Citizen Cartwright

The stakes or the horserace: A tale of two post mortems

By John Dineen
Columnist, One dog barking

 

Margaret Sullivan posted a piece Monday reflecting on whether political coverage was any better this year, or whether it was still the same old horserace approach. Her conclusion: Despite some exemplary moments, the coverage was largely unchanged and did not meet the moment.

Meanwhile, the newsroom leadership of the New York Times recently told its reporters and editors that the critics were wrong and the Times was right.

Sullivan used as a prism the phrase coined by media critic and NYU professor Jay Rosen, who for years has urged journalists to focus on “not the odds, but the stakes.”

Sullivan wrote: “A couple of days ago, I talked with Rosen about how he thinks it all played out. The short answer? It made a difference but didn’t fundamentally change politics coverage, which for the most part continued down its frustratingly flawed path — the addiction to polls, pundits and 'neck and neck' predictions.”

Sullivan also discussed the media frenzy that accompanied President Biden’s comment about garbage, referring to Donald Trump’s extraordinary display at Madison Square Garden last week of hostility and derision toward so many elements of American society.

She wrote: “As Greg Sargent of the New Republic put it in a smart X thread: ‘The news hook is literally that it provided ‘grist’ to Republicans,’ and this in effect ‘outsources the judgment about the newsworthiness of the event to bad-faith actors.’ He’s right. It’s also classic false equivalence — as Trump devolves into simulating oral sex with a microphone, there must be something bad to say about Harris’ campaign, right?”

Sullivan also mentions that the New York Times coverage became increasingly stark in its characterization of Trump and his behavior.

She wrote: “A couple of weeks ago, I observed to a friend who works in Big Media that I thought the New York Times had reformed its coverage somewhat — including a new section in which previous stakes-related coverage had been compiled, as well as a strong endorsement of Harris and some effective special sections, both on the news side and the opinion pages.

“‘Has the Times finally gotten religion?’ I asked.“The half-joking response: ‘Deathbed conversion.’”

The New York Times newsroom leadership would beg to differ.

Max Tani of Semafor obtained a recording of an Oct. 24 internal Times question-and-answer session with Executive Editor Joe Kahn and Managing Editor Carolyn Ryan. Whatever the criticism, Kahn wasn’t having it.

In that meeting, according to Tani, Kahn said: “What [critics are] interested in is having us be a mouthpiece for their already predetermined point of view. That’s what the most vocal critics are asking for. They’re asking us to do a better job projecting their point of view to more people. That of course is not our role, that is actually the opposite of independent journalism. That’s agenda-driven partisan journalism. They want to see The New York Times reaffirming their own priors. They’re not really interested in fact-based reporting — or frankly, independent polling — that doesn’t line up with their priors.”

Tani wrote: “Kahn pointed out that despite the intense polarization, the Times’ audience had never been larger, with over 10 million subscribers and an enormous base of non-paying readers and listeners. The readers who angrily comment on New York Times stories represent just a fraction of the paper’s overall audience, he said, a sign that most people were not outraged by its coverage.”

In an interview in the spring with Ben Smith of Semafor, Kahn, in a similar moment of deep introspection, had cited public opinion polls to justify the Times’ coverage decisions.

I’m compelled to repeat the remarks of Kathryn Schulz, author of the book “Being Wrong,” a wonderful exploration of human error, when she posed the question to the audience at her related 2011 TED talk: “How does it feel to be wrong?”

The replies were what you might expect: “dreadful … thumbs down … embarrassing.”

Schulz then pointed out: “These are great answers, but they’re answers to a different question. You guys are answering the question, how does it feel to realize you’re wrong.”

Up until that point, she observed, “It does feel like something to be wrong; it feels like being right.”

As the campaign comes to a close, the Times, as a matter of course, is sure it’s right. Other observers are not so sure.

 

One dog barking is an occasional column by my husband, John Dineen. He is a former senior congressional staffer and media executive and founder of briefing.center, a policy news and information service.

Tools for stressful times: Deep, slow breathing

As we’ve noted many times before, we humans aren’t comfortable with uncertainty and change.

 

And here we are, facing this week’s high-stakes, toss-up 2024 election. It’s impossible to know who will be president or which party will be in the House and Senate majority, enacting or eviscerating the president’s agenda.

 

What helps me most in times like these is deep, slow breathing. I heard a top U.S. therapist say in a webinar a few years ago that this works because it tricks the body into thinking it can’t be anxious, or it would be breathing faster.

 

So I put one hand on my belly, to feel it expand as I breathe, and the other on my heart, in compassion for myself and for our human family.

 

And then I follow this 4-7-8 breathing technique that I’m seeing suggested pretty much everywhere these days:

 

— Inhale through your nose while counting slowly to four

— Hold your breath while counting to seven

— Exhale through your mouth while counting to eight (the slow exhale is the key)

 

Here is more on this technique from the Cleveland Clinic.

 

I like to think of our human family as a pile of puppies, cozy even as we gnaw each other's ears. I’m grateful to be in the pile of puppies with you, dear readers.

Supreme Court allows Virginia purge of voter registrations

The court’s conservative majority left in place on Wednesday Virginia’s purge of voter registrations that the state says is intended to stop people who aren't U.S. citizens from voting, The Associated Press and other media report.

 

Over the dissents of the three liberal justices, the court granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 

 

The court’s one-paragraph order gave no reasoning for the justices’ decision, as is often the case with emergency appeals, Scotusblog says.

 

Virginia isn't a swing state, but the case underscores a baseless theory of former President Trump and his allies, who've cast voting by undocumented immigrants as a threat in an effort to stoke doubt about the election outcome, says The New York Times.

 

It's illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and studies have found that instances of it happening are extremely rare, the Times notes.

 

The court acted on Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found that the state illegally purged more than 1,600 voter registrations in the past two months. A federal appeals court previously had allowed the judge’s order to remain in effect.

 

Youngkin says voters who believe they were improperly removed from the voting rolls still can vote in the election because Virginia has same-day registration.

 

Civil rights groups, backed by the Biden administration, had challenged the plan, saying it had led to some legal voters being removed from the rolls. 

 

The state's plan flagged people for removal if they checked a box on a Department of Motor Vehicles form declaring they aren't citizens or if they left it blank, says NBC News.

 

Rina Shaw, 22, of Chesterfield, Va., says she was born in Virginia, has lived in the state her entire life and has never left the United States. She says she may have forgotten to check a citizenship box on a form when she was updating her voter registration at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles while getting her learner’s permit.

 

The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day “quiet period” before elections for the maintenance of voter rolls so legitimate voters aren't removed from the rolls by bureaucratic errors or last-minute mistakes that can't be quickly corrected.

 

Virginia maintained that the NVRA’s “quiet period” provision doesn't apply because the law doesn't bar the removal of noncitizens who weren't eligible to vote in the first place, Scotusblog says.

 

Wendy Weiser, vice president for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, says, “For any eligible voter in Virginia who may be impacted by the purge, please use same-day registration to cast a vote in this election. Or call 866-OUR-VOTE if you need assistance.”

 

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge this month ordered the state to restore eligibility for more than 3,200 voters who'd been deemed ineligible noncitizens. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that about 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were made inactive actually were legally registered citizens, AP says.

Bezos’ explainer of Post’s non-endorsement

The Washington Post published “A note from our owner” in its opinion section Monday night, in which billionaire Jeff Bezos says, "Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election … What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. … Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one.”

 

"I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here,” he says.

 

His note has gotten 13,000 comments as I type this.

 

And more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions to the Post as of midday on Monday, NPR reports.

 

Margaret Sullivan writes in her Substack newsletter about her experience working at two newspapers owned by billionaires — one of them the Post.

 

And she says in her column in The Guardian of the no-endorsement decisions by Bezos and by the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, "The papers’ leaders have made it clear that they either want Trump (who is, after all, a boon to large personal fortunes) or that they don’t wish to risk the ex-president’s wrath and retribution if he wins.”

 

The Bulwark, a conservative website that opposes Trump, says his planned use of federal tariffs would "mean a massive increase in the president’s discretionary control over various parts of the economy through the distribution of waivers and exclusions.” 

 

"To punish Harris-backing CEOs, all Trump has to do is hurt their companies with onerous new trade policies, then decline to pick up the phone when they petition for relief,” the Bulwark says.

 

A separate Bulwark article cites Judd Legum, who writes the newsletter Popular Information.

 

Legum says, "Bezos believes that former President Trump's hostility toward the Washington Post, which produced critical coverage of Trump's presidency, cost his companies billions in government contracts."

 

In addition to Amazon, Bezos founded and owns Blue Origin, the private space exploration company.

 

Legum says: "In a few months, it is possible that Trump will be president again. This time, Bezos faces an even more acute threat to his business interests. Elon Musk, who owns Blue Origin's chief rival SpaceX, has aligned himself closely with Trump, spending tens of millions in support of Trump's campaign and making appearances in swing states on Trump's behalf. 

 

Hours after the announcement of the Post's non-endorsement, "Trump was seen meeting with Blue Origin CEO David Limp. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's chief spokesman, embraced the suggestion that the meeting and the announcement of the non-endorsement were linked,” Legum says.

 

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that more 200 U.S. news outlets owned by Gannett — including longtime, respected outlets The Arizona Republic, The Des Moines Register and the Detroit Free Press — won't endorse presidential candidates.

Tools for stressful times: Compassion for ourselves and others

Amid all the discord over this 2024 election — and the other stresses that come with being human — here are two approaches from Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh that help me:

 

— “Breathing in, I become aware of the many conditions of joy in my life. Breathing out, I allow the joy to nourish me. Breathing in, I become aware of any unpleasant feelings. Hello, my anxiety. I’m going to take good care of you. Breathing out I embrace the unpleasant feelings with all my love and care.”

 

— In a question and answer session, a young man says he’s very protective of people he’s close to. He says he knows the Buddhist way is to be compassionate to all people, but he has a harder time forgiving someone who’s done something harmful to one of his family members or friends. He asks for Thich Nhat Hanh’s recommendation.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh says compassion is a kind of protection. If you don’t have compassion when fear and anger are expressed, it draws danger to you, makes the person afraid of you and they’ll attack you. Aggressive people suffer and make other people suffer. When we understand that, compassion can arise. We want to help them suffer less. If we know how to generate compassion and joy, we can help them, and if they’re joyful it’s the best way to protect ourselves. Compassion is the way to true security.

 

(The video of this begins at minute 38:42 here.) 

 

Here’s a small example of how this has helped me. My cousin's political views are the opposite of mine, and she’s very aggressive about them. In one conversation, she asked me how I’d describe her. I said, “My cousin has strong opinions, and I love my cousin.” She immediately responded, “I love you, too.”

What John Kelly, others say about the stakes of electing Trump

Margaret Sullivan reiterates in her latest newsletter that over these last days before the election, “Big Journalism” should be focusing on the stakes of the presidential election, not the horse race.

 

And last night, when I looked at The New York Times website, it seemed that it was doing that.

 

The top item (which isn’t there right now) was actually headlined “the stakes” and linked to this article. Its lead:

 

“Donald Trump and his closest allies are preparing a radical reshaping of American government if he regains the White House. Here are some of his plans for cracking down on immigration, directing the Justice Department to prosecute his adversaries, increasing presidential power, upending America’s economic policies, retreating militarily from Europe and unilaterally deploying troops to Democratic-run cities.”

 

Right now on the website, there's a link to a Times editorial board interactive titled “The dangers of Donald Trump, from those who know him.” It contains quotes from 91 people who “have raised alarms about his character and fitness for office — his family and friends, world leaders and business associates, his fellow conservatives and his political appointees — even though they had nothing to gain from doing so. Some have even spoken out at the expense of their own careers or political interests.”

 

The second-from-the-top article on the Times website at this moment is titled “Kelly warns Trump would rule like a dictator.”

 

The former Marine general, who was Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, agreed to three on-the-record, recorded discussions with a Times reporter.

 

In response to a question about whether he thought Trump was a fascist, Kelly read aloud a definition he'd found online.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly said. 

 

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said. 

 

Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted,” Kelly said.

 

“He’s certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government.”

 

Kelly was asked whether Trump had any empathy.

 

“No,” Kelly said.

Harris on election stress

On Monday, she held three moderated town hall-style discussions with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney in the suburbs of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

 

Journalist Maria Shriver, who moderated the town hall in Royal Oak, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, asked Harris how she’s handling election stress.

Harris said she usually wakes up in the middle of the night but tries to ground herself on the campaign trail by working out "every morning" and communicating with her family. 

 
"In a democracy ... the people, every individual, has the power to make a decision about what this will be," she said. "So let's not feel powerless. 

 

“We rise to a moment and we stand on broad shoulders of people who have fought this fight before for our country. Let us look at the challenge then that we are being presented and not be overwhelmed by it.”

 

During the event, Cheney emphasized that she's an ardent conservative who believes that Harris will better defend and represent the United States.

 

"I want my children to know that there is someone sitting in the Oval Office that they can look up to, someone who can be a role model. And I'm incredibly proud, and I know that Vice President Harris will be that," said Cheney, whose father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, also has crossed party lines to endorse the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket.

Cheney also reminded Republican-leaning voters that their vote is secret.

"If you're at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that in November," she said.

A citizen’s guide to defending democracy

“We can be absolutely certain that an attempt will be made to steal the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins,” says Anne Applebaum, a longtime reporter, Pulitizer Prize-winning author and expert on authoritarianism, in The Atlantic. (The italics are hers.)

 

"This prospect can feel overwhelming: Many people are not just upset about the possibility of a lost or stolen election, but oppressed by a sensation of helplessness,” she says. "This feeling — I can’t do anything; my actions don’t matter — is precisely the feeling that autocratic movements seek to instill in citizens, as Peter Pomerantsev and I explain in our recent podcast, Autocracy in America. But you can always do something. If you need advice about what that might be, here is an updated citizen’s guide to defending democracy.”

 

Organizations and websites:

 

— Register to vote, and make sure everyone you know has done so. Vote.gov has a list of the rules in all 50 states.

 

— Vote early and in person if you can. Here is a list of the early-voting rules for every state.

 

— If you or anybody you know has trouble voting, for any reason, call 866-OUR-VOTE, a hotline set up by Election Protection, a nonpartisan national coalition led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

 

If you have time to do more, the coalition is looking for lawyers, law students, and paralegals to help out if multiple, simultaneous challenges to the election occur at the county level. People are needed to serve as poll monitors and to staff the hotline.

 

— If you live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, you can volunteer to help All Voting Is Local. It's recruiting legal professionals and poll monitors. If you don’t live in one of these states, you can make a financial contribution.

 

— Wherever you live, you can contact Power the Polls about helping to staff your local polling place.

 

— You can volunteer to give people a ride to vote. A website for Democrats offering or needing rides is Rideshare2Vote.

 

And Lyft is offering discounts on rides to the polls on Election Day.

 

— If you see a long voting line or if you find yourself in one, report it to Pizza to the Polls, and the group will send over free pizza.

 

— Organizations to get information from and donate to include Protect Democracy, the States United Democracy Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy Docket (for Democrats) and Republicans for the Rule of Law.

 

By the way, Applebaum urged continued support for Ukraine as she accepted a German peace prize on Sunday, saying pacifism in the face of aggression can be appeasement.

Good news for global democracy so far in 2024

Our Australian friends at Fix the News have published the first edition of their once-again-weekly newsletter, with its reduced number of items.

 

I’ll leave it to you to read the dozen summaries — of good news on environmental protection, health care, and advances in our understanding of the universe — so we can focus on an item that’s a main focus of this blog: democracy.

 

Last week, The Economist ran an article saying “democracy has proved to be reasonably resilient in some 42 countries” of the 67 countries that have held national elections so far this year.

 

The good news, according to The Economist (by the way, I don't know how Fix the News is able to give us access to articles like this one, for which a subscription is required, but I'm grateful for the access):

 

— Voter turnout has increased for the first time in two decades

 

— Efforts to undermine elections using disinformation campaigns fueled by social media and artificial intelligence often have failed

 

— Independent institutions such as courts often have stood up for liberal values, like rejecting the efforts of a strongman to rule indefinitely

 

— In most places, elections have been more peaceful

 

— Voters have held leaders accountable, either by removing them from office or eliminating their parliamentary majority

 

And now, “democracy will face its most important test” as we Americans vote, The Economist says. 

Happy election day 2024!

Free and discounted rides to vote

 

Vote.gov: If you have any problems at your voting location, contact your local election office. You can also report violations to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division online or by calling 1-800-253-3931.

Also on this website: information on your voting rights, FAQs

 

Election Protection hotlines to call if you have problems voting:

English 866-OUR-VOTE 866-687-8683

Spanish/English 888-VE-Y-VOTA 888-839-8682

Asian Languages/English 888-API-VOTE 888-274-8683

Arabic/English 844-YALLA-US 844-925-5287

 

Pizza to the Polls will bring you free pizza if the voting line is long.

 

AP: 'Explaining Election 2024' series of articles