The media can be ideological diverse without conservatives

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

Quote

May 6, 2018 9:00 pm

The Liberal Media Can Have Ideological Diversity Without Conservatives

By Eric Levitz

 

Donald Trump’s election exposed the irrelevance of conservative intellectuals — and thereby, the incoherence of many a liberal publication’s mission statement.

During the 2016 primaries, the right-wing intelligentsia mobilized in opposition to Trump. In op-eds, public letters, and a special issue of the National Review, Republican thought leaders warned the GOP base that the mogul disdained the core tenets of their shared faith — a demagogue who praised political violence was no defender of the Constitution; a libertine who shouted his sexcapades from the rooftops was no guardian of family values; an isolationist who decried NATO and the war in Iraq couldn’t be trusted to exert American leadership on the world stage; and a cretin who endorsed universal health care would never cut “big government” down to size. Through 12 nationally televised debates, Trump’s Republican rivals echoed these arguments; the front-runner rarely bothered to rebut them.

And none of it prevented him from becoming the Republican nominee — and then, a Republican president with a far higher approval rating than his (conventionally conservative) congressional allies.

This is a problem for America’s mainstream organs of opinion journalism. Magazines like The Atlantic, and op-ed pages like the New York Times’, have long aimed to host a dialogue that represents the major intellectual currents on both sides of aisle — while upholding fundamental principles of civility, good faith, and respect for the equal dignity of all human beings (regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender).

There was a tension in that mission statement before Trump: For decades, many of the American right’s most influential voices had rejected those supposedly shared values, and many of the conservative movement’s animating ideas were manifestly arational and racist. But before the triumph of the birther king — when the Republican Party’s standard-bearers still spoke in a language broadly similar to David Brooks’s — it was possible to frame the latter as a faithful translator of Red America’s thoughts and feelings.

No more. Trump has made the reality of the American right unmistakable: There is no mass constituency for the conservative policy agenda, only one for its paranoid warnings of national, cultural, and racial decline — and its authoritarian reassurances that a strong leader can restore what we’ve lost by taking it back from them. There is no civil way to defend the president’s defamatory claim that Americans who came here through the diversity visa lottery are all “horrendous” criminals. There is no good-faith argument for why Hillary Clinton should be in jail, and Joe Arpaio a free man; no rational case for why Trump actually won the popular vote in 2016. But those ideas have far more resonance with the conservative base than do Paul Ryan’s ambitions for the federal budget. And while the latter are still highly relevant to how Republicans actually govern, it is now clear that this fact is not a testament to the persuasive power of the speaker’s ideas, but only to the economic power of his patrons.

read the rest of the article at: 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/the-media-can-be-ideologically-diverse-without-conservatives.html

[AUDub 11,131]

Conservative intellectuals are in a precarious position. They're untethered from the movement they once tried to lend legitimacy to. It's damn near impossible to legitimize Trump, which is why so many of them are anti-Trump. Goldberg, French, Erickson, all adrift without a harbor right now, because, like it or not, Trump now represents the conservative movement.

[japantiger 4,051]

Nice....the ultimate facist response to being beaten at every turn....let's just declare we don't need other points of view to have, well, other points of view......good lord, what a complete bunch of tools...

[homersapien 11,352]

1 hour ago, japantiger said:

Nice....the ultimate facist response to being beaten at every turn....let's just declare we don't need other points of view to have, well, other points of view......good lord, what a complete bunch of tools...

I think you miss the point, which is it's kind of hard to turn principles that define conservatism - that one has promulgated for decades - 180 degrees in the course of a single (freak) election.

Or in other words, conservative intellectuals didn't sign on to support an administration that looks like a Monty Python movie.

[HVAU 673]

14 hours ago, japantiger said:

Nice....the ultimate facist response to being beaten at every turn....let's just declare we don't need other points of view to have, well, other points of view......good lord, what a complete bunch of tools...

Trump doesn't really stand for anything, therefore, there is no intellectual philosophy, political or economic, to discuss.  The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible.  Inviting discussion participants to a conversation when they rarely enter the conversation in good faith is counterproductive to achieving compromise or understanding between those with opposing ideals.

I don't think it's the right track for journalism, but I also don't believe that the "both sides" treatment of topics, or the kidglove approach to political representatives is correct either.  If the media is dealing with the frequency of dishonesty that originates from this administration they should address it bluntly.  Huckabee-Sanders consistently lies in a brazen manner on behalf of the Trump White House.  No reason to pretend otherwise.  Other administrations should be handled in the same way, and have been.

A good example of the correct way to deal with Trump-branded politicians was when Tapper interviewed Miller.  Tapper gave Miller a platform to speak candidly on a specific subject, and Miller decided to obfuscate and insult the interviewer's/audience's intelligence.  Tapper shut him down.  I believe others have done it with Conway.

Also, you're really loose with the hyperbole today.  I refer, of course, to your use of "ultimate fascist" to characterize this article.  You did behaved similarly in the Marx thread.  

[DKW 86 7,410]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

I think you miss the point, which is it's kind of hard to turn principles that define conservatism - that one has promulgated for decades - 180 degrees in the course of a single (freak) election.

Or in other words, conservative intellectuals didn't sign on to support an administration that looks like a Monty Python movie.

I actually really enjoyed that. Kudos...

[japantiger 4,051]

On 5/8/2018 at 8:35 AM, HVAU said:

Trump doesn't really stand for anything, therefore, there is no intellectual philosophy, political or economic, to discuss.  The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible.  Inviting discussion participants to a conversation when they rarely enter the conversation in good faith is counterproductive to achieving compromise or understanding between those with opposing ideals.

I don't think it's the right track for journalism, but I also don't believe that the "both sides" treatment of topics, or the kidglove approach to political representatives is correct either.  If the media is dealing with the frequency of dishonesty that originates from this administration they should address it bluntly.  Huckabee-Sanders consistently lies in a brazen manner on behalf of the Trump White House.  No reason to pretend otherwise.  Other administrations should be handled in the same way, and have been.

A good example of the correct way to deal with Trump-branded politicians was when Tapper interviewed Miller.  Tapper gave Miller a platform to speak candidly on a specific subject, and Miller decided to obfuscate and insult the interviewer's/audience's intelligence.  Tapper shut him down.  I believe others have done it with Conway.

Also, you're really loose with the hyperbole today.  I refer, of course, to your use of "ultimate fascist" to characterize this article.  You did behaved similarly in the Marx thread.  

And this is why you will lose again in the fall and 2020.  You try to dismiss half the country as somehow not worthy of consideration because they don't think like you.  You guys still haven't learned the lesson of the last election....and I couldn' be more thrilled...

[AUloggerhead 2,225]

On 5/8/2018 at 8:35 AM, HVAU said:

Trump doesn't really stand for anything, therefore, there is no intellectual philosophy, political or economic, to discuss.  The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible.  Inviting discussion participants to a conversation when they rarely enter the conversation in good faith is counterproductive to achieving compromise or understanding between those with opposing ideals. ...

I disagree with you there.  The current President is unapologetic in his his pro-America stance (unlike the former President.)  The title of the opinion piece is contradictory & specious.  It's as if diversity is only important when it doesn't conflict with the actual meaning of the word(!)  No matter -- no one should really expect the "liberal media" to be diverse in the first place.  As this WaPo article demonstrates, the type of people that gravitate towards journalism self-describe themselves as liberal anyway.   

Quote

... Matt Lewis, a former columnist at the conservative Daily Caller, sums up: “I do think it’s a problem, but I don’t think that there is a conspiracy to bias the news,” says Lewis, who recently jumped to the more mainstream Daily Beast. “But I do think that the kinds of people who go into journalism and where journalism outlets tend to be based has the inevitable outcome of slanting it not even just leftward but in a cosmopolitan, secular way.” ...

 

[HVAU 673]

On 5/9/2018 at 1:38 PM, AUloggerhead said:

I disagree with you there.  The current President is unapologetic in his his pro-America stance (unlike the former President.)  The title of the opinion piece is contradictory & specious.  It's as if diversity is only important when it doesn't conflict with the actual meaning of the word(!)  No matter -- no one should really expect the "liberal media" to be diverse in the first place.  As this WaPo article demonstrates, the type of people that gravitate towards journalism self-describe themselves as liberal anyway.   

 

I don't believe that Trump is inherently more pro-America than other previous presidents.  He does like to use as a slogan to energize his constituency.  That doesn't constitute a principle.

[HVAU 673]

On 5/9/2018 at 12:23 PM, japantiger said:

And this is why you will lose again in the fall and 2020.  You try to dismiss half the country as somehow not worthy of consideration because they don't think like you.  You guys still haven't learned the lesson of the last election....and I couldn' be more thrilled...

To be fair, if I were personally trying to dismiss half the country would be as engaged with you in our recent conversations here?

In the quote you used from me, I even stated that this isn't the proper way to handle this administration's spokespeople.

[homersapien 11,352]

On 5/9/2018 at 2:38 PM, AUloggerhead said:

I disagree with you there.  The current President is unapologetic in his his pro-America stance (unlike the former President.)  The title of the opinion piece is contradictory & specious.  It's as if diversity is only important when it doesn't conflict with the actual meaning of the word(!)  No matter -- no one should really expect the "liberal media" to be diverse in the first place.  As this WaPo article demonstrates, the type of people that gravitate towards journalism self-describe themselves as liberal anyway.   

 

In other words, journalists tend to be well educated and critical thinkers.

And Trump cares much more about himself than he does the country.  Every decision he makes goes through his self-aggrandizing filter.

[japantiger 4,051]

3 hours ago, homersapien said:

In other words, journalists tend to be well educated and critical thinkers.

And Trump cares much more about himself than he does the country.  Every decision he makes goes through his self-aggrandizing filter.

Well educated?  Critical thinkers....oh man..this just gets better everday...or, as Obama's Iran debacle mastermind described them:

"Rhodes said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns… They literally know nothing.” Thus they will believe what he tells them. He also tells friendly non-governmental organizations and think tanks what he is telling the journalists. Those outlets produce “experts” whose expert opinion is just what Rhodes wants it to be. These ignorant young journalists thus have quotes that look like independent confirmation of the White House’s lies."

Experience, and looking at what passes as news today, tells me you're full of s*** Homey and Rhodes got caught telling the truth.  

[homersapien 11,352]

12 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Well educated?  Critical thinkers....oh man..this just gets better everday...or, as Obama's Iran debacle mastermind described them:

"Rhodes said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns… They literally know nothing.” Thus they will believe what he tells them. He also tells friendly non-governmental organizations and think tanks what he is telling the journalists. Those outlets produce “experts” whose expert opinion is just what Rhodes wants it to be. These ignorant young journalists thus have quotes that look like independent confirmation of the White House’s lies."

Experience, and looking at what passes as news today, tells me you're full of s*** Homey and Rhodes got caught telling the truth.  

Who is Rhodes again and where did that quote come from?

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

On 5/7/2018 at 7:49 PM, AUDub said:

Conservative intellectuals are in a precarious position. They're untethered from the movement they once tried to lend legitimacy to. It's damn near impossible to legitimize Trump, which is why so many of them are anti-Trump. Goldberg, French, Erickson, all adrift without a harbor right now, because, like it or not, Trump now represents the conservative movement.

Good, I freaking love it. Trump represents how fed up people are with the way things were. Hell, he’s causing utter chaos among democrats and their entire party (as well as all others who detest him). By their rhetoric, he should’ve been a pushover. But he wasn’t. They failed miserably and he destroyed them against all odds. Just read some of things across this forum. Anti-Trumpers are in a frenzy. They hate him so much but there’s nothing they can do about it.... absolutely nothing. A little over a year and look how much of Obama’s actions he’s already taken apart.

It’s quite fun to sit back and watch. Again, love it.

[japantiger 4,051]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

Who is Rhodes again and where did that quote come from?

Ben Rhodes...Obamas Iran deal mastermind.  Google Wahington Post selling the Iran deal...we all talked about it at great length at the time....

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

9 hours ago, homersapien said:

In other words, journalists tend to be well educated and critical thinkers.

And Trump cares much more about himself than he does the country.  Every decision he makes goes through his self-aggrandizing filter.

Yes, well educated and critical thinkers that lose to Trump.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

2 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Ben Rhodes...Obamas Iran deal mastermind.  Google Wahington Post selling the Iran deal...we all talked about it at great length at the time....

If Homer thinks journalists are well educated and critical thinkers, the only truth I can deduce from that is this: Homer is no journalist.

[homersapien 11,352]

1 hour ago, japantiger said:

Ben Rhodes...Obamas Iran deal mastermind.  Google Wahington Post selling the Iran deal...we all talked about it at great length at the time....

And what's the point you are making?

[homersapien 11,352]

1 hour ago, NolaAuTiger said:

If Homer thinks journalists are well educated and critical thinkers, the only truth I can deduce from that is this: Homer is no journalist.

Damn, and I called you witless.   

[japantiger 4,051]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

And what's the point you are making?

Homey, please put down the crack pipe and at least try.    

[japantiger 4,051]

11 hours ago, HVAU said:

To be fair, if I were personally trying to dismiss half the country would be as engaged with you in our recent conversations here?

In the quote you used from me, I even stated that this isn't the proper way to handle this administration's spokespeople.

You can't make statements like this and then dismiss all opposing views as "indefensible".    This is why you get made fun of...Please tell me what is indefensible about the position that says "US trade and diplomatic deals should be negotiated in our favor"?   I guess you're going to try to tell me George Washington was a Trump apologist...because he wrote at length about this an even charged the national leadership to not lose site of this in his farewell address....or that our own tax policy should not make it easier to invest in other countries vs our own...I am amazed at the ignorance of our own tax and trade laws among the folks that post on here.  Our own policies have forced me to make stupid decisions for 30 years....to do otherwise would have resulted in the stockholders removing me.....or that America needs to deploy troops when it benefits America?  I was one of those troops...help me understand how being "a Trump apologist" makes supporting these positions indefensible...these positions are rational and common sense.    This is what Trump believes...this is what I believe...this is what anyone with any common sense believes...

[homersapien 11,352]

16 minutes ago, japantiger said:

Homey, please put down the crack pipe and at least try.    

What was the point you were trying to make by quoting him?

[HVAU 673]

2 hours ago, japantiger said:

You can't make statements like this and then dismiss all opposing views as "indefensible".    This is why you get made fun of...Please tell me what is indefensible about the position that says "US trade and diplomatic deals should be negotiated in our favor"?   I guess you're going to try to tell me George Washington was a Trump apologist...because he wrote at length about this an even charged the national leadership to not lose site of this in his farewell address....or that our own tax policy should not make it easier to invest in other countries vs our own...I am amazed at the ignorance of our own tax and trade laws among the folks that post on here.  Our own policies have forced me to make stupid decisions for 30 years....to do otherwise would have resulted in the stockholders removing me.....or that America needs to deploy troops when it benefits America?  I was one of those troops...help me understand how being "a Trump apologist" makes supporting these positions indefensible...these positions are rational and common sense.    This is what Trump believes...this is what I believe...this is what anyone with any common sense believes...

I don't dismiss opposing views as indefensible.  I dismiss outright lies, clearly, verifiably dishonest lies to an insulting degree, by this administration as indefensible.  I also don't excuse those lies simply because the liars claim to be "America First" as they pursue every avenue of corruption to enrich themselves.

If you engage in critiques of previous administrations by focusing in on specific policies you feel are bad, we can have a more productive discussion.  However, the implication by many on the right, I'm assuming from your comments here that I should include you, that the Obama administration or the Bush, or Clinton administrations were nefariously un-American because those conservatives didn't agree with their logic is laughable.

I'll give you credit though.  Your argument style of attempting to insert words into my mouth is very cute.

[japantiger 4,051]

11 hours ago, HVAU said:

I don't dismiss opposing views as indefensible.  I dismiss outright lies, clearly, verifiably dishonest lies to an insulting degree, by this administration as indefensible.  I also don't excuse those lies simply because the liars claim to be "America First" as they pursue every avenue of corruption to enrich themselves.

If you engage in critiques of previous administrations by focusing in on specific policies you feel are bad, we can have a more productive discussion.  However, the implication by many on the right, I'm assuming from your comments here that I should include you, that the Obama administration or the Bush, or Clinton administrations were nefariously un-American because those conservatives didn't agree with their logic is laughable.

I'll give you credit though.  Your argument style of attempting to insert words into my mouth is very cute.

you're own words dude...you completely ignore the few simple things Trump obviously stands for (enforce border law, favor the US in trade and diplomatic negotiations, peace thru strength, fewer taxes, prioritize US job growth, etc.) and then cast a dialogue around the positions as indefensible. Your quote from above....

"Trump doesn't really stand for anything, therefore, there is no intellectual philosophy, political or economic, to discuss.  The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible. "

[HVAU 673]

50 minutes ago, japantiger said:

you're own words dude...you completely ignore the few simple things Trump obviously stands for (enforce border law, favor the US in trade and diplomatic negotiations, peace thru strength, fewer taxes, prioritize US job growth, etc.) and then cast a dialogue around the positions as indefensible. Your quote from above....

"Trump doesn't really stand for anything, therefore, there is no intellectual philosophy, political or economic, to discuss.  The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible. "

That, if I recall correctly, was my interpretation of the article's position which I went on to disagree with.

"The point of the article, I believe, is that there are intellectual/philosophical discussions to be had, but it's not necessary to include Trump apologists in the dialogue as many of their positions, under scrutiny, aren't defensible."

The next paraph from the post you are quoting...

"I don't think it's the right track for journalism, but I also don't believe that the "both sides" treatment of topics, or the kidglove approach to political representatives is correct either.  If the media is dealing with the frequency of dishonesty that originates from this administration they should address it bluntly.  Huckabee-Sanders consistently lies in a brazen manner on behalf of the Trump White House.  No reason to pretend otherwise.  Other administrations should be handled in the same way, and have been."

I think you may have been putting words in my mouth again.