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Notes -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Enemy.
Assumption of bad faith.
Seriously? Pushaw is certainly a PR/press contact person for a politician, similar to the White House Press Secretary. I'd like an example of Chait evenhandedly referring to, say, Jen Psaki as Biden's "minister of propaganda."
Why yes, overwhelming bias sounds exactly on point. And given that obvious bias, an intelligent reader should not take his "summarizing and characterizing what was said at the conference" at face value, which undermines everything else in the article. These aren't "small points;" from the headline on down, it's his entire framing of the conference!
So, upon reading gattsuru's response, I do agree with you that he's being fairly biased.
However, I'm not convinced that what's being reported in necessarily affected by his bias because it sounds like what has been reported by others regarding the strengthening of the conservative populist movement in the first place. The general points about identifying left-leaning journalists, seemingly-woke corporations, and making the perceived 2020 election theft as the important narrative thrusts seem like the kind of thing we were already hearing before Chait's article.
So I think it's necessary to separate what his bias is (his title about the fascist slide or his description of Pushaw as a propaganda minister) from what he's reporting about. It's certainly possible that even that isn't accurate, but I'm not convinced of that yet.
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