Bear with me a bit while I provide a bit of a background to my relationship with the NYT. I grew up in the 1980s-1990s the offspring of an academic family (father a professor at a prominent university, mother a teacher). Naturally, as a center-left academic family, the NYT featured prominently on our breakfast table. I used to read the paper extensively, browsing the multiple sections in the Sunday Times. "Everyone" knew the NYT was the best paper in America, it spoke intelligently to an intelligent audience. While indisputably a liberal paper, you could still enjoy columnists with differing views and the journalism itself was top notch, and the various sections (Science, Architecture/Art, Food, Travel) were largely free of moralizing opinions.
Then, around 2000, while in college, I noticed something started to change at the NYT. It wasn't a sudden change but a gradual change in the tone of the paper's articles and columnists. While my parents were your liberal academics, my larger family came from a variety of places, small town rural America, Reagan/Bush suburban professionals, working class union Democrats and I like to think close exposure with this range of Americans kept me open minded and realistic about everyday America. And while we could disagree over policy, no one ever questioned that we were all Americans and no one questioned the validity of anyone else's life experience.
Except the NYT. Sometime around 2000, I started realizing the Times was treating the rest of America outside the liberal Upper West Side echelons (and those elsewhere who allied with that mindset) as somewhat odd and foreign. It was as if the Times' journalists were viewing the rest of America, and actually, even large parts of NYC itself (the old immigrant boroughs, Long Island and so forth) the way a biologist analyses strange new bacteria through a microscope lens. And it became clearer that the NYT's journalists and columnists didn't see themselves as the same Americans as the rest of the Americans they periodically wrote about. When they wrote about various American subjects, it was written less about fellow countrymen, but a different people entirely. The irony was that the NYT itself is the weird little bacteria in the middle of America but they took the opposite attitude!
When I realized that, it ended my love affair with the NYT. It wasn't overnight, it was a gradual process that took some years. Then, of course, we have seen in the last four years the NYT frankly and openly admit it no longer regards objectivity a principle in journalism. This disease, the isolation of elite journalism from everyday America, has spread quickly and extensively to all other major mainstream papers and TV/internet news. Matt has already covered this with his echo chamber article.
An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people. The men and women who control most of the nation's media and their allies in social media and higher education and increasingly now in the corporate world are extremely disdainful of much of America, disparage their way of thinking without even bothering to try to understand it, and use their institutions to be openly hostile. I don't think the American upper classes has ever been so openly hateful of half their countrymen.
A major reason behind MAGAism and the 74 million Trump voters is that they clearly saw this hatred towards them and this widespread attempt to shunt this America out of sight.
This has been my exact experience with the NYT, though I'm a bit younger so I grew up with it in the 90s and 2000s and subscribed on my own when I went to college in 2010. I was a devoted reader all through college and young adulthood - I knew it was a liberal paper but I agreed with a lot of their opinions and reading what everyone knew to be the best paper in America (lol) made me feel grown up and informed. I'm from NYC so it was also my "local paper."
Around 2015 I started to notice the wheels coming off with the breathless and deadly serious coverage of Trump, who looked like an obvious troll/comedian to me from the start. The fawning portrayal of the Amazon headquarters destined for Long Island City was the last straw - I lived five minutes away from LIC and I could see with my own two eyes that their portrayal of the neighborhood as some blighted wasteland desperately in need of a Silicon Valley takeover was complete hogwash. Why should one of the largest companies in the world need a massive tax subsidy to open an office in an already popular neighborhood in the largest city in America? Every company has an office in New York City. Many of them have offices in Long Island City, e.g. Citi Bank. The idea that we, NYC taxpayers, should be subsidizing the richest man in the world in order to "convince" him to open a new office in the freaking BUSINESS CAPITAL OF AMERICA completely broke my brain. Meanwhile my precious NYT seemed to be drooling over Bezos with zero critical reflection. I think my disillusionment with the NYT had been percolating for years but for some reason this story put me over the edge and suddenly the entire paper looked completely ridiculous. I began to see how little their "Bobos-in-paradise" worldview resembled what I knew from, like you, having friends and family outside upper middle class coastal academic enclaves.
Question: what paper do you read now? I have been reading the Wall Street Journal recently, though their opinion section makes my eyes roll out of my head. I think their news reporting is still decent but it's so hard to tell these days. I wish there was a paper without any opinion section at all.
I read dozens of news sites, everything from NYT to QAnon. I find it interesting to see how people think - or that they don't think at all. I don't fear ideas different than mine will somehow infect me, and find it weird so many of my left friends do. I especially find it weird when leftist young people say they just won't read something because it's too dangerous. My conclusion is *they* are terrified they'll lose their leftist faith. And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious.
As Jimmy Dore has pointed out, Russiagate is the liberal Qanon. Most liberals are just to thick to realize it. What the Trump presidency has taught me is liberals, despite their college educations, are every bit as butt ignorant as the caricature they use to mock rural right wingers.
And, for a group that seems obsessed with their own feelings, they seem to lack a remarkable amount of self awareness. In other words, liberals appear to be dumb enough to wholeheartedly believe their own bullshit.
Hmmm...I think it's more complex than just saying Qanon is the Russiagate of the right. I like Jimmy Dore and always agree with him, but I think a better comparison would be that "stop the steal" is the Russiagate of the right/Trump world. Both are conspiracy theories with the goal of de-legitimizing legitimate election victories. Russiagate for the Hillary crowd, "stop the steal" for Trump supporters.
Qanon tries to be all encompassing, so it approaches cult status as it represents a worldview rather than a single conspiracy. What exactly did Dore say about Russiagate being the liberal Qanon? I can't believe someone as smart as him would simplify it so much.
I think Dore was just responding to Clinton & Pelosi's insane idea to convene a 911 style commission to investigate those Trump/Russia ties that they couldn't prove with 4 years of investigations while Trump was in office. Pelosi, on Hillary's podcast, said "With Trump, all roads lead to Putin." They're both convinced that the Capitol protesters were doing Putin's bidding, etc.
I think his point was that the Dems, along with their media propaganda wing, are the biggest pushers of conspiracy theories out there yet their cult of partisan true believers are completely unaware that they're being sold inventions.
It's because these people are dumb. Same as the Qanon believers. My sister buys into a lot of this garbage (the lefty crap, not Qanon) and I know her IQ is slightly above 100. That means that objectively, half the country is even dumber than that. It's enough to not just make me want a drink, but want a nice juicy shot of heroin. The good news, sort of, is bread and circuses.
That said, I do believe that Trump was and is corrupt AF, but other than the nature of his non-political businesses (i.e., not a Clinton Foundation or the like) which he definitely benefited during his presidency, he's no different from any of the others. His business dealings and frank nature just took the mask off where a polite guy like Obama could hold the act down long enough and wait to profit immensely AFTER he left office.
Thanks. They're insane. The MSM managed to infect my dad with the whole Russiagate BS and it's the same as Q. Nothing will convince him otherwise. I'm just glad that it was only a single "incident" or election year and that they've finally shut up about it (for now).
Oh boy ... the election. Yes, it was stolen. Any smart person who examined the evidence knows it but Americans don't want to think about how bad it's gotten. They prefer Left vs Right rather than Totalitarian vs Individual Rights. Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon? Okay, you are all a wonderfully smart bunch and of course anyone who reads Matt or Glenn Greenwald would be but I need to grill my husband some Argentinian style steaks with chimichurri sauce and duck fat potatoes. Looking forward to seeing you on Matt's next.
This election was no more marred with fraud than any other election. The dead have been voting in elections for as long as I have been alive, and probably many times that 50 years. That said, this election the fraud probably made a difference. It deserves investigation and until it is properly investigated, people are tuning out of the system. It's a bad state of affairs for a democracy. As long as people buy into "my vote makes a difference" you are doing ok. After that is gone, it's just oppression, and we all know where that leads.
"And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious."
Granting credibility to QAnon is a litmus test for gullibility: if someone takes QAnon seriously, they're gullible. QAnon presents a classic non-falsifiability trap, and practically mandates that its adherents draw on various uncriticalassumptions and factoids to fill in the voluminous blanks between its threadbare factual disclosures and murky hints and insinuations. It's a model of how to yank people's chains.
And to the extent that it's taken seriously and obtains power and influence, QAnon is potentially dangerous. Although my best guess is that the election of Marjorie Greer and Lauren Boebert marks the high tide of the QAnon "movement", which deserves to fade away into well-deserved ignominy.
I don't take QAnon or NYT seriously. I fail to see, though, how NYT isn't more dangerous, given their massive peddling of Russiagate and suppression of the Hunter Biden.
Thank you for the Reddit suggestion. Interesting. One thing that struck me is most don't seem to take any personal responsibility. They just blame QAnon. But at least the ex QAnons know they're casualties. I know a number of Trump haters who are just as psychotic and have wrecked just as much as the ex QAnons at least admit to. The Trump haters just don't realize it. It's Trump's fault. They keep talking about how Trump supporters need to be reprogrammed. They should all look in the mirror, get themselves reprogrammed, stop watching CNN, reading NYT and get Trump out of their heads and move on. If an ex-President is still the biggest thing in your life you need help.
Ooh! Thanks I’m definitely checking it out. I think the diff between Russiagate & Qanon is that R-gate had the potential to get us into another cold war or arms race with Russia. It was taken serious by the letters agencies & powerful people. Q only effects individuals and to the effect it affects real world events like 1/6. Im not sure that was primarily Q driven so much as it was by Trump and his band of crooks. The greatest danger in all that seemed to be the Lin Wood types who had massive followings and was affecting voters and stirring people up with Stop The Steal.
Qanon is an influencer status-seeking racket that is based on the $ generated via clicks, views, likes, shares, follows and even merchandise. The whole thing is a scam which should have stayed what it is: entertainment. Problem is too many Americans (and others) are so gullible and looking for a unifying "theory of everything" to explain the evils they perceive in the world and Q is a good distraction from the policies of the corporate Democrats (who work for the same economic interests as the right) and the Republicans. Both constitute two different segments of The War Party.
There seems to be different levels of Qanon, from political analysis(which can be pretty keen) to the inner circle which is totally weird (JFK Jr. is still alive, lizard people, political clones etc.). It was never right wing in the traditional sense( American exceptionalism)but reverted back to a certain protectionism which is attractive to many on the disaffected left who are tired of the pseudo-left politics of corporate Democrats. In the end Qanon at least gave a platform to the dissident left that was often banned on YouTube where anyone that questions the motives or wisdom of Dr. Fauci or the Gates Foundation has been systematically censored.
I will preface this by saying that I am not deeply into QAnon and speak from a position of relative ignorance,
but it intrigues me that it seems to pit the military/military intelligence against civilian intelligence/The Establishment. Mike Flynn is a martyr figure. DIA vs. CIA.
A more cynical reading of QAnon is that its a public Team Red reaction to CRT/BLM... if all conservatives can be labeled "Racists" then all liberals can be labled "Pedophiles." After all, what would be worse in 2021: being compared to David Duke or Jeffrey Epstein?
The question becomes, which faction believes its conspiracy theory more than the other?
Intriguing theory. CRT is institutionalized and likely more harmful in the long run. If Q blames elites for all ills CRT blames White people for all ills.
I’ve listened to Marjorie Taylor Green and she is a fool. The Republicans need to shut her up, censor her or something. Not sure. They need to do some house cleaning like W.F. Buckley did with the John Birchers in the 60’s.
I agree with all of that. I like reading things that piss me off or that people tell me are bad and scary. I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre. I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?
>>I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre.
I was raised in a fundamentalist church, believing God created the universe in 6 days and all that. So I can relate to people who believe exposure to certain facts and opinions can be "dangerous"--that's precisely how I used to feel when exposed to texts about evolution.
Polly is exactly right. Leftism has morphed into a religion, a carefully constructed one that cannot withstand exposure to critical arguments.
Perhaps the so-called "leftism" of certain identity politics activists in liberal arts college. But true leftism has mostly been crushed by the corporate right and center, both of which continue to re-define leftism to suit their own political and economic agendas. Try starting a labor union at a "liberal" corporation like Alphabet or Apple. LOL, THAT is leftism.
Alphabet workers did it but since they can't actually conceive of an adversarial relationship between labor and capital it's essentially a social justice advocacy club. Check out this mission statement, it's absolutely wild from a "labor" perspective: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statement/
This is why leftist politics is currently on life support. All of the people in this union genuinely believe they're doing leftism right now when they're actually begging capital to make itself look even friendlier to their cultural ideology while asking for literally no material concessions. This is a group of people who think labor organizing is for ending identity-based "oppression" in the workplace and for winning the right to be a conscientious objector to work projects. They think their interests and their employer's can perfectly align if they just try a little harder to make the case for "not being evil." The idea that their employer's interests and their own cannot possibly be aligned because one represents capital and the other labor would break their brains.
No, leftism and righism have morphed into centrism. What you call left are Reagan democrats and corporate 3rd way dems who bought into the whole empire trip that the neocons were selling.
Okay. I invite you to consider that Christianity has hundreds, maybe thousands, of denominations; and many of them believe they alone know the truth. "No true Christian" believes dancing is okay, and so on.
I know the woke = religion analogy has been done to death at this point but that's because it rings so true. I wasn't raised religious, in fact my parents came from two very different religious backgrounds that essentially negated each other, so I've never understood the religious mindset on a personal level. I guess that's why I have so much trouble understanding the people on the left who suddenly think this way about conservative or even non-mainstream leftist news. It just doesn't make any sense.
Good luck with finding when, where, what, why, who journalism now in a national paper. That's why I enjoy reading local news - not just mine but around the country. We recently had a local newspaper story about a French Bulldog falling over a neighborhood cliff, getting rescued by a Fireman and it was just great. What happened. When it happened. Where it happened. Why it happened (Frenchie got loose from leash). Who (photo of Frenchie in arms of Fireman).
Yes, that is my favorite type of news. Because it's about local, real people. Not abstract concepts far away. We are missing that connection in the major news sources these days.
Realclearpolitics.com, it features titles and links to articles from the left to the right. You’ll get all kinds of news from Slate & the NYTs to the National Review and the NY Post. I’ve seen substack links to Taibbi’s & GG articles, all kinds of views featured there. Unfortunately, you can’t get the news from 1 trusted source anymore. You have to read a rang of sources to get to a proximate of truth(ish) news. It’s what we have to deal with in a biased, divided world.
«I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?»
Are you willing to pay $10,000 a year for that? Or at least $1,000 a year?
Or do you want for people to spend a lot of time and risk a lot investigating issues and writing informative, unbiased briefs on them for you, all paid for by themselves, with no advantage for them?
Of course I would be willing to pay for it! $10,000 a year seems ridiculous but I would pay at least a few hundred for it. I already pay for one paper for around $400 a year and I subscribe to plenty of substacks and patreons. I pay for email services because I don't want Google invading my privacy. Good information & digital services are worth every penny.
After doing research for my book on QAnon, I believe QAnon is dangerous. While the criminality is overstated by msm, the violence is real (kidnapping to murder, based on people buying into Q conspiracies). There are other real dangers in that the movement is hateful in its rhetoric, and fueled by irrationality. Its core theory about HRC and the satanic cabal who kidnap, torture, rape, kill and eat children is one huge lie, one that uses real pedophilia for support. The QAnon leaders offer theories without evidence, have no epistemic humility, and present a binary fueled image of Trump (the messiah) against the barbarians who oppose Trump. Anyway, check out my book: The QAnon Deception. (And, yes, I do know that QAnon has some valid points but these genuine points come from other sources that QAnon duplicates). James Beverley, Professor
Professor, I don't think there are many people here who believe Qanon is real. It's nice that you wrote a book debunking it but you must know that you'll be preaching to the converted? True believers will do what, in my experience, they always do which is accuse you of being in on it or of being an academic running interference for it.
Qanon, with its ideas of satanic pedophiles, while a right wing conspiracy now, used to be, during the Bush years, a left wing fueled conspiracy theory. It was driven by accusations around a man named Larry King and the Franklin Savings & Loan scandal. King allegedly pimped out young boys from Boys Town to elites in the Republican Party.
This was also tied into stories of alleged abuse that occurred in day cares that emerged in the 80s which was, if you remember, a huge scandal for a while. People did real jail time based on quite insane allegations. The only one that comes to mind involves the Pope flying in on a hot air balloon & spiriting young children away to a church for satanic ritual rape.
In my estimation, the difference between the left & right wing theories hinges on that idea of Satan. The right wing version emphasizes the Satan part of it, inferring that elites are literally worshipping Satan. The left wing side emphasized the ritual abuse part, with Satan being an extraneous detail. The ritual abuse was used as a tool to shatter a child's personality for purposes of mind control. This then led to MKultra, something called Project Monarch and other projects that I no longer remember.
Other than extraneous details, like placing Trump as an avenging patriot, the stories are incredibly similar because, in my estimation, conspiracy theories never really die they just change sides depending on who holds the reins of power.
You also must understand that what has emerged around the arrest & subsequent suicide/murder of Jeffrey Epstein was like a jet of kerosene on the satanic pedophile conspiracy fire. The number of elite movers & shakers, Trump included, who were cozy with Epstein is quite phenomenal. The accusations, some quite credible, that Epstein was an intelligence asset doing the government's good work, are hard to ignore.
The fact that Epstein allegedly recorded every bit of sexual activity on his island, yet not one recording has emerged is, again, more fuel for the fire.
To say that there's no evidence is a bit disingenuous. There's tons of "evidence," it's just that the evidence is open to interpretation. And, in some cases like Epstein's first arrest, is quashed by powerful people in powerful places.
You also must understand that we live in a system now where corporate & state power are so inextricably intertwined that they're almost indistinguishable. The news media is comprised, primarily, of two opposing camps who spin their "news" based more on their audience demographic than on what's true. In other words they feed us a nonstop stream of biased bullshit.
This "truth void" leaves a nice big blank space for people to fill in as they see fit. Some people have found the Qanon crayon to be to their liking.
Hopefully you've covered all of this in your book. If, on the other hand, you've kept it focused on Qanon & the right wing, I have to say that your book will be pretty useless. I could lie and say I'll read it but I probably won't. While the conspiracy motivations might be faulty, many of the stories about kidnapped & raped children are all too real. Quite frankly prof, I don't have the stomach for it any more.
Finally, you must realize that Qanon is being used as food for the Neo-liberal wing's new found censorship monkey. I have to tell you prof, there are only two sides to the censorship debate. You're either for free speech or you're against it. If you're against it you're a fascist, plain & simple. When you say that Qanon has led to real world murder I'd say that the numbers are probably quite negligible when placed against the murders that resulted from government approved conspiracy theories like "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." Yet no one wants to censor the government and its war machine.
Indeed. I was trying to research about Qanon because, oddly enough, everyone I know who voted for Trump has never heard of Qanon. They have no clue what it is. And yet, I’ve heard the movement linked to Trump voters. I found a podcast that features Travis View who researches conspiracy theories and he would fly out and go to qanon rally’s. He tape recorded them and interviewed people there. The speakers at these rally’s sound crazy and insane. Most of them came off as new age types and not at all evangelical christians (which is how msm describes them). There is one guy who thinks he’s fathered children with aliens and talks about being a star child!!!?! A christian person would view that as satanic. So, I have no clue why they’re making Q people out to be average Trump supporting Christians. It is a cult and the people are crazy but I don’t think there’s very many of them nor do I think it’s the average Trump voter.
I think that's because Qanon is more like a rallying point for differing conspiracy views rather than an overarching philosophy.
My problem with how Qanon is framed in the media is that it's being used as a rallying point for liberal censorship boffins.
In my experience censorship boffins usually can't find their butt crack with both hands & a flashlight.
For example, in Britain, there was a censorship boffin named Mary Whitehouse. She was instrumental in the creation of Britain's video nasties list that banned, primarily, low budget horror films under the grounds that they were harmful to children & British society. She also campaigned against imagery & themes in British TV shows such as Dr. Who that she found harmful for the same reasons.
Ironically though, the one TV personality she felt was just wonderful & beyond reproach was Jimmy Saville who we now know was one of Britain's biggest pervert pedophiles.
As a Trump voter, I would say you are correct on both points. I've said this before: when Mike Pence was asked about Qanon and he claimed to not know what it was, he wasn't lying. Qanon's influence has been grossly inflated by the media looking for more villains. Conversely, Qanon's popularity has also been fueled by the same media coverage. The media has the same effect on mass shootings, and they happily profit from it.
I think you know exactly why the media is making Qanon out to be average Trump supporting Christians.
The QAnon movement is large so I believe it includes some evangelicals. Dave Hayes (aka the Praying Medic) is a leader in that camp. Yes, there are really wild views connected to Q as well.
1. Yes, I realize my critique of QAnon will not go over well with most followers. I was on a radio show the end of December and got the standard ad hominem attacks from Q believers.
2. I agree with your points about the symmetry between left- and right-wing conspiracies. And I do remember the Satanic panic of the 80s.
3. I realize the power of the Epstein scandal and comment on it in my book. My claim about lack of evidence has to do with the specific view that HRC, Barack, and company run an international child trafficking ring in cahoots with the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, etc. I do not think that notion of pedophilia is true.
4. I share your realization of bias in the news media.
5. I do not accept your logic that my book would be useless if it just focused on QAnon and the right wing. A book does not have to be omni-directional to be useful. In any case, you will be happy to know that I reference left-wing items.
6. I am for free speech and despise the way that our culture negates it.
7. Yes, the killings related to QAnon are minor in contrast to the killing machinery of modern states.
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad you understand that it wasn't an attack. I swam in the left wing waters back of that pedo theory back in the early 21st century. I have an annoying tendency to push back against whatever I'm told. My wife likes to say I just like to play devil's advocate. I tend to think that it's just because I'm sort of an asshole. I pushed back against the left wing version. Didn't go well. I did the same, although superficially, against Qanon in 2016. Didn't go well either. I avoid those pools now. Not worth the hassle &, I realized that even if you kick out one leg of a conspiracy's support structure, the true believers will be nailing 2 legs in its place before the one you kicked out hits the ground.
Good luck with your book though.
If the country did more reading & less clicking it would instantly be a better country.
The best conspiracies always contain a grain of truth. Hence why the Jeffery Epstein scandal added fuel to the Q conspiracies. Now there’s a bunch of stories coming out in France about the left intellectuals there who have been accused left and right of pedophilia and incest. Except the stories are true and the accusations are coming from the victims themselves. So more fertile grounds to build more conspiracies.
I would love for the professor to tell us all the real world murders done by QAnon. Sounds like the professor is living in the opposite fantasy world to QAnon. Maybe we should call it the "NonQAnon" cult. You get 2 cults for the price of one. One that is whacko (QAnon) and the other that is equally whacko about the QAnon whacko's somehow secretly murdering and promoting Trump. What a total joke.
I am not sure what to make of your ad hominem attack. What is the "opposite fantasy world"? Is that a suggestion that I just made up the notion that murders can be traced to QAnon. On that one, look up the killing by Anthony Comello of Francisco Cali.
Technically you're right but the left wing conspiracy folk I was talking to on the web didn't dwell on that aspect. It was primarily the mind control angle that they dwelled on The social workers were primarily evangelical Christians who saw Satan everywhere.
It wasn't just the social workers. The investigators were following the lead of evangelicals who they viewed as more knowledgable about crimes they saw as occult in nature. Even their interviews were filled with incredibly leading questions. Kids were even bribed to give the "proper answer." It was a huge clusterfuck.
i assume your book addresses why Qanon exists at all. Does it have anything to do with the perceived (and very real) bias of the mainstream media, and the relentless campaign to distort reality so as to always portray Democrats as "good" and Republicans as "bad?" I know almost nothing about Qanon - most conservatives know less about it than most liberals, I wager - but that would be my guess.
Sure, sure. But there's much less right-wing media. You have to go looking for it; it's not omnipresent. Let's not forget Antifa is not "just an idea," like Biden would have us believe. Extremism exists everywhere, on all sides, and it can be weaponized, but rarely contained. That's the danger in cultivating it, which both Democrats and Republicans have participated equally.
QAnon is a joke. If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead. Remember those folks that all killed themselves in San Diego because they were going to rid on a comet to some utopia. Was that dangerous? Sure it was, but if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them. What I can't believe is that someone would spend their time writing a book about QAnon. What a waste of time.
"If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead."
There must be some psychological reason why "The Joker," a villain in Batman comic books (specifically intended for children) first appearing in 1940, has become a cult hero on the internet. Hollywood also likes to make expensive movies about The Joker in which he is the dashing protagonist. Joker I (1989, Burton), Joker II (2008, Nolan), Joker III (2019, Phillips).
"if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them."
uh, you called this one. It's their fantasy world and everybody else is going to have to live it it.
Gary...why is it a waste of time writing a book about a very popular movement, one that has dangerous elements, and has not received any major book length investigation?
By the way professor, saying your book was useless was a poor choice of words. It would probably be something I wouldn't read because I always preferred the left wing version of this beast since it had a lot more nuance. Qanon , quite frankly, has so many gaping holes in it that you could drive a fleet of semis through its main tenets. It's littered with prediction after prediction that never come true. These are then followed up with more predictions that never come true. The alleged "code" in the Podesta emails is so subjective as to be useless. If I'm not mistaken there are only a few accepted "interpreters" of Q's cryptic utterances. It always struck me as more LARP than cult but that's my personal view.
One of the problems with QAnon is there are few boundaries to determine what is part of the movement's ideology...hence, the long list of conspiracy theories as sub-sets. My book lists 25 major QAnon "interpreters" but there are more. All 25 have large audiences.
Makes it convenient then to lump any dissenting view into a Qanon category. Is Qanon literally anyone who opposes one-party rule by Democrats? Seems likely.
My incredibly superficial take on Qanon was that it contained many sub groups. That is a lot of interpreters though. Do they all agree or is there bickering? Y'know, you've piqued my interest. I'm always looking for reading material since I don't watch TV or have much of an internet presence. I may just take your book out for a spin.
Right on Polly. Yes, absolutely, one needs to intentionally read (or at least sample) news and opinion from across the spectrum or you can be taken hostage by a particular viewpoint, as is the case with many (esp on the Left) today, as you point out.
Polly, if I may, which of the many sites you follow do you find to be the most reliable and/or illuminating and/or informative?
Hi AHamilton, a long reply :-) It's all about what I want to know. I'd like to give you one news place that does it all, but I can't. I don't use NYT for anything now except to read what crazy talking points the Dems/Swamp elites are using today. For actual grounded political commentary I follow responsible journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Andy Ngo - who's been amazingly brave in his reporting on Antifa. The New York Post has been awfully good and awfully censored about the Hunter/Joe Biden grift. I think Tucker Carlson has been really good at reporting on DC recently. He's the only credible one on Fox, CNN or any other major network news. I think the biggest issue right now is the slavery and genocide against the Uyghurs and Falun Gong that's been going on in China - which should deeply disturb everyone - the Left media has been largely just paying lip service to it while looking the other way because of CCP power and money. This will go down as one of the most disgraceful eras in US media. For them to harp on American slavery, which was over a long time ago, or Trump as Hitler when the Hitler died over 75 years ago while ignoring this genocide boggles my mind. So I look to Epoch Times for coverage. A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation. I explained to her that ET is owned by a Falun Gong member and they know firsthand the genocide of the CCP. I pointed out to her the tweet by the CCP boasting about sterilizing Uyghur women. She said “But Epoch Times is pro-Trump.” I said “Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't. That doesn't invalidate their reporting of the genocide.”She won't talk to me now. Real accounts of the real horrors going on involve too much soul searching for the liberals. They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones ... so they're coddled into collaboration with the genocide by the MSM.
Thanks for your engaged reply, Polly. We are, I think, very much on the same wavelength in terms of what constitutes a reliable source. Tucker and Glenn Greenwald (and our beloved Matt) are seemingly spread out on the political spectrum, but ultimately I see them as varying stripes of a sort we might call traditional liberals, people whose commitment to some notion of fairmindedness and factual truth outweighs their commitment to any particular ideology or narrative. That is so important, and increasingly rare in these hyperpolarized times.
That's my favorite irony of Antifa & crew. They loudly voice opposition to slavery practices that are long dead while documenting "their struggles" using iPhones that are made by some form of slavery.
I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo.
Cognitive dissonance really isn't a big enough umbrella to hide under.
"A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation."
But that isn't the case. You can read the Wikipedia entry for yourself; it reports the allegations without disclaimers about "right wing misinformation."
Thank you for your thoughtful reply and appreciate the links. I don't just read or watch what media says about immigrants who've fled communism. I like to talk immigrants to hear what they say. Not what the media says they think. While you're right, some don't like Trump, all have said he recognized the threat of the CCP. They all told me they don't get why so many Americans don't get the danger of China. Biden is completely in the pocket of the CCP and all the media that fawns over him too. They may wag a finger once in a while at China for the genocide, but they're insanely busy 99% of the time writing about the danger of American terrorists.
I agree with you Polly. I don't get it either. I read and listen to CNN, Fox, MSNBC and a bunch of left wing and right wing kook sites, and it doesn't ever get me saying anything but "all of these folks are whacko's." I just don't get why people are so easily persuaded by one side or the other, but evidently they are easily persuaded.
Ultimately though, you get the politicians and media that you deserve. If folks really believe these propagandists, then I guess they deserve them and will get them good and hard.
Thanks, Gary. I've been pondering it. And they don't seem to understand it's not just the crummy politicians they get, but the crummy community. My husband and I always enjoyed throwing parties. I love to cook and food and lively conversation was how I grew up. We'd debate politics (my father was a lawyer), movies, books... But after Trump was elected it started not to be fun anymore. And it's not his fault. It was happening years before that with my left identifying friends. Honestly, a big part of why I stopped calling myself a liberal was I just found the conservative people who came to our parties far more - not just tolerant - but interested in other points of view, more educated, more widely read, less censorial. One Trump hater accused me of being a Nazi (actually Eva Braun) because I simply said, when he was ranting about Russian collusion, that I saw no evidence of it. (He waited to email me that after the party.) He and the handful of people around him said “Oh no? Well, the NYT believes in Russian collusion.” I stopped stirring the pot of stew and asked if they all believed the NYT. They said “Of course.” I tried to explain the Park Avenue mega money makers off war oriented bias of NYT, how they covered up the Bushs' involvement in the cocaine trade during the Central America war fiasco ... they wouldn't have it. I said to my husband that I just couldn't cook for small minded people. He agreed. They killed the fun.
How could you have possibly trusted any of their international or foreign affairs coverage after the Judith Miller scandal? They still haven't adequately apologized or admitted what happened. After 2001-2003 I finally woke up to the fact that the NYT is just private finance propaganda and the CIA exercising its "soft" powers domestically (and illegally) to assist with generating support for their various agendas.
Oh yeah for sure. But his lies and plagiarism didn't result in an illegal invasion of a country and contribute to the forever wars that enabled Obama and Hillary to sack Libya on behalf of France and of course fund the head choppers in Syria. Hell, Trump wouldn't have assassinated Soleimani if we had never invaded Iraq in the first place. But now I'm way off on a tangent.
Because I was 10 years old when the Judith Miller scandal happened and I had literally never heard of it until almost 15 years later. All I knew was that my parents were smart and they thought it was the best paper in the country so naturally that's what I should read when it was time for me to become an Informed Adult too.
Right, but as I said, they have yet to fully account for it and the fact that you didn't hear of it until 15 years later is due in equal parts to your age - AND - the fact that the rest of the corporate mainstream media basically stopped talking about it and brushed it under the rug. Regardless, once that happened (I was 24 years old at the time) I did the research and NYT has a history of misrepresenting crucial international news and telling bald faced lies. Look at their Venezuela or Russiagate coverage for examples. If you want the CIA viewpoint by all means continue reading the international section, but like I said, they do occasionally print some good local/state level investigative journalism and their book and film/music reviews are good.
I'm not sure how you read my original comment and took away the idea that I still trust the NYT lol. I don't read them at all anymore. Once I started to realize how full of shit they were because of the Trump and Amazon coverage I started looking into their history of questionable reporting and learned about Judith Miller and of course the Russiagate sham, among other things. I don't really see how I could have come to that realization any sooner given the fact that I was a child during the Iraq war and the media I had been raised to trust never mentioned anything about the scandal when I was a young adult gaining political consciousness.
And I'm not sure how you read either of my comments and took away the idea that you somehow trust the NYT implicitly. Furthermore, my original question was past tense: "How could you HAVE TRUSTED..." which you kind of answered in your original comment that you agreed with them for a portion of your young life despite the information you needed to realize they were and are untrustworthy being out there and easy to find. Granted, we all have our awakening moments and yours was Amazon and Trump, but the NYT has NEVER been trustworthy is my point.
But good point about Amazon, BTW. That gives lie to their local reporting too. So perhaps actually NONE of what they print should be viewed uncritically.
The frenetic news cycle makes it easy to to just "move on" and brush past indiscretion under the rug. If only human relationships / marriages were like that! If you're on the wrong end of that, you never forget. Ever.
thanks for your comment. It really resonates with my own life experiences. While I was graduating college in 2010, I too grew up with NYT as the 'paper-of-record'.
The extent of their manipulation and deception wasn't obvious until, like you, I saw how their reporting grossly diverged from my own first-hand experiences. I grew up in Vermont, was quite familiar with Bernie Sanders history, and worked as a volunteer organizer for his presidential campaign in 2015. Seeing the NYT ignore, then ridicule, then assassinate Sander's character was quite eye-opening. I'm open to good-faith arguments for or against policy, but they did not argue in good faith. They revealed precisely who's interests they represent.
Taibbi, Greenwald, Scheerpost, Matt Stoller, Michael Tracey, TrueAnon, Consortium News are my go to places for reading. I still check out the nyt and other msm outlets, but I definitely don't trust their reporting. Cheers.
Yes!! Their portrayal of Bernie Sanders was a huge issue for me as well. I wasn't aware of him before 2015 and at the time I assumed they were just ignoring him because they thought he was a marginal candidate (though I voted for him) and because they were obviously heavily biased towards Hillary. I thought it was ordinary ideological bias - I had no idea how deep the rot really was. I also love TrueAnon and their exposé of the 2016 DNC "ratfuck" of his candidacy, aided and abetted by the media, was an eye opener to say the least. Then 2020 happened and it was honestly disturbing how the mainstream liberal media and the party establishment treated him. Truly shameful to see how they maligned one of the few genuine public servants in Washington - one of the last few politicians who cares about the people in a way that's obvious even to those who disagree with him. Suddenly he was a Jewish anti-semite, a problematic old white man with problematic followers, an angry old fool, and his one ally Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian asset. It was absolutely loony to read compared to their fawning coverage of creepy uncle Biden the "reformed" segregationist and fresh-out-of-the-CIA-lab Mayor Pete.
Even my conservative relatives will admit to respecting Bernie for his integrity and decency though they loathe socialism - THAT says more about his character to me than anything published in the NYT. I had already stopped trusting the msm and the major parties at that point but their 2020 Bernie coverage made me actively angry. Thank god for substack and patreon! I haven't heard of a couple of those writers you mentioned so I'll definitely check them out.
I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media." In 2016, watching NYT/WaPo go completely in the tank for HRC and do anything and everything to smear Sanders was an instructive experience.
«I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media."»
As to "control of the media" the Trump story of the past 4 years shows that either that "the zios control the media" is a really delusion or "the zios" are really dumb: Trump has been a good likudnik, put himself under likudnik protection by giving Bibi everything he wanted (except admittedly a nuclear bombing of Iran), and still the mainstream USA media and politicians treated him to a barrage of attacks, and the likudniks did not support or defend him. Either doing what the likudniks want is worthless because they don't have influence or the likudniks have influence but are ready to throw under the bus even those most loyal to them.
Some of my most enjoyable reads are not American newspapers, but British ones. I spent some time in Britain and still regularly go back (a temporary exception for these COVID days). It was in Britain that I discovered the British Spectator magazine (while it's related to the American Spectator and shares some writers and articles, it's still clearly a different beast). It's a pragmatic conservative commentary magazine with insightful articles about current issues. Although it has a British focus, it extensively discusses the woke cultural wars (which Britain is also experiencing, although not quite as badly as the US, but the same entrenched mindset of woke progressives entangling all the great institutions is also becoming a problem). The Spectator also observes American politics. And it has both conservative and liberal writers, who are united to in their commitment to old fashioned Enlightenment liberalism.
I also find the London Times an good read. It's a pragmatic centrist newspaper.
For the US, the best commentaries are coming from the margins of journalism these days. Matt's substack has been great and Andrew Sullivan is another good name. Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Ngo are two other names to read. City Journal offers excellent intellectual conservative viewpoints.
For basic journalism ("fact based") Bloomberg and the WSJ are limited in scope but tend to be more accurate and have fewer subjective moralizing creep and still report as opposed to advocate. WSJ does have a very conservative Op-Ed page but the Op-Ed editors and the news editors/journalists are still clearly separate functions (unlike at the late, great and lamented NYT).
I do wish we had a stronger tabloid tradition in this country. The NYPost comes closest. Everyone loves to hate the tabloids (as in the UK) but the tabloids can offer cunningly honest reporting every now and then that forces into the public conscious a scandal or topic other papers are reluctant to cover, especially politically incorrect or inconvenient ones (such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal).
Nice catch on the tabloid contribution ("cunningly honest" yes). While Murdoch's Post has a clear ideological line (perhaps the only American daily willing to push back against some of the more egregious excesses of the "mainstream" papers) some of the UK tabs end up pretty close to neutral. The Daily Mail will cover stories that the US media won't, and it does so from the middle; Left, Right, Center, whatever, if it's lurid they'll print it.
"The Economist", like "The Times" and the FT and WSJ, are "establishment" propaganda organs, and their political "news" are the same opinions pieces as everywhere, right-wing neoliberal/neocon, rather than "liberal". Their business news tend to be rather more reliable.
If you can stomach a good article from a (very) politically incorrect site, this description of the decadence of the "The London Economist" as it was seems quite reliable to me:
“So as time went on, more and more of the sharp intellectual features which had once given the magazine such verve and originality were gradually sanded off, not completely, but to a considerable extent. The London Economist became just the plain Economist, rarely willing to violate the boundaries or taboos of the reigning DC/NYC neoconservative/neoliberal American Establishment, merely a smarter, better written, much deeper version of Time or Businessweek.“
BTW I really like BusinessWeek or Fortune, they often, often have in depth pieces, but again their political news are "aligned" propaganda, and sometimes BusinessWeek is even more informative than "The Economist".
Bear with me a bit while I provide a bit of a background to my relationship with the NYT. I grew up in the 1980s-1990s the offspring of an academic family (father a professor at a prominent university, mother a teacher). Naturally, as a center-left academic family, the NYT featured prominently on our breakfast table. I used to read the paper extensively, browsing the multiple sections in the Sunday Times. "Everyone" knew the NYT was the best paper in America, it spoke intelligently to an intelligent audience. While indisputably a liberal paper, you could still enjoy columnists with differing views and the journalism itself was top notch, and the various sections (Science, Architecture/Art, Food, Travel) were largely free of moralizing opinions.
Then, around 2000, while in college, I noticed something started to change at the NYT. It wasn't a sudden change but a gradual change in the tone of the paper's articles and columnists. While my parents were your liberal academics, my larger family came from a variety of places, small town rural America, Reagan/Bush suburban professionals, working class union Democrats and I like to think close exposure with this range of Americans kept me open minded and realistic about everyday America. And while we could disagree over policy, no one ever questioned that we were all Americans and no one questioned the validity of anyone else's life experience.
Except the NYT. Sometime around 2000, I started realizing the Times was treating the rest of America outside the liberal Upper West Side echelons (and those elsewhere who allied with that mindset) as somewhat odd and foreign. It was as if the Times' journalists were viewing the rest of America, and actually, even large parts of NYC itself (the old immigrant boroughs, Long Island and so forth) the way a biologist analyses strange new bacteria through a microscope lens. And it became clearer that the NYT's journalists and columnists didn't see themselves as the same Americans as the rest of the Americans they periodically wrote about. When they wrote about various American subjects, it was written less about fellow countrymen, but a different people entirely. The irony was that the NYT itself is the weird little bacteria in the middle of America but they took the opposite attitude!
When I realized that, it ended my love affair with the NYT. It wasn't overnight, it was a gradual process that took some years. Then, of course, we have seen in the last four years the NYT frankly and openly admit it no longer regards objectivity a principle in journalism. This disease, the isolation of elite journalism from everyday America, has spread quickly and extensively to all other major mainstream papers and TV/internet news. Matt has already covered this with his echo chamber article.
An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people. The men and women who control most of the nation's media and their allies in social media and higher education and increasingly now in the corporate world are extremely disdainful of much of America, disparage their way of thinking without even bothering to try to understand it, and use their institutions to be openly hostile. I don't think the American upper classes has ever been so openly hateful of half their countrymen.
A major reason behind MAGAism and the 74 million Trump voters is that they clearly saw this hatred towards them and this widespread attempt to shunt this America out of sight.
This has been my exact experience with the NYT, though I'm a bit younger so I grew up with it in the 90s and 2000s and subscribed on my own when I went to college in 2010. I was a devoted reader all through college and young adulthood - I knew it was a liberal paper but I agreed with a lot of their opinions and reading what everyone knew to be the best paper in America (lol) made me feel grown up and informed. I'm from NYC so it was also my "local paper."
Around 2015 I started to notice the wheels coming off with the breathless and deadly serious coverage of Trump, who looked like an obvious troll/comedian to me from the start. The fawning portrayal of the Amazon headquarters destined for Long Island City was the last straw - I lived five minutes away from LIC and I could see with my own two eyes that their portrayal of the neighborhood as some blighted wasteland desperately in need of a Silicon Valley takeover was complete hogwash. Why should one of the largest companies in the world need a massive tax subsidy to open an office in an already popular neighborhood in the largest city in America? Every company has an office in New York City. Many of them have offices in Long Island City, e.g. Citi Bank. The idea that we, NYC taxpayers, should be subsidizing the richest man in the world in order to "convince" him to open a new office in the freaking BUSINESS CAPITAL OF AMERICA completely broke my brain. Meanwhile my precious NYT seemed to be drooling over Bezos with zero critical reflection. I think my disillusionment with the NYT had been percolating for years but for some reason this story put me over the edge and suddenly the entire paper looked completely ridiculous. I began to see how little their "Bobos-in-paradise" worldview resembled what I knew from, like you, having friends and family outside upper middle class coastal academic enclaves.
Question: what paper do you read now? I have been reading the Wall Street Journal recently, though their opinion section makes my eyes roll out of my head. I think their news reporting is still decent but it's so hard to tell these days. I wish there was a paper without any opinion section at all.
I read dozens of news sites, everything from NYT to QAnon. I find it interesting to see how people think - or that they don't think at all. I don't fear ideas different than mine will somehow infect me, and find it weird so many of my left friends do. I especially find it weird when leftist young people say they just won't read something because it's too dangerous. My conclusion is *they* are terrified they'll lose their leftist faith. And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious.
As Jimmy Dore has pointed out, Russiagate is the liberal Qanon. Most liberals are just to thick to realize it. What the Trump presidency has taught me is liberals, despite their college educations, are every bit as butt ignorant as the caricature they use to mock rural right wingers.
And, for a group that seems obsessed with their own feelings, they seem to lack a remarkable amount of self awareness. In other words, liberals appear to be dumb enough to wholeheartedly believe their own bullshit.
It’s possible the excess carbon dioxide they inhale as they sleep with their mask on doesn’t enhance their cognitive development in the least.
Hmmm...I think it's more complex than just saying Qanon is the Russiagate of the right. I like Jimmy Dore and always agree with him, but I think a better comparison would be that "stop the steal" is the Russiagate of the right/Trump world. Both are conspiracy theories with the goal of de-legitimizing legitimate election victories. Russiagate for the Hillary crowd, "stop the steal" for Trump supporters.
Qanon tries to be all encompassing, so it approaches cult status as it represents a worldview rather than a single conspiracy. What exactly did Dore say about Russiagate being the liberal Qanon? I can't believe someone as smart as him would simplify it so much.
I think Dore was just responding to Clinton & Pelosi's insane idea to convene a 911 style commission to investigate those Trump/Russia ties that they couldn't prove with 4 years of investigations while Trump was in office. Pelosi, on Hillary's podcast, said "With Trump, all roads lead to Putin." They're both convinced that the Capitol protesters were doing Putin's bidding, etc.
I do believe it's on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLdz9-fdp8o
I think his point was that the Dems, along with their media propaganda wing, are the biggest pushers of conspiracy theories out there yet their cult of partisan true believers are completely unaware that they're being sold inventions.
It's because these people are dumb. Same as the Qanon believers. My sister buys into a lot of this garbage (the lefty crap, not Qanon) and I know her IQ is slightly above 100. That means that objectively, half the country is even dumber than that. It's enough to not just make me want a drink, but want a nice juicy shot of heroin. The good news, sort of, is bread and circuses.
That said, I do believe that Trump was and is corrupt AF, but other than the nature of his non-political businesses (i.e., not a Clinton Foundation or the like) which he definitely benefited during his presidency, he's no different from any of the others. His business dealings and frank nature just took the mask off where a polite guy like Obama could hold the act down long enough and wait to profit immensely AFTER he left office.
Thanks. They're insane. The MSM managed to infect my dad with the whole Russiagate BS and it's the same as Q. Nothing will convince him otherwise. I'm just glad that it was only a single "incident" or election year and that they've finally shut up about it (for now).
Oh boy ... the election. Yes, it was stolen. Any smart person who examined the evidence knows it but Americans don't want to think about how bad it's gotten. They prefer Left vs Right rather than Totalitarian vs Individual Rights. Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon? Okay, you are all a wonderfully smart bunch and of course anyone who reads Matt or Glenn Greenwald would be but I need to grill my husband some Argentinian style steaks with chimichurri sauce and duck fat potatoes. Looking forward to seeing you on Matt's next.
This election was no more marred with fraud than any other election. The dead have been voting in elections for as long as I have been alive, and probably many times that 50 years. That said, this election the fraud probably made a difference. It deserves investigation and until it is properly investigated, people are tuning out of the system. It's a bad state of affairs for a democracy. As long as people buy into "my vote makes a difference" you are doing ok. After that is gone, it's just oppression, and we all know where that leads.
"Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon?"
Orwell was prescient, but not prescient enough. He didn't predict that Big Brother was just out to make another dime.
...too thick...arrrrrgh!
And a stutter....yeesh!
Wouldn't an edit feature be nice?
"And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious."
Granting credibility to QAnon is a litmus test for gullibility: if someone takes QAnon seriously, they're gullible. QAnon presents a classic non-falsifiability trap, and practically mandates that its adherents draw on various uncriticalassumptions and factoids to fill in the voluminous blanks between its threadbare factual disclosures and murky hints and insinuations. It's a model of how to yank people's chains.
And to the extent that it's taken seriously and obtains power and influence, QAnon is potentially dangerous. Although my best guess is that the election of Marjorie Greer and Lauren Boebert marks the high tide of the QAnon "movement", which deserves to fade away into well-deserved ignominy.
I don't take QAnon or NYT seriously. I fail to see, though, how NYT isn't more dangerous, given their massive peddling of Russiagate and suppression of the Hunter Biden.
"suppression of the Hunter Biden."
Hunter himself has been anything but suppressed. Bow before the Prince.
Haha! I meant the Hunter Biden scandal.
Thank you for the Reddit suggestion. Interesting. One thing that struck me is most don't seem to take any personal responsibility. They just blame QAnon. But at least the ex QAnons know they're casualties. I know a number of Trump haters who are just as psychotic and have wrecked just as much as the ex QAnons at least admit to. The Trump haters just don't realize it. It's Trump's fault. They keep talking about how Trump supporters need to be reprogrammed. They should all look in the mirror, get themselves reprogrammed, stop watching CNN, reading NYT and get Trump out of their heads and move on. If an ex-President is still the biggest thing in your life you need help.
And the same thing isn't happening to NYT readers? Don't they cut off family ties etc. too? Haven't marriages been ruined over who voted for Trump?
Ooh! Thanks I’m definitely checking it out. I think the diff between Russiagate & Qanon is that R-gate had the potential to get us into another cold war or arms race with Russia. It was taken serious by the letters agencies & powerful people. Q only effects individuals and to the effect it affects real world events like 1/6. Im not sure that was primarily Q driven so much as it was by Trump and his band of crooks. The greatest danger in all that seemed to be the Lin Wood types who had massive followings and was affecting voters and stirring people up with Stop The Steal.
Qanon is an influencer status-seeking racket that is based on the $ generated via clicks, views, likes, shares, follows and even merchandise. The whole thing is a scam which should have stayed what it is: entertainment. Problem is too many Americans (and others) are so gullible and looking for a unifying "theory of everything" to explain the evils they perceive in the world and Q is a good distraction from the policies of the corporate Democrats (who work for the same economic interests as the right) and the Republicans. Both constitute two different segments of The War Party.
There seems to be different levels of Qanon, from political analysis(which can be pretty keen) to the inner circle which is totally weird (JFK Jr. is still alive, lizard people, political clones etc.). It was never right wing in the traditional sense( American exceptionalism)but reverted back to a certain protectionism which is attractive to many on the disaffected left who are tired of the pseudo-left politics of corporate Democrats. In the end Qanon at least gave a platform to the dissident left that was often banned on YouTube where anyone that questions the motives or wisdom of Dr. Fauci or the Gates Foundation has been systematically censored.
I will preface this by saying that I am not deeply into QAnon and speak from a position of relative ignorance,
but it intrigues me that it seems to pit the military/military intelligence against civilian intelligence/The Establishment. Mike Flynn is a martyr figure. DIA vs. CIA.
Yep. Agree. I think it's normal to search for a unifying “theory of everything” - but at QAnon??? Try listening to JS Bach instead.
A more cynical reading of QAnon is that its a public Team Red reaction to CRT/BLM... if all conservatives can be labeled "Racists" then all liberals can be labled "Pedophiles." After all, what would be worse in 2021: being compared to David Duke or Jeffrey Epstein?
The question becomes, which faction believes its conspiracy theory more than the other?
Intriguing theory. CRT is institutionalized and likely more harmful in the long run. If Q blames elites for all ills CRT blames White people for all ills.
I’ve listened to Marjorie Taylor Green and she is a fool. The Republicans need to shut her up, censor her or something. Not sure. They need to do some house cleaning like W.F. Buckley did with the John Birchers in the 60’s.
I agree with all of that. I like reading things that piss me off or that people tell me are bad and scary. I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre. I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?
>>I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre.
I was raised in a fundamentalist church, believing God created the universe in 6 days and all that. So I can relate to people who believe exposure to certain facts and opinions can be "dangerous"--that's precisely how I used to feel when exposed to texts about evolution.
Polly is exactly right. Leftism has morphed into a religion, a carefully constructed one that cannot withstand exposure to critical arguments.
Perhaps the so-called "leftism" of certain identity politics activists in liberal arts college. But true leftism has mostly been crushed by the corporate right and center, both of which continue to re-define leftism to suit their own political and economic agendas. Try starting a labor union at a "liberal" corporation like Alphabet or Apple. LOL, THAT is leftism.
Alphabet workers did it but since they can't actually conceive of an adversarial relationship between labor and capital it's essentially a social justice advocacy club. Check out this mission statement, it's absolutely wild from a "labor" perspective: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statement/
This is why leftist politics is currently on life support. All of the people in this union genuinely believe they're doing leftism right now when they're actually begging capital to make itself look even friendlier to their cultural ideology while asking for literally no material concessions. This is a group of people who think labor organizing is for ending identity-based "oppression" in the workplace and for winning the right to be a conscientious objector to work projects. They think their interests and their employer's can perfectly align if they just try a little harder to make the case for "not being evil." The idea that their employer's interests and their own cannot possibly be aligned because one represents capital and the other labor would break their brains.
Try starting a labor union at an intelligence agency.
Legally, you can't.
No, leftism and righism have morphed into centrism. What you call left are Reagan democrats and corporate 3rd way dems who bought into the whole empire trip that the neocons were selling.
Okay. I invite you to consider that Christianity has hundreds, maybe thousands, of denominations; and many of them believe they alone know the truth. "No true Christian" believes dancing is okay, and so on.
I know the woke = religion analogy has been done to death at this point but that's because it rings so true. I wasn't raised religious, in fact my parents came from two very different religious backgrounds that essentially negated each other, so I've never understood the religious mindset on a personal level. I guess that's why I have so much trouble understanding the people on the left who suddenly think this way about conservative or even non-mainstream leftist news. It just doesn't make any sense.
Good luck with finding when, where, what, why, who journalism now in a national paper. That's why I enjoy reading local news - not just mine but around the country. We recently had a local newspaper story about a French Bulldog falling over a neighborhood cliff, getting rescued by a Fireman and it was just great. What happened. When it happened. Where it happened. Why it happened (Frenchie got loose from leash). Who (photo of Frenchie in arms of Fireman).
Yes, that is my favorite type of news. Because it's about local, real people. Not abstract concepts far away. We are missing that connection in the major news sources these days.
Got a link?
Realclearpolitics.com, it features titles and links to articles from the left to the right. You’ll get all kinds of news from Slate & the NYTs to the National Review and the NY Post. I’ve seen substack links to Taibbi’s & GG articles, all kinds of views featured there. Unfortunately, you can’t get the news from 1 trusted source anymore. You have to read a rang of sources to get to a proximate of truth(ish) news. It’s what we have to deal with in a biased, divided world.
I subscribe to this to get the major news stories and to see which side is covering what: https://ground.news
«I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?»
Are you willing to pay $10,000 a year for that? Or at least $1,000 a year?
Or do you want for people to spend a lot of time and risk a lot investigating issues and writing informative, unbiased briefs on them for you, all paid for by themselves, with no advantage for them?
Of course I would be willing to pay for it! $10,000 a year seems ridiculous but I would pay at least a few hundred for it. I already pay for one paper for around $400 a year and I subscribe to plenty of substacks and patreons. I pay for email services because I don't want Google invading my privacy. Good information & digital services are worth every penny.
...if it is the only concept allowed to be presented like Twitter, Face Book. Wikipedia. google (censors sites)
Larry Sanger says Wikipedia Badly Biased.
https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
After doing research for my book on QAnon, I believe QAnon is dangerous. While the criminality is overstated by msm, the violence is real (kidnapping to murder, based on people buying into Q conspiracies). There are other real dangers in that the movement is hateful in its rhetoric, and fueled by irrationality. Its core theory about HRC and the satanic cabal who kidnap, torture, rape, kill and eat children is one huge lie, one that uses real pedophilia for support. The QAnon leaders offer theories without evidence, have no epistemic humility, and present a binary fueled image of Trump (the messiah) against the barbarians who oppose Trump. Anyway, check out my book: The QAnon Deception. (And, yes, I do know that QAnon has some valid points but these genuine points come from other sources that QAnon duplicates). James Beverley, Professor
Professor, I don't think there are many people here who believe Qanon is real. It's nice that you wrote a book debunking it but you must know that you'll be preaching to the converted? True believers will do what, in my experience, they always do which is accuse you of being in on it or of being an academic running interference for it.
Qanon, with its ideas of satanic pedophiles, while a right wing conspiracy now, used to be, during the Bush years, a left wing fueled conspiracy theory. It was driven by accusations around a man named Larry King and the Franklin Savings & Loan scandal. King allegedly pimped out young boys from Boys Town to elites in the Republican Party.
This was also tied into stories of alleged abuse that occurred in day cares that emerged in the 80s which was, if you remember, a huge scandal for a while. People did real jail time based on quite insane allegations. The only one that comes to mind involves the Pope flying in on a hot air balloon & spiriting young children away to a church for satanic ritual rape.
In my estimation, the difference between the left & right wing theories hinges on that idea of Satan. The right wing version emphasizes the Satan part of it, inferring that elites are literally worshipping Satan. The left wing side emphasized the ritual abuse part, with Satan being an extraneous detail. The ritual abuse was used as a tool to shatter a child's personality for purposes of mind control. This then led to MKultra, something called Project Monarch and other projects that I no longer remember.
Other than extraneous details, like placing Trump as an avenging patriot, the stories are incredibly similar because, in my estimation, conspiracy theories never really die they just change sides depending on who holds the reins of power.
You also must understand that what has emerged around the arrest & subsequent suicide/murder of Jeffrey Epstein was like a jet of kerosene on the satanic pedophile conspiracy fire. The number of elite movers & shakers, Trump included, who were cozy with Epstein is quite phenomenal. The accusations, some quite credible, that Epstein was an intelligence asset doing the government's good work, are hard to ignore.
The fact that Epstein allegedly recorded every bit of sexual activity on his island, yet not one recording has emerged is, again, more fuel for the fire.
To say that there's no evidence is a bit disingenuous. There's tons of "evidence," it's just that the evidence is open to interpretation. And, in some cases like Epstein's first arrest, is quashed by powerful people in powerful places.
You also must understand that we live in a system now where corporate & state power are so inextricably intertwined that they're almost indistinguishable. The news media is comprised, primarily, of two opposing camps who spin their "news" based more on their audience demographic than on what's true. In other words they feed us a nonstop stream of biased bullshit.
This "truth void" leaves a nice big blank space for people to fill in as they see fit. Some people have found the Qanon crayon to be to their liking.
Hopefully you've covered all of this in your book. If, on the other hand, you've kept it focused on Qanon & the right wing, I have to say that your book will be pretty useless. I could lie and say I'll read it but I probably won't. While the conspiracy motivations might be faulty, many of the stories about kidnapped & raped children are all too real. Quite frankly prof, I don't have the stomach for it any more.
Finally, you must realize that Qanon is being used as food for the Neo-liberal wing's new found censorship monkey. I have to tell you prof, there are only two sides to the censorship debate. You're either for free speech or you're against it. If you're against it you're a fascist, plain & simple. When you say that Qanon has led to real world murder I'd say that the numbers are probably quite negligible when placed against the murders that resulted from government approved conspiracy theories like "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." Yet no one wants to censor the government and its war machine.
Indeed. I was trying to research about Qanon because, oddly enough, everyone I know who voted for Trump has never heard of Qanon. They have no clue what it is. And yet, I’ve heard the movement linked to Trump voters. I found a podcast that features Travis View who researches conspiracy theories and he would fly out and go to qanon rally’s. He tape recorded them and interviewed people there. The speakers at these rally’s sound crazy and insane. Most of them came off as new age types and not at all evangelical christians (which is how msm describes them). There is one guy who thinks he’s fathered children with aliens and talks about being a star child!!!?! A christian person would view that as satanic. So, I have no clue why they’re making Q people out to be average Trump supporting Christians. It is a cult and the people are crazy but I don’t think there’s very many of them nor do I think it’s the average Trump voter.
I think that's because Qanon is more like a rallying point for differing conspiracy views rather than an overarching philosophy.
My problem with how Qanon is framed in the media is that it's being used as a rallying point for liberal censorship boffins.
In my experience censorship boffins usually can't find their butt crack with both hands & a flashlight.
For example, in Britain, there was a censorship boffin named Mary Whitehouse. She was instrumental in the creation of Britain's video nasties list that banned, primarily, low budget horror films under the grounds that they were harmful to children & British society. She also campaigned against imagery & themes in British TV shows such as Dr. Who that she found harmful for the same reasons.
Ironically though, the one TV personality she felt was just wonderful & beyond reproach was Jimmy Saville who we now know was one of Britain's biggest pervert pedophiles.
As a Trump voter, I would say you are correct on both points. I've said this before: when Mike Pence was asked about Qanon and he claimed to not know what it was, he wasn't lying. Qanon's influence has been grossly inflated by the media looking for more villains. Conversely, Qanon's popularity has also been fueled by the same media coverage. The media has the same effect on mass shootings, and they happily profit from it.
I think you know exactly why the media is making Qanon out to be average Trump supporting Christians.
K.M.
The QAnon movement is large so I believe it includes some evangelicals. Dave Hayes (aka the Praying Medic) is a leader in that camp. Yes, there are really wild views connected to Q as well.
Dear Spiderbaby,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Several points:
1. Yes, I realize my critique of QAnon will not go over well with most followers. I was on a radio show the end of December and got the standard ad hominem attacks from Q believers.
2. I agree with your points about the symmetry between left- and right-wing conspiracies. And I do remember the Satanic panic of the 80s.
3. I realize the power of the Epstein scandal and comment on it in my book. My claim about lack of evidence has to do with the specific view that HRC, Barack, and company run an international child trafficking ring in cahoots with the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, etc. I do not think that notion of pedophilia is true.
4. I share your realization of bias in the news media.
5. I do not accept your logic that my book would be useless if it just focused on QAnon and the right wing. A book does not have to be omni-directional to be useful. In any case, you will be happy to know that I reference left-wing items.
6. I am for free speech and despise the way that our culture negates it.
7. Yes, the killings related to QAnon are minor in contrast to the killing machinery of modern states.
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad you understand that it wasn't an attack. I swam in the left wing waters back of that pedo theory back in the early 21st century. I have an annoying tendency to push back against whatever I'm told. My wife likes to say I just like to play devil's advocate. I tend to think that it's just because I'm sort of an asshole. I pushed back against the left wing version. Didn't go well. I did the same, although superficially, against Qanon in 2016. Didn't go well either. I avoid those pools now. Not worth the hassle &, I realized that even if you kick out one leg of a conspiracy's support structure, the true believers will be nailing 2 legs in its place before the one you kicked out hits the ground.
Good luck with your book though.
If the country did more reading & less clicking it would instantly be a better country.
The best conspiracies always contain a grain of truth. Hence why the Jeffery Epstein scandal added fuel to the Q conspiracies. Now there’s a bunch of stories coming out in France about the left intellectuals there who have been accused left and right of pedophilia and incest. Except the stories are true and the accusations are coming from the victims themselves. So more fertile grounds to build more conspiracies.
I would love for the professor to tell us all the real world murders done by QAnon. Sounds like the professor is living in the opposite fantasy world to QAnon. Maybe we should call it the "NonQAnon" cult. You get 2 cults for the price of one. One that is whacko (QAnon) and the other that is equally whacko about the QAnon whacko's somehow secretly murdering and promoting Trump. What a total joke.
Gary
I am not sure what to make of your ad hominem attack. What is the "opposite fantasy world"? Is that a suggestion that I just made up the notion that murders can be traced to QAnon. On that one, look up the killing by Anthony Comello of Francisco Cali.
Satanism did play a role in the Mcmartin preschool fiasco. Those social workers "coached" it out of the kids along with the fake molestation stories.
Technically you're right but the left wing conspiracy folk I was talking to on the web didn't dwell on that aspect. It was primarily the mind control angle that they dwelled on The social workers were primarily evangelical Christians who saw Satan everywhere.
It wasn't just the social workers. The investigators were following the lead of evangelicals who they viewed as more knowledgable about crimes they saw as occult in nature. Even their interviews were filled with incredibly leading questions. Kids were even bribed to give the "proper answer." It was a huge clusterfuck.
i assume your book addresses why Qanon exists at all. Does it have anything to do with the perceived (and very real) bias of the mainstream media, and the relentless campaign to distort reality so as to always portray Democrats as "good" and Republicans as "bad?" I know almost nothing about Qanon - most conservatives know less about it than most liberals, I wager - but that would be my guess.
To be fair Mike, right wing media just flips the narrative.
I think the real issue for people like you & me is the left/right divide is no longer relevant.
I don't think that the people on top give a shit about either left or right.
They just care about power.
We're the rubes that they sell left/right conflict too.
And they're fucking good at it.
I do share your concerns about over inflating Qanon because that's the kind of target the censors will initially aim at because they're easy.
I don't know...it's a fine line...
I wish I had an answer.
Sure, sure. But there's much less right-wing media. You have to go looking for it; it's not omnipresent. Let's not forget Antifa is not "just an idea," like Biden would have us believe. Extremism exists everywhere, on all sides, and it can be weaponized, but rarely contained. That's the danger in cultivating it, which both Democrats and Republicans have participated equally.
QAnon is rooted in part in hatred of msm.
QAnon is a joke. If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead. Remember those folks that all killed themselves in San Diego because they were going to rid on a comet to some utopia. Was that dangerous? Sure it was, but if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them. What I can't believe is that someone would spend their time writing a book about QAnon. What a waste of time.
"If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead."
There must be some psychological reason why "The Joker," a villain in Batman comic books (specifically intended for children) first appearing in 1940, has become a cult hero on the internet. Hollywood also likes to make expensive movies about The Joker in which he is the dashing protagonist. Joker I (1989, Burton), Joker II (2008, Nolan), Joker III (2019, Phillips).
"if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them."
uh, you called this one. It's their fantasy world and everybody else is going to have to live it it.
I hate it when I start agreeing with Fredric Wertham. Comic Book America is becoming the reigning paradigm.
Gary...why is it a waste of time writing a book about a very popular movement, one that has dangerous elements, and has not received any major book length investigation?
By the way professor, saying your book was useless was a poor choice of words. It would probably be something I wouldn't read because I always preferred the left wing version of this beast since it had a lot more nuance. Qanon , quite frankly, has so many gaping holes in it that you could drive a fleet of semis through its main tenets. It's littered with prediction after prediction that never come true. These are then followed up with more predictions that never come true. The alleged "code" in the Podesta emails is so subjective as to be useless. If I'm not mistaken there are only a few accepted "interpreters" of Q's cryptic utterances. It always struck me as more LARP than cult but that's my personal view.
One of the problems with QAnon is there are few boundaries to determine what is part of the movement's ideology...hence, the long list of conspiracy theories as sub-sets. My book lists 25 major QAnon "interpreters" but there are more. All 25 have large audiences.
Makes it convenient then to lump any dissenting view into a Qanon category. Is Qanon literally anyone who opposes one-party rule by Democrats? Seems likely.
My incredibly superficial take on Qanon was that it contained many sub groups. That is a lot of interpreters though. Do they all agree or is there bickering? Y'know, you've piqued my interest. I'm always looking for reading material since I don't watch TV or have much of an internet presence. I may just take your book out for a spin.
Who are the Qanon leaders? I thought they were anonymous.
Dear K.M.
Q is anonymous though is probably Jim or Ron Watkins, who run the 8kun site where the Posts first appear.
Early on various teachers/promoters went public and have become well-known and in some cases wealthy off of Q merchandise.
Jim
PS. A picky note: the standard now is to write QAnon.
Thank you - I will order a copy of your book today from our local Indie bookstore.
Right on Polly. Yes, absolutely, one needs to intentionally read (or at least sample) news and opinion from across the spectrum or you can be taken hostage by a particular viewpoint, as is the case with many (esp on the Left) today, as you point out.
Polly, if I may, which of the many sites you follow do you find to be the most reliable and/or illuminating and/or informative?
Hi AHamilton, a long reply :-) It's all about what I want to know. I'd like to give you one news place that does it all, but I can't. I don't use NYT for anything now except to read what crazy talking points the Dems/Swamp elites are using today. For actual grounded political commentary I follow responsible journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Andy Ngo - who's been amazingly brave in his reporting on Antifa. The New York Post has been awfully good and awfully censored about the Hunter/Joe Biden grift. I think Tucker Carlson has been really good at reporting on DC recently. He's the only credible one on Fox, CNN or any other major network news. I think the biggest issue right now is the slavery and genocide against the Uyghurs and Falun Gong that's been going on in China - which should deeply disturb everyone - the Left media has been largely just paying lip service to it while looking the other way because of CCP power and money. This will go down as one of the most disgraceful eras in US media. For them to harp on American slavery, which was over a long time ago, or Trump as Hitler when the Hitler died over 75 years ago while ignoring this genocide boggles my mind. So I look to Epoch Times for coverage. A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation. I explained to her that ET is owned by a Falun Gong member and they know firsthand the genocide of the CCP. I pointed out to her the tweet by the CCP boasting about sterilizing Uyghur women. She said “But Epoch Times is pro-Trump.” I said “Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't. That doesn't invalidate their reporting of the genocide.”She won't talk to me now. Real accounts of the real horrors going on involve too much soul searching for the liberals. They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones ... so they're coddled into collaboration with the genocide by the MSM.
Thanks for your engaged reply, Polly. We are, I think, very much on the same wavelength in terms of what constitutes a reliable source. Tucker and Glenn Greenwald (and our beloved Matt) are seemingly spread out on the political spectrum, but ultimately I see them as varying stripes of a sort we might call traditional liberals, people whose commitment to some notion of fairmindedness and factual truth outweighs their commitment to any particular ideology or narrative. That is so important, and increasingly rare in these hyperpolarized times.
" They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones"
That's my favorite irony of Antifa & crew. They loudly voice opposition to slavery practices that are long dead while documenting "their struggles" using iPhones that are made by some form of slavery.
I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo.
Cognitive dissonance really isn't a big enough umbrella to hide under.
"I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo"
I don't think there's a lot of mental gymnastics going on here, bud. Only the next click.
Tucker Carlson and Epoch Times. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation."
But that isn't the case. You can read the Wikipedia entry for yourself; it reports the allegations without disclaimers about "right wing misinformation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs#Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Xinjiang
The New York Times reportage on the Uighurs
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/uighurs
“Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't."
That statement only requires one example to refute it: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-ana-navarro-lashes-out-when-pro-trump-pundit-calls-her-leftist
But if an emigrant from the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua doesn't qualify, then
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/11/2/vietnamese-american-voters
I've read many other comments from people who "fled communism" and opposed the Trump presidency. But mostly in letters comments, etc.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply and appreciate the links. I don't just read or watch what media says about immigrants who've fled communism. I like to talk immigrants to hear what they say. Not what the media says they think. While you're right, some don't like Trump, all have said he recognized the threat of the CCP. They all told me they don't get why so many Americans don't get the danger of China. Biden is completely in the pocket of the CCP and all the media that fawns over him too. They may wag a finger once in a while at China for the genocide, but they're insanely busy 99% of the time writing about the danger of American terrorists.
I agree with you Polly. I don't get it either. I read and listen to CNN, Fox, MSNBC and a bunch of left wing and right wing kook sites, and it doesn't ever get me saying anything but "all of these folks are whacko's." I just don't get why people are so easily persuaded by one side or the other, but evidently they are easily persuaded.
Ultimately though, you get the politicians and media that you deserve. If folks really believe these propagandists, then I guess they deserve them and will get them good and hard.
Thanks, Gary. I've been pondering it. And they don't seem to understand it's not just the crummy politicians they get, but the crummy community. My husband and I always enjoyed throwing parties. I love to cook and food and lively conversation was how I grew up. We'd debate politics (my father was a lawyer), movies, books... But after Trump was elected it started not to be fun anymore. And it's not his fault. It was happening years before that with my left identifying friends. Honestly, a big part of why I stopped calling myself a liberal was I just found the conservative people who came to our parties far more - not just tolerant - but interested in other points of view, more educated, more widely read, less censorial. One Trump hater accused me of being a Nazi (actually Eva Braun) because I simply said, when he was ranting about Russian collusion, that I saw no evidence of it. (He waited to email me that after the party.) He and the handful of people around him said “Oh no? Well, the NYT believes in Russian collusion.” I stopped stirring the pot of stew and asked if they all believed the NYT. They said “Of course.” I tried to explain the Park Avenue mega money makers off war oriented bias of NYT, how they covered up the Bushs' involvement in the cocaine trade during the Central America war fiasco ... they wouldn't have it. I said to my husband that I just couldn't cook for small minded people. He agreed. They killed the fun.
How could you have possibly trusted any of their international or foreign affairs coverage after the Judith Miller scandal? They still haven't adequately apologized or admitted what happened. After 2001-2003 I finally woke up to the fact that the NYT is just private finance propaganda and the CIA exercising its "soft" powers domestically (and illegally) to assist with generating support for their various agendas.
Jayson Blair?
Oh yeah for sure. But his lies and plagiarism didn't result in an illegal invasion of a country and contribute to the forever wars that enabled Obama and Hillary to sack Libya on behalf of France and of course fund the head choppers in Syria. Hell, Trump wouldn't have assassinated Soleimani if we had never invaded Iraq in the first place. But now I'm way off on a tangent.
Because I was 10 years old when the Judith Miller scandal happened and I had literally never heard of it until almost 15 years later. All I knew was that my parents were smart and they thought it was the best paper in the country so naturally that's what I should read when it was time for me to become an Informed Adult too.
Right, but as I said, they have yet to fully account for it and the fact that you didn't hear of it until 15 years later is due in equal parts to your age - AND - the fact that the rest of the corporate mainstream media basically stopped talking about it and brushed it under the rug. Regardless, once that happened (I was 24 years old at the time) I did the research and NYT has a history of misrepresenting crucial international news and telling bald faced lies. Look at their Venezuela or Russiagate coverage for examples. If you want the CIA viewpoint by all means continue reading the international section, but like I said, they do occasionally print some good local/state level investigative journalism and their book and film/music reviews are good.
I'm not sure how you read my original comment and took away the idea that I still trust the NYT lol. I don't read them at all anymore. Once I started to realize how full of shit they were because of the Trump and Amazon coverage I started looking into their history of questionable reporting and learned about Judith Miller and of course the Russiagate sham, among other things. I don't really see how I could have come to that realization any sooner given the fact that I was a child during the Iraq war and the media I had been raised to trust never mentioned anything about the scandal when I was a young adult gaining political consciousness.
And I'm not sure how you read either of my comments and took away the idea that you somehow trust the NYT implicitly. Furthermore, my original question was past tense: "How could you HAVE TRUSTED..." which you kind of answered in your original comment that you agreed with them for a portion of your young life despite the information you needed to realize they were and are untrustworthy being out there and easy to find. Granted, we all have our awakening moments and yours was Amazon and Trump, but the NYT has NEVER been trustworthy is my point.
But good point about Amazon, BTW. That gives lie to their local reporting too. So perhaps actually NONE of what they print should be viewed uncritically.
The frenetic news cycle makes it easy to to just "move on" and brush past indiscretion under the rug. If only human relationships / marriages were like that! If you're on the wrong end of that, you never forget. Ever.
Hey Eddy,
thanks for your comment. It really resonates with my own life experiences. While I was graduating college in 2010, I too grew up with NYT as the 'paper-of-record'.
The extent of their manipulation and deception wasn't obvious until, like you, I saw how their reporting grossly diverged from my own first-hand experiences. I grew up in Vermont, was quite familiar with Bernie Sanders history, and worked as a volunteer organizer for his presidential campaign in 2015. Seeing the NYT ignore, then ridicule, then assassinate Sander's character was quite eye-opening. I'm open to good-faith arguments for or against policy, but they did not argue in good faith. They revealed precisely who's interests they represent.
Taibbi, Greenwald, Scheerpost, Matt Stoller, Michael Tracey, TrueAnon, Consortium News are my go to places for reading. I still check out the nyt and other msm outlets, but I definitely don't trust their reporting. Cheers.
Yes!! Their portrayal of Bernie Sanders was a huge issue for me as well. I wasn't aware of him before 2015 and at the time I assumed they were just ignoring him because they thought he was a marginal candidate (though I voted for him) and because they were obviously heavily biased towards Hillary. I thought it was ordinary ideological bias - I had no idea how deep the rot really was. I also love TrueAnon and their exposé of the 2016 DNC "ratfuck" of his candidacy, aided and abetted by the media, was an eye opener to say the least. Then 2020 happened and it was honestly disturbing how the mainstream liberal media and the party establishment treated him. Truly shameful to see how they maligned one of the few genuine public servants in Washington - one of the last few politicians who cares about the people in a way that's obvious even to those who disagree with him. Suddenly he was a Jewish anti-semite, a problematic old white man with problematic followers, an angry old fool, and his one ally Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian asset. It was absolutely loony to read compared to their fawning coverage of creepy uncle Biden the "reformed" segregationist and fresh-out-of-the-CIA-lab Mayor Pete.
Even my conservative relatives will admit to respecting Bernie for his integrity and decency though they loathe socialism - THAT says more about his character to me than anything published in the NYT. I had already stopped trusting the msm and the major parties at that point but their 2020 Bernie coverage made me actively angry. Thank god for substack and patreon! I haven't heard of a couple of those writers you mentioned so I'll definitely check them out.
Same here, guys.
I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media." In 2016, watching NYT/WaPo go completely in the tank for HRC and do anything and everything to smear Sanders was an instructive experience.
«I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media."»
As to "control of the media" the Trump story of the past 4 years shows that either that "the zios control the media" is a really delusion or "the zios" are really dumb: Trump has been a good likudnik, put himself under likudnik protection by giving Bibi everything he wanted (except admittedly a nuclear bombing of Iran), and still the mainstream USA media and politicians treated him to a barrage of attacks, and the likudniks did not support or defend him. Either doing what the likudniks want is worthless because they don't have influence or the likudniks have influence but are ready to throw under the bus even those most loyal to them.
Some of my most enjoyable reads are not American newspapers, but British ones. I spent some time in Britain and still regularly go back (a temporary exception for these COVID days). It was in Britain that I discovered the British Spectator magazine (while it's related to the American Spectator and shares some writers and articles, it's still clearly a different beast). It's a pragmatic conservative commentary magazine with insightful articles about current issues. Although it has a British focus, it extensively discusses the woke cultural wars (which Britain is also experiencing, although not quite as badly as the US, but the same entrenched mindset of woke progressives entangling all the great institutions is also becoming a problem). The Spectator also observes American politics. And it has both conservative and liberal writers, who are united to in their commitment to old fashioned Enlightenment liberalism.
I also find the London Times an good read. It's a pragmatic centrist newspaper.
For the US, the best commentaries are coming from the margins of journalism these days. Matt's substack has been great and Andrew Sullivan is another good name. Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Ngo are two other names to read. City Journal offers excellent intellectual conservative viewpoints.
For basic journalism ("fact based") Bloomberg and the WSJ are limited in scope but tend to be more accurate and have fewer subjective moralizing creep and still report as opposed to advocate. WSJ does have a very conservative Op-Ed page but the Op-Ed editors and the news editors/journalists are still clearly separate functions (unlike at the late, great and lamented NYT).
I do wish we had a stronger tabloid tradition in this country. The NYPost comes closest. Everyone loves to hate the tabloids (as in the UK) but the tabloids can offer cunningly honest reporting every now and then that forces into the public conscious a scandal or topic other papers are reluctant to cover, especially politically incorrect or inconvenient ones (such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal).
Nice catch on the tabloid contribution ("cunningly honest" yes). While Murdoch's Post has a clear ideological line (perhaps the only American daily willing to push back against some of the more egregious excesses of the "mainstream" papers) some of the UK tabs end up pretty close to neutral. The Daily Mail will cover stories that the US media won't, and it does so from the middle; Left, Right, Center, whatever, if it's lurid they'll print it.
I read the Economist to find out what’s going on in the world. They’re a tad on the liberal side, but it ain’t hurt me none.
"The Economist", like "The Times" and the FT and WSJ, are "establishment" propaganda organs, and their political "news" are the same opinions pieces as everywhere, right-wing neoliberal/neocon, rather than "liberal". Their business news tend to be rather more reliable.
If you can stomach a good article from a (very) politically incorrect site, this description of the decadence of the "The London Economist" as it was seems quite reliable to me:
http://www.unz.com/runz/the-long-decline-of-the-london-economist/
“So as time went on, more and more of the sharp intellectual features which had once given the magazine such verve and originality were gradually sanded off, not completely, but to a considerable extent. The London Economist became just the plain Economist, rarely willing to violate the boundaries or taboos of the reigning DC/NYC neoconservative/neoliberal American Establishment, merely a smarter, better written, much deeper version of Time or Businessweek.“
BTW I really like BusinessWeek or Fortune, they often, often have in depth pieces, but again their political news are "aligned" propaganda, and sometimes BusinessWeek is even more informative than "The Economist".
I'm in the financials industry and most of what Economist prints is garbage.