

Finally, Mika seemed to be raising this point! After that, needless to say, the children returned to their norms:

First, no one followed up on Mika's statement during the segment with Powell. No one asked Powell about any possible danger involving those nuclear codes.

At one point, Powell almost went there himself. He said that, in the next thirteen days, Pentagon officials will refuse to obey any "illegal orders" from Trump.

He even referred to our "nuclear weapons" at one point as he spoke. But what if our "badly deranged" commander-in-chief decides to use those nuclear weapons? Does any fail-safe prevent that?

None of the pundits asked. After Mika floated her point of concern, the topic was totally dropped.

In the case of Donald J. Trump and the nukes, there was a second part to this morning's avoidance. Part 2 went like this:

"The next thirteen days could be very dangerous," Mika said at 8:41, long after the interview with Powell had ended. A bit earlier, at 8:23, she had restated a recommendation, one the various pundits had been making all morning:

Mika's suggestion was this: The 25th amendment should be employed, turning Trump out of office. 

Suddenly, everyone wants to do that. Our question would be this:

Depending on how "badly deranged" the commander might be, might the suggestion of termination turn his thoughts toward use of the nukes—against Iran, let's say?  (We recall the way HAL the computer reacted when he realized that the crew was planning to turn him off.)

Could an attempt to terminate Trump possibly trigger use of the nukes? Follow citizens, let's use our heads:

 Yes, it presumably could!

We've selected this as our focus today because of what Mika said. As part of a worried introduction, she specifically mentioned President Trump's "access to the nuclear codes."

The point of her statement was perfectly clear; she was raising a gruesome but serious point. And then, of course, everyone agreed to disappear her point.

For the record, this is what  the guild has done, for the past several years, concerning the commander's psychiatric / cognitive state. And of course, they've refused to discuss quite a few other topics down through the many long years.

It's true that Trump has created a world of mis- and disinformation over the past decade. (He started his brain-dead birther crusade in 2011.) At one point, Powell said that 35 percent of the nation has bought into the current "idiocy" concerning November's election.

It's true! Trump has created a largescale idiocracy through his endless crackpot assertions. But the mainstream press corps played the same game for many years before that. 

In the process, they senr George W. Bush to the White House, then Trump after that. As we've described in great detail, they were building a culture of propaganda and disinformation long before Trump emerged as a master of the practice.

They kept inventing Al Gore's "lies" and obsessing about his earth tones. They wouldn't let up on Hillary's emails. Plus, she'd mistreated Gennifer Flowers! 

Also, Uranium One! All this in the New York Times! 

The children of the upper-end press will never discuss that terrible disinformation-based history. What happens inside the MSM will always, by law, remain there.

This morning, the children were extremely upset about the insurrection. On Morning Joe, Scarborough even began the day with a shouted, performative F-bomb.

The children were very disturbed. They discussed the Babel Trump has created, steered away from the Babels they own.

What might this commander decide to do next? We have no way of knowing.

We've long described him as a dangerous man. According to major anthropologists, the conduct of our corporate pundits has long been dangerous too.

Also heard this morning: Also heard on Morning Joe:

General Barry McCaffrey described the commander as a "dangerous man" who is "melting down."  He said "there's no check legally on his ability to give [military] orders."

No one asked about the nukes. It simply isn't done!

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg referred to Trump's "psychiatric breakdown." He then apologized for "putting it so directly."

Jeffrey Goldberg is perfectly sharp—but those are the rules of the road.

Donald J. Trump is "badly deranged." He's suffered a "psychiatric breakdown." Also, "there's no check legally on his ability to give [military] orders."

So should we worry about the nukes? Citizens, please! Don't ask!

How disordered is Donald J. Trump?

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

Anne Applebaum's assessment: At this point, with two weeks to go, how disordered is President Donald J. Trump?

You're asking a very good question! For what it's worth, here is Anne Applebaum's assessment of the commander's recent midday phone call to Georgia, as published in the Atlantic:

APPLEBAUM (1/5/21): If you can spare an hour, do listen to the full tape of the conversation between the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. Whichever adjective you use to describe Trump—delusional, demented, narcissistic—this recording shows that he is unwell. His grip on reality is loose. He is by turns insulting (“They’re going around playing you and laughing at you behind your back, Brad. Whether you know it or not, they’re laughing at you”) and wheedling (“So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break”) and threatening (“You know what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal offense.”)

He has weirdly specific, made-up numbers. He cites stories of “fraud” that have been thoroughly debunked. He never explains why the people who allegedly stole the presidential election didn’t steal the two Senate seats in Georgia while they were at it. He is unable to face the fact that he has comprehensively lost. He is grasping at conspiracy theories that offer him a false vision of the future—and yet he sounds completely convinced that they are true.

The commander-in-chief "is unwell," Applebaum writes. "His grip on reality is loose." When he makes his various crazy claims, "he sounds completely convinced that they are true."

So how unwell is Donald J. Trump? Aside from such concerns as derive from basic human decency, the question strikes us as very important. 

Yes, he only has two weeks to go—but he remains the most powerful person on earth. Depending on how unwell he may be, what actions might he decide to take as he sees the end approach?

Applebaum doesn't address that question in the rest of her essay. Instead, she offers a fairly standard assessment of the people who enable Trump—the political leaders who know better, the regular people who don't.

Basically, there's nothing new about the behavior of those elected officials. Decades ago, Williams Shakespeare described some of the ways we human beings will pursue power. (He even described the growing madness of an aged king, though one who lacked nuclear codes.)

By way of contrast, the behavior of the rank and file may well seem surprising. The limits of our human discernment may well come as a surprise.

We're constantly told, by political pundits, that we the people "are pretty sharp"—and that isn't exactly always the case, even over here in Our Town. At any rate, for some remarkable footage of us the people as we heckle and badger Mitt Romney, we'll suggest that you peruse Elliott Hannon's offering at Slate.

How "unwell" is Donald J. Trump? The question strikes us as important. But right to the end, the tribunes we trust in Our Town have agreed that they must never consult any medical specialists about that important question. 

We can see the flaws of the folks over there. But how sharp are we here, in Our Town?

BABEL AND GOMORRAH: Abrams yes, Katyal no!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2021

Lessons in building a Babel: Does Donald J. Trump believe the various things he's been saying? Does he believe the various things he said in last Saturday's phone call?

We can't answer your questions. That said, deep within the cable guild which almost wholly prevails in Our Town, one reliable overpaid pundit said that he actually does:

HEILEMANN (1/4/20): He clearly has come to believe more than he did months ago, back in like middle of November, he's clearly come to believe more, and reporting suggests that this is true, that he really actually believes these conspiracy theories now. 

This is not just a political ploy. He believes the craziest of the conspiracy theories now. 

Heilemann spoke on Deadline White House. Is his assessment accurate? 

We have no way to answer that question. That said, does it matter if Trump is so disordered that he actually believes his various claims? We'd say that it actually does.

On the one hand, who knows what this man might do, in the next two weeks, if he's that disordered? Might he start a war, then attempt to declare martial law? 

We don't know if he'll do that. But if he's as crazy as he seems, who can swear that he won't?

There's another way in which it matters if Trump is so disordered that he really believes his claims. Quite a few legal experts have noted the following point. Indeed, Rick Hasen did so on that same Deadline White House program:

If Trump really believes that the Georgia election is being stolen, then it's much less clear that he may have committed some state or federal crime during that telephone call.

If Trump believes his disordered claims, he isn't asking state officials to engage in an act of fraud. Instead, he's asking them to do their jobs—to stop taking part in the conspiracy by which the election was stolen.

Thus spake Hasen on Deadline White House; others have made the same point. Needless to say, this point is being completely ignored within the highly scripted cable world which has long prevailed in Our Town.

Lock him up! our sachems have cried, borrowing directly from Trump. On Monday, these pundits spilled onto cable TV, renewing this sacred war cry.

Briefly, though, let's be fair! Before they described their plans to lock him up, they offered their mafia citations. 

In our view, Chris Cuomo has almost completely fallen apart under the stress of the Trump years. Here are some of his remarks, made in the first few minutes of Monday night's TV show:

CUOMO (1/4/20): Put a pinky ring on this guy's little hand. He is nothing but a mob boss. 

[...]

He has no proof of any of that. He offered no proof of any of that, but it's going to be costly. Is he going to sleep with the fishes? Scorsese never had a more obvious malefactor in his films.

[...]

But the Re-Trump-licans, they're just pawns to a garrulous gangster. He even gave them mobby nicknames, right? "Lyin' Ted," "Little Marco." 

Sadly, it's true. Cuomo has become so childish that he now routinely uses the term "Re-Trump-licans" as  part of his news presentation. 

(We're taking the term straight from the CNN transcript. Also, note the "little hand" dish.)

Meanwhile, back when Trump was childishly referring to Lyin' Ted and Little Marco, did anyone think or say, even once, that this sounded like "mobby" behavior? 

We're prepared to assume that the answer is no. But pundits knew, during Monday's shows, that such references had to be offered. On Deadline White House, Heilemann quickly said this about the tape of the telephone call:

     "As Carol said, the mafia don thing—and that Andrew talked about—that is very much there."

In this instant remark, Heilemann joined Nicolle Wallace's two other guests in emitting the "mafia" whistle (Carol Leonnig, Andrew Weissmann). On Monday afternoon and evening, pleasing whistles of this type were proof that a pundit belonged.

The cable clatter this Monday was very deeply scripted. We kept flashing back to 1999 and 2000, when every (mainstream) pundit knew that allusion had to be made to the lying and the dishonesty of reviled Candidate Gore. Also, his heinous clothes!

(Children are dead all over Iraq because these idiots did this. They continued their whistles about Hillary Clinton until they got Trump elected.)

According to Heilemann, Trump actually believes that he's being defrauded, but he's acting like a mafia don when he complains about this to two of the malefactors! This may not exactly make perfect sense, but since both claims involve mocking denunciation of Trump, the logic won't be parsed.

No questions will ever be asked. Chuckling will be allowed, even as we say we have no idea what this man might do.

American discourse has functioned this way for a good many years. In our view, behavior like this provides obvious lessons in ways to build a Babel.

Last evening's (apparent) double win reflected a different kind of conduct. As we noted a few weeks ago, Stacey Abrams did something in the past decade which no one ever does. 

In the past several years, Stacey Abrams rolled up her sleeves and actually accomplished something. This is almost never done at this particular point in time. In this age of cable Babel, you never see anyone do this!

Tomorrow, we'll talk about Raphael Warnock. He also accomplished something last night—and in his remarks, he showed a strong inclination to tear down the walls within our growing Babel.

For today, we'll direct your attention to those who cried, "Lock him up." They seemed aware of no other way to approach our very large national problem. We'll also mention Neal Katyal, who wants to see Trump re-impeached.

Yes, it's actually true! While Lawrence was urging Fulton County's new D.A. to bring criminal charges against Trump, Katyal was saying that Trump should be impeached all over again. 

His column was published by the New York Times. With two weeks to go in Donald Trump's term, Katyal says we should just impeach him all over again. Also, we should do this:

KATYAL AND KOPPLEMAN (1/4/20): In 2008, a young member of the Judiciary Committee said, “The business of high crimes and misdemeanors goes to the question of whether or not the person serving as president of the United States put their own interests, their personal interests, ahead of public service.” That congressman’s name was Mike Pence—and he was exactly right.

We need to convict President Trump and make sure he can never call the White House home again.

Given the rules of the game, on what planet could this highly disordered commander-in-chief be impeached and convicted? Meanwhile, to what extent would we be building higher walls within our Babel as this endeavor took place?

Over the past several years, the cable TV on view in Our Town has been dominated by the legal beagles. They own one hammer—the spotting of crimes—and they keep driving their nails.

This group is astoundingly single-minded; watching them, we've occasionally thought that we finally knew why our prisons seem to be full of innocent people. Also, their projections as cable pundits are extremely poor. 

They spent the better part of two years swearing that the sainted Mueller would soon be locking him up. He already has the tax records, they told us night after night after night. 

They entertained and pleased us this way for a couple of years. Then, the real Mueller emerged.

According to major anthropologists, we humans are wired this way. We're wired to split ourselves into tribes, then to march off to war with The Others.

We're wired to construct tribal realms within the walls of our Babel. Each tribe will speak to itself, and to no one else, until we finally get our war.

Last night, the newly-elected Senator Warnock gave voice to a different idea.

Tomorrow: What Warnock said

Prevailing values here in Our Town...

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2021

...where nobody cares about black kids: What sorts of values prevail over here within our self-impressed town?

Over there, in Their Town, the racists prevail. Everybody understands that fact—but what values prevail in Our Town?

Yesterday morning, the New York Times published a very unusual set of letters. These letters challenged one of the most noxious values on wide display in Our Town.

Over here, within Our Town, we care about one set of kids. We care about that set of kids who might end up going to Yale.

The rest of the kids can go straight to Hell; they can go hang in the yard. We see this value put on display every time the New York Times discusses New York's public schools.

The New York Times cares about one group of kids. It cares about kids who might end up at one of Gotham's academically high-powered "specialized" high schools. 

The newspaper care about nobody else. Anyone who doesn't understand this doesn't read this utterly gruesome, utterly faux Hamptons-based upper-class newspaper.

Recently, the editorial board was at it again, seeking ways to get more black and Hispanic kids into those "specialized" high schools. All other black and Hispanic kids can pretty much go straight to Hell.

These are the values of the Times. Those who don't understand this fact don't read this particular newspaper. 

Yesterday morning, the Times published several letters objecting to this ideology. The letters appeared beneath a headline which captured the values which prevail in Our Town. That headline went like this:

        Casting a Wider Net for Elite School Admission

In Our Town, we care about kids who attend "elite" schools. We care about no other kids.

Yesterday's letters appeared beneath that headline. Amazingly, the first letter went exactly like this:

The New York Times is once again trumpeting a misguided and counterproductive solution to the underrepresentation of Black and Latino students in the city’s specialized high schools. Don’t attack the entrance exam that has successfully produced a prodigious cadre of graduates for decades—Nobel laureates; Pulitzer Prize winners; distinguished leaders in the arts, sciences, business and government. Rather, it’s the root cause that must be addressed, namely, the lack of preparation students receive in grades K-8.

Gifted students deserve and require special settings and opportunities. That means universal screening in elementary school, and challenging and nurturing programs once the most capable students are identified. The mayor’s plan to remove academic admission screening for middle schools for at least a year does nothing to address the deficient preparation that too many Black and Latino students receive, and that is where our efforts and finances should be directed. There are no shortcuts. Attacking entrance standards is simply a cover-up, concealing the financial and moral commitment the city has been reluctant to make.

Stanley Blumenstein
Hewlett, N.Y.
The writer is an alumnus and a former principal of the Bronx High School of Science.

Good God! Let's think about what that letter says.

For starters, understand this. The vast majority of Gotham kids will never attend the city's handful of specialized high schools. 

At present, black and Hispanic kids are in fact vastly "underrepresented" in those "elite" schools. Amazingly, the letter-writer actually cares about why that is.

As we've noted again and again, extremely large "achievement gaps" obtain between different demographic groups in New York City's public schools, as is true almost everywhere else. But you aren't allowed to learn that fact in the New York Times. 

At the New York Times, black kids who are doing poorly in school can just go hang in the yard. The Times cares about getting a few more black kids into Stuyvesant High. It cares about nothing and no one else.

If anything, we'd criticize Blumenstein's letter for being a bit sanguine and soft. The letter suggests that these very large achievement gaps result from deficiencies in public school performance starting in kindergarten.

The actual story is more challenging than that. But you will hear no part of this story in the New York Times.

Blumenstein attacks the Times for turning its back on the nature and size of the problem. For the record, the Times does so for an obvious reason:

Except for purposes of performative virtue, the New York Times doesn't seem to give a fig about the lives of black or Hispanic kids.

The next two letters in Monday's pile also challenge the New York Times' ugly tunnel vision. Meanwhile, good God almighty! The third letter said this:

The city’s specialized and other elite public high schools have been successful precisely as an outcome of the admissions system, and access is highly coveted. The unrepresentative selection of students that The Times decries is not a result of any bias inherent in the admissions process itself. Rather, it is because the supply has remained constant despite an overwhelming increase in demand.

Attempting to foster diversity by changing the input mechanism seems misguided. Instead, why not add more high schools that admit based on the same criteria?

[NAME WITHHELD]
New York

The writer is a Stuyvesant High School alumnus.

Good God! Someone has actually suggested adding seats to these high-powered schools, or creating other high-powered schools, rather than simply admitting more black kids to Stuyvesant High and kicking the Asian kids out!

As best we can tell, the writer is not an education specialist. He may not realize that those achievement gaps are so large that, even if you doubled the number of seats at these high-powered schools, those seats would still be dominated by Asian-American kids unless you found some way to liberalize entrance requirements.

That brings us back to Blumenstein's letter. What do we do for the many kids who are years behind in school? They aren't prepared for a high-powered academic experience in high school; they will never be going to Yale. How do we address their needs in schools—their need for academic skills, their need for a good personal experience in school from kindergarten on?

At the Times, you'll never see such questions addressed. At the Times, those low-achieving kids can all go hang in the yard.

One last point:

You will never see this topic address by Rachel, Lawrence or Brian. You'll never see Rachel discuss the needs of low-income kids. In the highly faux world of Rachel Maddow, those kids can go hang in the yard.

Despite the ways we posture and pose, these values do prevail in Our Town. Whether we understand it or not, this actually is who we are over here in Our Town.

The others are aware of this fact. It's only unknown to us.

BABEL AND GOMORRAH: Donald J. Trump gets on the phone!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2021

But does he believe what he says?: Saturday morning, a C-Span caller from North Dakota taught an important anthropology lesson to that channel's viewers.

Aristotle is said to have said that man [sic] is the rational animal. In a modern adaptation, establishment pundits routinely say that we, the American people, are pretty sharp.

Within our culture, we humans tend to flatter ourselves in such ways. But then, along came the caller from Bismarck, explaining why he doesn't plan to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

To review the caller's full statement, see yesterday's report. Here's the (highly instructive) closing passage:

JOHN FROM BISMARCK (1/2/20): Plus, I know this might sound kinda weird, but I'm a, I'm a movie buff, and I've watched World War Z and I Am Legend. And those movies, all that trouble came after people got the vaccinations. It wasn't disease that caused all the issues, it was the vaccination. So that's my thoughts.

In two Hollywood films, vaccination led to zombification. While he knew that his reasoning might sound weird, the caller cited this as part of his reason for eschewing vaccination.

Similar calls are fielded by C-Span every day of the week. They help us see the actual way many good, decent people perform their cogitations about events of this type.  

All too often, we the humans just aren't enormously sharp. A similar episode is reported today in the New York Times.

Why did that Wisconsin pharmacist deliberately spoil 500 doses of Covid vaccine last week? Here too, we receive an anthropology lesson concerning the way we people sometimes reason:

DEWAN AND NOLAN (1/5/20): A pharmacist who was arrested on charges that he intentionally sabotaged more than 500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine at a Wisconsin hospital was “an admitted conspiracy theorist” who believed the vaccine could harm people and “change their DNA,” according to the police in Grafton, Wis., where the man was employed.

The police said Steven Brandenburg, 46, who worked the night shift at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., had twice removed a box of vials of the Moderna vaccine from the refrigerator for periods of 12 hours, rendering them “useless.”

“Brandenburg admitted to doing this intentionally, knowing that it would diminish the effects of the vaccine,” the police said.

The attempt to destroy precious doses of the vaccine came over the holidays as the state worked to administer vaccines quickly to frontline health care workers. As of Saturday, the state had received 159,800 doses of vaccines and had administered 64,657, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the Moderna product is sometimes described as a “genetic” vaccine, it does not alter a person’s genes in any way.

As President Reagan might have said, "There we went again!" Meanwhile, who knows? It's always possible that this fellow had been influenced by World War Z too!

How much of this type of cogitation is out there? It's hard to quantify a matter like that, but ideation associated with Trumpism has moved through a well-known chain of false-to-crazy beliefs.

It started with the belief that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. It moved to the belief that Hillary Clinton was holding children in sexual slavery in a Washington, D.C. pizza joint.

From there, the ideation moved on to the QAnon theory, according to which the world is run by a cabal of cannibalistic child abusers. Also, there's all those things the president said during his recent phone call.

Does Trump believe the various things he said during that midday call to Georgia, which lasted just over an hour? We'll admit that the crazy, pitiful call increased our sense that he quite possibly does believe the various things he's been saying of late.

Quite a few others have said the same thing about Trump in the past 48 hours. We'll post John Heilemann's assessment below, but first we'll offer this thought:

We were struck by the dumbness of President Trump—by his remarkable lack of intellectual sophistication—when we encountered one of the statements he made on the phone that day. Pitifully but typically, the commander-in-chief actually said this at one point:

TRUMP (1/2/20): Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots in Fulton County? Because that’s what the rumor is. And also that Dominion took out machines. That Dominion is really moving fast to get rid of their, uh, machinery. Do you know anything about that? Because that’s illegal...

Were ballots shredded in Fulton County? According to Trump, his inquiring mind wanted to know "because that’s what the rumor is!"

The commander in chief had heard a rumor; now he was checking it out. It was a wondrously unguarded remark, one which leads us back to our question:

Does he believe all this stuff?

It is possible that Donald J. Trump believes that he won the election?  We'll admit that Saturday's telephone call makes us think, once again, that he quite possibly does—that he actually is that disordered in the cognitive realm.

It seems to us that Donald J. Trump may really believe this stuff! But you don't have to take it from us. Below, you see what John Heilemann has now said.

Heilemann, a trusted guardian of upper-end script, was reciting for Nicole Wallace on yesterday's Deadline White House. When he got his chance to speak, he joined Nicole's two other guests in reciting the scripted claim that Trump sounded like a mafia don, mafioso or capo during the telephone call.

By now, that's mandated script. But as Heilemann continued, he tried to explain why Wallace had found the tape of the phone call so hard to listen too. You can watch the video here, but this is what Heilemann said:

HEILEMANN (1/4/20): Part of my thinking gets to what made it hard for you to listen to. There are a bunch of D-words that come to mind, right? 

There's the desperation in his voice. There's the derangement and the delusion. He clearly has come to believe more than he did months ago, back in like middle of November, he's clearly come to believe more, and reporting suggests that this is true, that he really actually believes these conspiracy theories now. 

This is not just a political ploy. He believes the craziest of the conspiracy theories now. 

According to Heilemann, Trump really believes his various claims at this point in time. Trump believes even the craziest claims, Heilemann said.

According to Heilemann, Trump really believed, when he spoke on the phone, that he actually won the Georgia election. He believed that hundreds of thousands of votes had been stolen or manufactured, and that the people to whom he was speaking were part of this large conspiracy.

According to Heilemann, the master commander believes these crazy claims. And as he extended his list of D-words, Heilemann noted a point of concern:

HEILEMANN (continuing directly): So the derangement, the delusion, the detachment from reality. The thing you said a second ago—he sounds damaged. 

He sounds like a damaged person, and there's something deeply upsetting and unnerving  about hearing a president of the United States in these final days when all of us are just like counting the minutes that we hope we can escape safely with the country intact by January 20. 

The level of damage that's on display here, you think to yourself, "What wouldn't this guy do?" And I think that's part of why the whole thing is so unnerving.

Trump sounds damaged, Heilemann said. This led him to pose a very good question—what wouldn't this damaged guy do?

Heilemann went on to mention one more D-word.  "Just how dumb could you be?" he asked, referring to Trump's decision to plead his case to the Georgia officials. 

In truth, we found ourselves asking that same question as Heilemann funneled his thoughts about the phone call into a string of D-words. But also, as he stated that point of concern:

      You think to yourself, "What wouldn't this [damaged] guy do?"  

For ourselves, we've long believed that that's an extremely good question. But Heilemann—dumb as a rock and twice as scripted—didn't consider the horrible possibility we ourselves have long had in mind.

We're focusing on one question today—does Trump believe his own twaddle? According to Heilemann, yes, he does—and also, Trump is damaged.

According to Heilemann, Trump's damaged state is "unnerving." But even at this very late date, Wallace didn't ask a psychologist or a medical specialist to comment on the commander's possible emotional and/or cognitive state. Nor did she explore the most important question as she chuckled along with her guests:

How dangerous might this disordered person actually turn out to be?

Tomorrow, we'll move ahead to that question, but also to the massive scripting which has dominated programs like Deadline White House in the past 48 hours. Over here, within Our Town, all the players know their lines, much as QAnon devotees know the outlines of their lunatic tales in this, our modern Babel.

In this, our modern Babel, the QAnon types recite their tales, as do the various political hacks who are enabling Trump in his endless claims and machinations.

Those political players—the Hawleys, the Cruzes—are sticking to their current scripts. So are the obedient players hauled out for Deadline White House.

Each group has its own language, assembled from first cousins to rumor. So goes this, our modern Babel, in these final days.

Tomorrow: "Lock him up!"

Rep. Swalwell, unmasked!

MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2021

Shamelessness versus starvation: It pains us to say it, but we'll assume that Rep. Eric Swalwell is a good, decent person.

Now for an admission:

It has always seemed to us that, in spite of his obvious decency, Swalwell's picture should be in the dictionary next to the phrase, "callow youth." That said, nothing prepared us for what we were forced to endure last evening.

Swalwell appeared on MSNBC to discuss the possibility of getting Trump locked up in jail. He was wearing a face mask which carried this slogan:

      Good Trouble

"Good Trouble!" That was, of course, the trademark phrase of the late Rep. John Lewis, a man who literally put his life on the line, on the bridge leading out of Selma, in the battle for civil rights.

Last night, there was Rep. Swalwell, appropriating the phrase. You could see the [decency]-eating grin right through the aforementioned mask!

There's simply no end to the shamelessness. Truly, we are horrible people, even when we're decent and good and even when part of our tribe.

The values here in Our Town: Concerning the values of our tribe, we recommend Nicholas Kristof's unusual column in yesterday's New York Times. 

The column concerns the starvation of children around the world. Our question:

What are the chances you'll ever see any such  topic discussed on our team's favorite TV programs? 

We'll hear about Spiro T. Agnew's lunch money. But will we ever hear anything said about anything dimly like that?

You know what they'll be discussing tonight. Is it all entertainment, a con?

Compare and contrast. Take turns and discuss.  In what way is Bill "defunct?"

STARTING TOMORROW: Babel and Gomorrah!

MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2021

Intellectual, moral disorder: On Saturday morning, we sat down—with the analysts arrayed around us—for one of the two "sacred hours" we try to observe each week.

It was 7 A.M. Eastern—time for C-Span's Washington Journal to spend an hour taking phone calls from viewers. As the program began, Jesse Holland defined the day's question: 

Do you plan to get vaccinated against the coronavirus? 

The standard collection of phone calls rolled in, almost always from good, decent people. At 7:43 A.M., an instructive exchange occurred.

The caller was calling from Bismarck, North Dakota. And no, he said, he wasn't planning to accept vaccination. 

We've transcribed the exchange in full. At the 43-minute mark, you can hear the full exchange here:

JESSE (1/2/20): Let's go to John, who's calling from Bismarck, North Dakota. And John says no, he will not be getting the Covid-19 vaccine. John, good morning. 

JOHN: Good morning. I don't plan on getting it. I've had friends that got Covid and they, they survived. It's a 98% survivability rate. And the ones that survived, they said it was not a really big deal. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't a pleasant experience but they—it took them a week, ten days and they were over it, and now they got the antibodies. They got tested for antibodies and they got it.

And I just don't think it's necessary for me.  I'm healthy, I don't have any comorbidities, I'm under the age of 60. It just doesn't—it doesn't concern me at all. I don't have anybody in my life that's close to me who's elderly or has comorbidities, and I just don't think it's necessary. 

Plus, I know this might sound kinda weird, but I'm a, I'm a movie buff, and I've watched World War Z and I Am Legend. And those movies, all that trouble came after people got the vaccinations. It wasn't disease that caused all the issues, it was the vaccination. So that's my thoughts.

John knew that last remark sounded strange, but he offered it anyway. Before we focus on that final remark, let's summarize the various things he said.

Plainly, John is familiar with some of the variables which affect the degree of threat the coronavirus provides. He's under sixty, and he has no comorbidities. On this basis, and on several others, he said he thinks that vaccination isn't necessary for him.

For ourselves, we wouldn't agree with that reasoning, but John displayed a basic familiarity with some of the fundamentals of the Covid threat. Then, he added another point. Let's restate what he said:

Plus, I know this might sound kinda weird, but I'm a, I'm a movie buff, and I've watched World War Z and I Am Legend. And those movies, all that trouble came after people got the vaccinations. It wasn't disease that caused all the issues, it was the vaccination. So that's my thoughts.

Yes, that's what he said. If you listen to the tape, you will note the following:

This C-Span caller was totally serious when he stated this line of reasoning. Although he knows his reasoning might sound weird, you won't hear the slightest sign that his comment was tongue in cheek.

In short, John said that he has seen vaccination lead to chaos in a pair of Hollywood films. In part on this basis, he won't be accepting the Covid vaccine, he told C-Span's giant audience.

Full disclosure—we've never seen World War Z. That said, the leading authority on the film describes it as "a 2013 American apocalyptic zombie action horror film." 

The leading authority doesn't specify that World Wat Z is fictional. Because we've never seen the film, we don't know if its (fictional) events proceed in the way John described.

We have seen chunks of I Am Legend. According to that same authority, it unfolds in the following (fictional) manner:

In 2009, a genetically re-engineered measles vaccine, originally created as a cure for cancer, turns lethal. The vaccine kills 90% (5.4 billion out of 6.0 billion) of the world's population and turns 9.8% (588 million) into vampiric, albino, zombie-like, cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. The remaining 0.2% (12 million) of the population is immune to the virus and is the prey of the mutant Darkseekers.

Warning! The events described in that synopsis were fictional in nature!

John has seen both these zombie films, each of which did big business worldwide. In part on the basis of what he saw in these films, he has decided that he won't be taking the Covid vaccine.

That part of John's reasoning struck us as very poor. But so it tends to go, each weekend morning, during these sacred hours.

John was calling C-Span from a very red state. Beyond that, he had reached a somewhat "red state"-friendly conclusion concerning the Covid vaccines. 

For these reasons, it's easy for us in the streets of Our Town to dismiss John as one of "those people." Indeed, it's long been a basic part of our sacred tribal belief:

     The dumbbells are all Over There.

For ourselves, we'd say that John's reasoning was extremely poor.  As noted, very strange reasoning is a regular part of C-Span programming during each weekend's sacred hours. 

Very strange reasoning is quite common whenever C-Span takes phone calls. Despite this fact, it's long been part of upper-end pundit scripting to declare that "the American people are pretty sharp." 

When we see major pundits in Our Town currying favor in this way, we sometimes wonder if they've ever tuned in to Washington Journal.

(Full disclosure: In 1999 and 2000, we appeared on the program three times.)

It's easy for us, over here in Our Town, to regard John as one of "those people." In the next few weeks, we'll be asking an heretical question:

To what extent do we self-impressed folk over here in Our Town resemble those found Over There?

We'll be examining the intellectual infrastructure on wide display in Our Town. Beyond that, we'll start to look at the basic values which prevail in the streets of Our Town, including the values which prevail in Our Town concerning our Hollywood movies.

Within the realm of intellect, we in our country are all trapped inside a modern Babel. Within the realm of basic values, it can almost be said that we're living in a type of dim-witted modern Gomorrah.

Is it possible that our intellectual infrastructure is a giant mess even here in Our Town? Is it possible that, if it weren't for our famous performative virtue, we'd come up a bit short in the streets of Our Town with respect to values as well?

Tomorrow, we'll be starting our analysis with Donald J. Trump's recent phone call—but also, with the reaction to that phone call overheard in the streets of Our Town. We'll be focusing on the intellectual skills, or the lack of same, we bring to our instant critiques.

We won't likely focus on values until the start of next week. But when we do, we may look at the way the New York Times has normalized the devolving  values of some very big Hollywood films. Can any society with values like ours really expect to thrive?

Here within our failing nation, we're living inside a strikingly obvious modern Babel. Our warring tribes are able to speak to themselves and to no one else. Each tribe has its own sacred language.

When it comes to our nation's values, we've been watching some Hollywood films of late. We've also been watching our own tribe's highly entertaining "cable news" TV shows, where the values can be very poor.

Tomorrow, we'll start with the president's recent phone call. Things will go downhill from there.

Tomorrow: "Do you think it’s possible that they shredded ballots? Because that’s what the rumor is."

A snapshot from last year's final day!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2021

Only The Others were wrong: In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks presents a column, rich with links to academic studies, concerning the claim that diversity training generally fails to produce good results. 

Brooks even links to one essay in the journal, Anthropology Now!

We haven't read the studies yet. On its face, we suspect that Brooks' column makes various good points. (As the column proceeds. Brooks presents a possible alternate way to reduce workplace discrimination.)

We suspect that Brooks' column makes sense. In one respect, we'd go beyond what Brooks says about such programs:

We suspect that such programs are especially counterproductive when their facilitators behave in ridiculous ways and make ridiculous claims as part of the mandated training. Such ridiculous claims and behaviors are not unknown here in Our Town.

We expect to peruse the studies to which Brooks has linked. That said, another reader seems to have reacted somewhat differently to the new year's newest column.

Among the many comments to Brooks' column, you can see her comment under "Reader Picks." In fact, her comment ranks second highest in the number of recommendations received from other readers of the column. 

The comment appeared on last year's final day, when the column appeared online. The comment goes like this:

COMMENTER FROM MARYLAND (12/31/20): The reason I find Brooks hard to read is gems like:

"This is the year when millions of Americans—and not just your political opponents—seemed impervious to evidence."

Actually, it WAS just my political opponents who spent the year denying the most undeniable facts. There is only one political party that seeks to drag America into unending inequality, grievance, and sickness. They are the problem here.

Do better, Brooks and NYT.

In this reader's mind, it was the others, and nobody else, who misbehaved last year. The others were the problem, full stop. Things were and are fine in Our Town.

This reader was reacting to a throwaway statement at the start of Brooks' column. For ourselves, we would have advised Brooks not to include the quoted remark, if only because it would generate such reactions.

That said, we post this reader's comment, as a new year begins, in tribute to humankind's oldest known problem. We humans are wired to think this way, disconsolate major top anthropologists have repeatedly sadly alleged.