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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33141 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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A new Jonathan Chait piece: How to Make a Semi-Fascist Party.

The piece details his experience at the National Conservatism Conference where a bunch of conservatives (politicians, intellectuals, etc.) get together and try to articulate a vision of conservatism's future.

Some parts are unsurprising. Ron DeSantis is hailed for supposedly bringing Disney in-line, and there's a unified theme as to what the real threat to America is. Three guesses and the first two don't count.

Almost every speaker repeated a version of the following: The “woke” revolution has captured the commanding heights of American education, culture, and even large businesses, from which positions it is spreading and enforcing a noxious left-wing ideology. This poses an existential threat to conservatism, culturally and politically. Conservatives must therefore fight back by using state power to crush their enemies on the left — a notable break for a movement that, in the pre-Trump days, had at least pretended to stand against “big government.”

Chait points to rhetoric which, on the surface, suggests the right may drop its support for economically conservative policies, but he argues that it's tailored for dealing with the specific things these conservatives don't like, as opposed to some general/coherent economic policy or policies.

The National Conservatives’ statement of principles is vague on economics, denouncing socialism while attacking “transnational corporations” for “showing little loyalty to any nation,” damaging “public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits.” This is a moral critique, confined to a trivial percentage of businesses — very few of which, after all, are engaged in content moderation or the sale of drugs or pornography — and implies very little change to the traditional Republican pro-business stance.

...

National Conservatives consider corporations to be “woke” enemies, or at least potential enemies, and see the power of the state as a lever to compel them to endorse conservative positions or at least refrain from endorsing liberal ones. They propose to pressure tech companies like Twitter and Google to drop content-moderation policies like bans on disinformation or hate speech. They wish to pressure corporations to not take positions in defense of voting rights or against forms of social discrimination. And they view investment funds using environmental, social-welfare, and good-governance criteria as a mortal threat. On all these issues, the National Conservative position is essentially identical to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial line.

Of note is the new fusing of an old talking point with a new one. Chait writes the following of the "Securing the Integrity of American Elections" panel.

The overarching theme of the panel was that Democrats routinely engage in widespread voter fraud and that Republicans have failed to gain power because they have shied away from the hard work of rooting out this allegedly endemic cheating. “You’re not gonna get anybody elected unless you’ve got an honest election system in which they’ve got the ability to get elected,” said Spakovsky. “There’s obviously going to be fraud; we know there will be fraud,” said Jessica Anderson, a former Trump budget staffer now working at Heritage.

None of the panelists are willing to affirm if they think Biden won the election fairly, which Chait takes as proof that their private views will not get in the way of them trying to use the energy the 2020 election provides.

Then there's what amounts to a very foolish, but understandable strategy.

Christina Pushaw, whose official title is director of rapid response for the governor but whose role could be more accurately described as minister of propaganda, held forth at a panel on marginalizing independent media. The challenge, she explained ruefully, is that many older Americans, such as her parents, still give some credence to old-line outfits like the New York Times. This reputation, she believes, comes from the perception that they have access to both parties, so the correct response by Republicans is to freeze out the mainstream media. “If they have no access to any Republican elected officials, they are seen for what they are,” she proposed. Pushaw stressed that Republicans should not even concede that reporters are journalists at all. She instructed the audience to call them “activists.”

Pushaw told the audience that Orbán’s government gave her inspiration for this tactic. “The New Yorker wrote to Orbán and asked for comment on their hit piece, and they received a response that was just perfect. It said, ‘We are not going to participate in the validation process for liberal propaganda,’ ” she recounted, “and I don’t think we need to participate in that validation process either.” Instead, she noted, DeSantis gives access to conservative sites, which then get quotes and scooplets they can use to build their audience.

While Chait argues that, as bad as left-wing news might be, right wing news doesn't even try to be objective, I'll make a different critique.

Suppose Pushaw's point are her earnest belief. She succeeds and we get conservative news sites that get exclusive access to conservatives. What happens?

Answer: Nothing changes.

All that will occur is that left-wing sites like the NYT or whoever else will report whatever those other sites say and add a note "Person X refused to comment."

Chait argues that Pushaw wants to eliminate the idea of a journalist altogether - there will instead be "left journalists" and "right journalists". This is idiotic, because there are going to be people who synthesize the materials and present themselves as objective journalists. Both sides would do it and nothing changes. CNN will tell you what DeSantis told his favored journalist and continue on without pause.

This isn't even something like "we're going to create right-journalists who will directly contest every claim the left makes, thereby nominally preventing anyone from knowing truth", it's quite literally "go here to find our words". Scott Alexander doesn't stop existing just because the NYT can't directly interview DeSantis.

That previous idea, however, comes from Hungary and Victor Orban, who were positively featured at the convention. There was a lot of praise for Orban as someone who had used state power to fight fake news.

At one panel, The Federalist’s Sean Davis asked Balázs Orbán, an adviser (no relation) to Viktor Orbán, how his government is preventing the fake-news media from poisoning the minds of the youth. “Just as is done in Florida,” Orbán replied, explaining that the Hungarian regime used state power to prevent the left from indoctrinating the country in its ideology.

Chait concludes his piece by noting that as time went on, he was in an increasing hostile environment. People insulted him to his face and tweeted out that he looked like a goblin. Amber Athey certainly suggests so.

Aside

Okay, so Athey went beyond just an accusation of being a goblin and claimed the following was evidence.

The linked complaint is...hard to judge. DeSantis most definitely said what he did, so we're left to judge if Athey is referring to the actual words spoken or Chait's claim that the governor is courting anti-vaxxers.

Edit: it's not unclear, Athey is clear that she objects to Chait's view of what DeSantis is doing.

Certainly, there is a great deal of frustration on the vaccine-skeptic side (or whatever you wish to call people who distrusted the Covid vaccine(s) but not necessarily others for whatever reason) in how anti-vaxxer changed from "deny the science altogether" to "question any part of any vaccine". An important question is if Chait is intentionally using the new definition while trying to convince people DeSantis falls under the old one.

That said, there is a logic in pointing out that political groups often given a guide to the various enemies they have on who to collaborate with. Unless the skeptical-about-covid-vaccine-but-not-all crowd is virulently against the old definition anti-vaxxers, a strategic coalition can be formed and the more palatable rhetoric will probably draw in the ones who are more shunned. I cannot be the only one to have noticed this.

I'm willing to buy that DeSantis is more concerned about "woke elites" than he is about actually staking out a position on the covid vaccine, but I don't know enough about him to say whether it's deliberate or not.

While Chait argues that, as bad as left-wing news might be, right wing news doesn't even try to be objective, I'll make a different critique.

Chait's argument holds as well for the left-wing mainstream media. It's full of conclusory statements, often tossed in offhand, like "X's baseless claims that..." or "Y's false statement that..."

I left that point alone because I figured it might come across too much like "no u". Like, yeah, Chait shows some of his own biases in the piece, but they're not really that relevant to the discussion.

Chait's argument holds just as well for Chait, who makes no effort whatsoever at concealing his overwhelming bias. The people at the conference are The Enemy, and they must be Stopped At All Costs. He's nothing more than a Democrat operative with a byline, as they say.

The reason this is relevant is that every take he has is pre-loaded with hostile assumptions--the very opposite of charity--and it takes Kremlinology skills to dig through the bias to come up with any type of neutral reading of what was said. Only at that point can you evaluate whether anyone said anything useful.

Chait's argument holds just as well for Chait, who makes no effort whatsoever at concealing his overwhelming bias. The people at the conference are The Enemy, and they must be Stopped At All Costs. He's nothing more than a Democrat operative with a byline, as they say.

Overwhelming? I'm not sure where you're seeing that.

It's true that Chait makes some serious missteps in his article, but they're small points that don't detract from what he's saying. For that matter, most of what he says is just summarizing and characterizing what was said at the conference.

Overwhelming? I'm not sure where you're seeing that.

It's not like Chait is hiding this perspective. But as an example from this case:

... whose official title is director of rapid response for the governor but whose role could be more accurately described as minister of propaganda, held forth at a panel on marginalizing independent media. The challenge, she explained ruefully, is that many older Americans, such as her parents, still give some credence to old-line outfits like the New York Times. This reputation, she believes, comes from the perception that they have access to both parties, so the correct response by Republicans is to freeze out the mainstream media.

This particular section is painful to read if you're familiar with Chait's techniques, but I think it's useful as an example more because it's the very same thing as it's trying to criticize. Does this look like a sober and honest description of Pushaw or her talk, or does it sounds like someone that thinks his job is to write the opposite of this? If I googled "independent media", do you think any examples on the front page would come across as any of the people or organizations that Pushaw mentioned in her talk? Do you think this is giving a good understanding of Pushaw's goals, or ability to predict the contents of her talk?

Chait argues that Pushaw wants to eliminate the idea of a journalist altogether - there will instead be "left journalists" and "right journalists". This is idiotic, because there are going to be people who synthesize the materials and present themselves as objective journalists. Both sides would do it and nothing changes. CNN will tell you what DeSantis told his favored journalist and continue on without pause.

I don't think this is a good understanding of the concerns or purposes specific here. Pushaw et all's position is that, by providing support to existing left journalists, conservatives (and other weirdos) are providing tools to those left-journalists to not only present themselves as objective journalists, but also specific weapons to attack with.

As an example case, take CBS's past and pretty aggressive slice-and-dices of DeSantis presentations. This is not an especially developed version of this particular approach -- more specialized version will do more to isolate their mark or prevent them from having evidence of manipulation, or provide (false) reassurance of honest intent -- but note that it had a very specific format: Alfonsi and video crew went to the press conference in a way that gave them the audio they needed to slice. Not (just) because that allowed them to manipulate the sound bites, or increase their perceived credibility, or because of the somewhat sloppy boundaries of fair reporting privilege in Florida; because it also means that they owned the video rights.

That's actually kinda important! I don't particularly buy the whole "pivot to video" concept, and indeed I'd argue to its opposite, but people are a lot less aware of the extent outright video manipulation can occur and be undetectable. There's a reason this class of reporter believes, even if incorrectly, that it's worth spending . And we've found even the most aggressive behavior is not meaningfully possible to contest or punish in courts from the position of a target, even one willing to suffer the Streisand effect.

There's some economic costs to other media sources if Fox News-likes are the only place in Florida with video of a Governor's Press Conference, but the bigger impact is that a CBS devolved to trimming words out of other newspapers is far less likely to persuade people when doing that.

Thank you, I don't follow Chait and this piece just happened to cross my path. I do agree that that piece you linked is fairly indicative of Chait's bias towards being a conflict theorist.

This particular section is painful to read if you're familiar with Chait's techniques, but I think it's useful as an example more because it's the very same thing as it's trying to criticize. Does this look like a sober and honest description of Pushaw or her talk, or does it sounds like someone that thinks his job is to write the opposite of this? If I googled "independent media", do you think any examples on the front page would come across as any of the people or organizations that Pushaw mentioned in her talk? Do you think this is giving a good understanding of Pushaw's goals, or ability to predict the contents of her talk?

I think this example is somewhat problematic as I can't even find the talk itself. It's not on the youtube channel for the NCC, and even searching for it yields nothing. But the prior link does cast some doubt on it.

I don't think this is a good understanding of the concerns or purposes specific here. Pushaw et all's position is that, by providing support to existing left journalists, conservatives (and other weirdos) are providing tools to those left-journalists to not only present themselves as objective journalists, but also specific weapons to attack with...There's some economic costs to other media sources if Fox News-likes are the only place in Florida with video of a Governor's Press Conference, but the bigger impact is that a CBS devolved to trimming words out of other newspapers is far less likely to persuade people when doing that.

Another round of strong links, but I don't think it's going to have the impact you're claiming. I'd posit we're not, and may never have been, in a position where people hinge their politics on the view that the news orgs they consume are "objective journalists". The only people you'd reach are those without a strong political belief system themselves, but also diligent enough to verify what is being said. I'm not sure how many of these people even exist.

I've seen how people spread new news sites to others for "learning what happened", and it's often just a reflection of the person's own political views.

That said, I don't see how video rights necessarily come into it. The tactics are done in service of the politics, not vice versa. If they can't selectively edit their own videos, they'll do the same to other videos, and I'm pretty sure that you'd be allowed to do this in the first place under fair use.

I'd posit we're not, and may never have been, in a position where people hinge their politics on the view that the news orgs they consume are "objective journalists". The only people you'd reach are those without a strong political belief system themselves, but also diligent enough to verify what is being said. I'm not sure how many of these people even exist.

I'm not sure you need people to be directly diligent enough to catch this stuff: few, if any, would have been able to catch the 60 Minutes trick for sheer mechanical reasons. But once one did, you didn't have to be diligent. Uou had to hear from either right-leaning media or even some mainstream media that covered the resulting scandal.

So you're less asking about those without a strong political belief system, but also diligent enough to verify; instead, you're looking for those without a strong political belief system and also who see anything from non-manipulative media. Which, to be fair, is still not a huge set! But one of the awkward secrets of modern coalition politics and general democratic politics is that you aren't trying to persuade a majority of people or even a majority of voters: you're working the margins of a fairly small set of a squishy middle voters who could be persuaded, or marginal voters who are flexable on whether they want to vote at all. And a lot of these gimmicks -- both the abusive manipulation of video, and the Look At This Bad Actor -- are designed pretty clearly to inflame the interests of those groups.

Individually, I don't think any one of these changes all but the most marginal of elections... but they're not individual things. Overt and uncontroversial examples that get caught are maybe once a news cycle. But the people doing this doesn't exactly stop with overt and uncontroversial examples.

That said, I don't see how video rights necessarily come into it. The tactics are done in service of the politics, not vice versa. If they can't selectively edit their own videos, they'll do the same to other videos, and I'm pretty sure that you'd be allowed to do this in the first place under fair use.

The extent a piece can be changed can sometimes be complicated, but even where not fair use, editing's usually a pretty cheap usage right, and just using the video seldom falls under fair use in this context -- that's why reporters begging for use permissions is such a common gimmick.

There's workarounds -- ambush journalism is a thing, albeit with a well-deserved reputation, certain types of public feed or event are effectively uncontrollable, a lot of places will (and already do) slice-and-dice text form. I'd expect that rather than a simple sorting of left- and right-media, you instead end up with a complex balkanization where individual politicians at certain levels of power have differing (and changing) sets of media that they'll meet with, not just based on those reporter's actions but even on the actions of those that the reporter's work with. I'm certainly not claiming that this is good as a policy, or legitimate as a constitutional matter.

But it's pretty obvious that it's at least a significant part of Pushaw and DeSantis' policies, and that Chait has been following them long enough that he should recognize this, and it's noticeable that this isn't something that Chait wants to present, not just here, but as far as I can tell ever, when he instead provides explanations that seem to be little less than 'eviiiiiiiil'.

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