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Making News: New Article on Why I Voted for Trump

01 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Making News

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Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, censorship, China, Conservative Populism, conservatives, Democrats, economic nationalism, election 2020, entertainment, environment, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, George Floyd, Hollywood, Hunter Biden, Immigration, industrial policy, Joe Biden, Josh Hawley, journalism, Mainstream Media, Making News, Marco Rubio, police killings, regulation, Republicans, Robert Reich, Russia-Gate, sanctions, Silicon Valley, social media, supply chains, tariffs, taxes, technology, The National Interest, Trade, trade war, Trump, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ukraine, Wall Street, wokeness

I’m pleased to announce that The National Interest journal has just published a modified version of my recent RealityChek post explaining my support for President Trump’s reelection. Here’s the link.

The main differences? The new item is somewhat shorter, it abandons the first-person voice and, perhaps most important, adds some points to the conclusion.

Of course, keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: Why I Voted for Trump

28 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

≈ 6 Comments

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Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, censorship, China, Conservative Populism, conservatives, Democrats, economic nationalism, election 2020, entertainment, environment, free expression, freedom of speech, George Floyd, Hollywood, Hunter Biden, Immigration, impeachment, industrial policy, Joe Biden, Josh Hawley, journalism, Mainstream Media, Marco Rubio, police killings, Populism, progressives, regulations, Republicans, Robert Reich, Russia-Gate, sanctions, Silicon Valley, social media, supply chains, tariffs, taxes, technology, Trade, trade war, Trump, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Ukraine Scandal, Wall Street, wokeness

Given what 2020 has been like for most of the world (although I personally have little cause for complaint), and especially Washington Post coverage of endless early voting lines throughout the Maryland surburbs of the District of Columbia, I was expecting to wait for hours in bad weather to cast my ballot for President Trump. Still, I was certain that Election Day circumstances would be a complete mess, so hitting the polling place this week seemed the least bad option.

Hence my amazement that the worst case didn’t pan out – and that in fact, I was able to kill two birds with one stone. My plan was to check out the situation, including parking, at the University of Maryland site closest to my home on my way to the supermarket. But the scene was so quiet that I seized the day, masked up, and was able to feed my paper ballot into the recording machine within about ten minutes.

My Trump vote won’t be surprising to any RealityChek regulars or others who have been in touch with on or off social media in recent years. Still, it seems appropriate to explain why, especially since I haven’t yet spelled out some of the most important reasons.

Of course, the President’s positions on trade (including a China challenge that extends to technology and national security) and immigration have loomed large in my thinking, as has Mr. Trump’s America First-oriented (however unevenly) approach to foreign policy. (For newbies, see all the posts here under “[What’s Left of] Our Economy,” and “Our So-Called Foreign Policy,” and various freelance articles that are easily found on-line.). The Biden nomination has only strengthened my convictions on all these fronts, and not solely or mainly because of charges that the former Vice President has been on Beijing’s payroll, via his family, for years.

As I’ve reported, for decades he’s been a strong supporter of bipartisan policies that have greatly enriched and therefore strengthened this increasingly aggressive thug-ocracy. It’s true that he’s proposed to bring back stateside supply chains for critical products, like healthcare and defense-related goods, and has danced around the issue of lifting the Trump tariffs. But the Silicon Valley and Wall Street tycoons who have opened their wallets so wide for him are staunchly opposed to anything remotely resembling a decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies and especially technology bases

Therefore, I can easily imagine Biden soon starting to ease up on sanctions against Chinese tech companies – largely in response to tech industry executives who are happy to clamor for subsidies to bolster national competitiveness, but who fear losing markets and the huge sunk costs of their investments in China. I can just as easily imagine a Biden administration freeing up bilateral trade again for numerous reasons: in exchange for an empty promise by Beijing to get serious about fighting climate change; for a deal that would help keep progressive Democrats in line; or for an equally empty pledge to dial back its aggression in East Asia; or as an incentive to China to launch a new round of comprehensive negotiations aimed at reductions or elimination of Chinese trade barriers that can’t possibly be adequately verified. And a major reversion to dangerous pre-Trump China-coddling can by no means be ruled out.

Today, however, I’d like to focus on three subjects I haven’t dealt with as much that have reinforced my political choice.

First, and related to my views on trade and immigration, it’s occurred to me for several years now that between the Trump measures in these fields, and his tax and regulatory cuts, that the President has hit upon a combination of policies that could both ensure improved national economic and technological competitiveness, and build the bipartisan political support needed to achieve these goals.

No one has been more surprised than me about this possibility – which may be why I’ve-hesitated to write about it. For years before the Trump Era, I viewed more realistic trade policies in particular as the key to ensuring that U.S.-based businesses – and manufacturers in particular – could contribute the needed growth and jobs to the economy overall even under stringent (but necessary) regulatory regimes for the environment, workplace safety, and the like by removing the need for these companies to compete with imports from countries that ignored all these concerns (including imports coming from U.S.-owned factories in cheap labor pollution havens like China and Mexico).

I still think that this approach would work. Moreover, it contains lots for folks on the Left to like. But the Trump administration has chosen a different economic policy mix – high tariffs, tax and regulatory relief for business, and immigration restrictions that have tightened the labor market. And the strength of the pre-CCP Virus economy – including low unemployment and wage growth for lower-income workers and minorities – attests to its success.

A Trump victory, as I see it, would result in a continuation of this approach. Even better, the President’s renewed political strength, buoyed by support from more economically forward-looking Republicans and conservatives like Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, could bring needed additions to this approach – notably, more family-friendly tax and regulatory policies (including childcare expense breaks and more generous mandatory family leave), and more ambitious industrial policies that would work in tandem with tariffs and sanctions to beat back the China technology and national security threat.

Moreover, a big obstacle to this type of right-of-center (or centrist) conservative populism and economic nationalism would be removed – the President’s need throughout the last four years to support the stances of the conventional conservatives that are still numerous in Congress in order to ensure their support against impeachment efforts.

My second generally undisclosed (here) reason for voting Trump has to do with Democrats and other Trump opponents (although I’ve made this point repeatedly on Facebook to Never Trumper friends and others). Since Mr. Trump first announced his candidacy for the White House back in 2015, I’ve argued that Americans seeking to defeat him for whatever reason needed to come up with viable responses to the economic and social grievances that gave him a platform and a huge political base. Once he won the presidency, it became even more important for his adversaries to learn the right lessons.

Nothing could be clearer, however, than their refusal to get with a fundamentally new substantive program with nationally unifying appeal. As just indicated, conventional Republicans and conservatives capitalized on their role in impeachment politics to push their longstanding but ever more obsolete (given the President’s overwhelming popularity among Republican voters) quasi-libertarian agenda, at least on domestic policy.

As for Democrats and liberals, in conjunction with the outgoing Obama administration, the countless haters in the intelligence community and elsewhere in the permanent bureaucracy, and the establishment conservatives Mr. Trump needed to staff much of his administration, they concentrated on ousting an elected President they considered illegitimate, and wasted more than three precious years of the nation’s time. And when they weren’t pushing a series of charges that deserve the titles “Russia Hoax” and “Ukraine Hoax,” the Democrats and liberals were embracing ever more extreme Left stances as scornful of working class priorities as their defeated 2016 candidate’s description of many Trump voters as “deplorables.”

I see no reason to expect any of these factions to change if they defeat the President this time around. And this forecast leads me to my third and perhaps most important reason for voting Trump. As has been painfully obvious especially since George Floyd’s unacceptable death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, the type of arrogance, sanctimony and – more crucially – intolerance that has come to permeate Democratic, liberal, and progressive ranks has now spread widely into Wall Street and the Big Business Sector.

To all Americans genuinely devoted to representative and accountable government, and to the individual liberties and vigorous competition of ideas and that’s their fundamental foundation, the results have been (or should be) nothing less than terrifying. Along with higher education, the Mainstream Media, Big Tech, and the entertainment and sports industries, the nation’s corporate establishment now lines up squarely behind the idea that pushing particular political, economic, social, and cultural ideas and suppressing others has become so paramount that schooling should turn into propaganda, that news reporting should abandon even the goal of objectivity, that companies should enforce party lines in the workplace and agitate for them in advertising and sponsorship practices, and that free expression itself needed a major rethink.

And oh yes: Bring on a government-run “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to investigate – and maybe prosecute – crimes and other instances of “wrongdoing” by the President, by (any?) officials in his administration. For good measure, add every “politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled” the Trump “catastrophe,” as former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich has demanded. Along with a Scarlet Letter, or worse, for everyone who’s expressed any contrary opinion in the conventional or new media? Or in conversation with vigilant friends or family?

That Truth Commission idea is still pretty fringe-y. So far. But not too long ago, many of the developments described above were, too. And my chief worry is that if Mr. Trump loses, there will be no major national institution with any inclination or power to resist this authoritarian tide.

It’s reasonable to suppose that more traditional beliefs about free expression are so deeply ingrained in the national character that eventually they’ll reassert themselves. Pure self-interest will probably help, too. In this vein, it was interesting to note that Walmart, which has not only proclaimed its belief that “Black Lives Matter,” but promised to spend $100 million on a “center for racial equality” just saw one of its Philadelphia stores ransacked by looters during the unrest that has followed a controversial police shooting.

But at best, tremendous damage can be done between now and “eventually.” At worst, the active backing of or acquiescence in this Woke agenda by America’s wealthiest, most influential forces for any significant timespan could produce lasting harm to the nation’s life.

As I’ve often said, if you asked me in 2015, “Of all the 300-plus million Americans, who would you like to become President?” my first answer wouldn’t have been “Donald J. Trump.” But no other national politician at that point displayed the gut-level awareness that nothing less than policy disruption was needed on many fronts, combined with the willingness to enter the arena and the ability to inspire mass support.

Nowadays, and possibly more important, he’s the only national leader willing and able to generate the kind of countervailing force needed not only to push back against Woke-ism, but to provide some semblance of the political pluralism – indeed, diversity – required by representative, accountable government. And so although much about the President’s personality led me to mentally held my nose at the polling place, I darkened the little circle next to his name on the ballot with no hesitation. And the case for Mr. Trump I just made of course means that I hope many of you either have done or will do the same.

Making News: New York City and National Radio Interview Podcasts Now On-Line

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Making News

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baseball, Black Lives Matter, China, election 2020, election interference, energy, Frank Morano, Gordon G. Chang, Joe Biden, Making News, Mexican cuisine, The John Batchelor Show, trade war, Trump, WABC AM

I’m pleased to announce that the podcasts of my interviews Wednesday on national and New York City radio are now available on-line for your listening pleasure!

The first, on Frank Morano’s program on New York City’s WABC-AM, dealt with indications that the Chinese government is funding a Black Lives Matter-type group.  Listen by clicking here, and then on the September 23 link.  My segment begins at about the 31-minute mark.  And special bonuses!  We get into the fine points of the New York City Major League Baseball scene, and sound off on a running debate on Mexican cuisine!

The second, on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated nightly show, covers the latest developments in the intensifying U.S.-China economic conflict, how it may affect the U.S. presidential election – and vice versa.  Click here for a timely discussion among John, co-host Gordon G. Chang, and me.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: A Chinese Link to Black Lives Matter?

17 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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Alicia Garza, Black Futures Lab, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter Too, BLM, China, Chinese Progressive Association, election interference, Heritage Foundation, Im-Politic, race relations, racism, reparations, structural racism, systemic racism, The Federalist, wealth gap, white fragility

Our times are so racially fraught that even I (someone who rarely feels defensive about my views) feel the need to start out this post by specifying that I am not a systemic or structural racist or even an unwitting example of white fragility. Indeed, I’m so woke on the issue of continuing racial discrimination in America that I’ve come out for reparations to remedy what I see as one recent example of open-and-shut racial injustice whose victims would be relatively easy to identify and compensate. And I’ve called attention to the still yawning racial wealth gap. 

I don’t even have significant problems with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) – although I like “Black Lives Matter, Too” because it avoids the possibility of either-or interpretations while making clear that there’s a still a racial gap that must be eliminated.

But the various organizations and coalitions invoking this phrase that have sprung up lately? I’m not so sure about many of them, especially since their proclaimed agendas often go far beyond securing racial justice. (See, e.g., here.) And just yesterday I found out about another potential problem with these groups that seems to support a point I made in a recent article about the massive and under-reported scale of Chinese interference in American public life – signs of close connections between a key BLM organization the Chinese government.

As reported in The Federalist, a conservative publication, based on research by the equally conservative Heritage Foundation, an outfit called Black Futures Lab (BFL) is funded mainly by an organization called the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). The Lab’s own website, moreover, confirms this finding.

It’s true that BFL is only one group in the BLM constellation. But it’s no ordinary group. Its “Principal” is Alicia Garza, who describes herself, and is credited in news reports, as a founder of the BLM movement.

It’s also true that the CPA isn’t officially affiliated with the Chinese government. But Beijing is certainly a fan of what’s been described as its Boston chapter, as this article (cited in the Heritage Foundation report) from its official mouthpiece demonstrates. One charge I could not independently corroborate – the claim that the Chinese flag-raising event the article mentions was “hosted by the Consulate General of China in New York.”

Consulate officials clearly attended the other event – a flag-raiser – and spoke. But unike the aforementioned Boston passport-focused event, I was unable to find evidence that they played any organizing role.

So maybe the cooperation doesn’t go any further than attending (and sometimes organizing) the kinds of celebrations that might simply be ethnic solidarity events. But according to this study (an undergraduate thesis, but one from Stanford University by a student with clearly progressive sympathies), the admiration between CPA and the Chinese government is decidedly mutual:

“The CPA began as a Leftist, pro-People’s Republic of China [PRC] organization, promoting awareness of mainland China’s revolutionary thought and workers rights, and dedicated to self-determination, community control, and ‘serving the people’.

Further, although “Its activities were independent of the Communist Party of China or the US,” it “worked with other pro-PRC groups within the US and San Francisco Bay Area.”

Again, the prospect can’t be ruled out that Beijing is content simply to admire CPA’s efforts to improve social services for Chinese Americans or even help organize Chinese American events with the group. But given the influence I thoroughly documented in the aforementioned magazine article that China has gained over major American institutions; and given the unusual interest displayed by a group like CPA, which is exclusively focused on Chinese Americans (as it makes clear) in an organization that says it’s exclusively focused on African Americans (especially since serious problem of poverty and discrimination still clearly dog Chinese Americans, according to CPA), grounds for further investigation don’t exactly seem to be lacking.

Indeed, as known by anyone with legal or law enforcement experience, or most fans of detective stories, showing that defendants have had “motive, opportunity and means” is a venerable framework for investigating and determining wrongdoing. When it comes to fomenting racial tensions in the United States, the Chinese government surely has all three. So let’s hope that the federal government (both the Exective and Congress), as well as the supposed watchdogs of our democracy, the news media, look into China’s involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement as aggressively as it’s looked into other charges of improper foreign interference in America’s politics.

Im-Politic: A Cracked Mainstream Media Window on Reality

23 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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American Revolution, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, China, Colonials, crime, election 2020, Elise Viebeck, George Washington University, history wars, human rights, Im-Politic, J. William Fulbright, James Madison, James Monroe, Jerry Brewer, journalism, Lauren Lumpkin, law and order, law enforcement, Lori Lightfoot, Los Angeles Lakers, mail-in ballots, Mainstream Media, Matt Zapotosky, Out of My Window, Robert Costa, sports journalism, Trump, voter fraud, voting by mail, Washington Post, Winston Churchill, wokeness

When I was very little, one of my favorite books was a new volume from the Little Golden Books series called Out of My Window. It came out when I was a toddler, and although my mother wasn’t an education Tiger Mom determined to teach me to read before kindergarten or first grade, it became clear to Adult Me (and maybe Teenage Me?) that she did use it to build up my vocabulary.

Author Alice Low’s plot was pretty straightforward. She described a typical day for a young girl not much older than Toddler Me looking out the window of her house and ticking off everything visible from that perch: a tree, the house across the street, a dog, a parked car, a neighbor walking by – even an airplane flying overhead. You get the idea. And along the way, while being read to, small children were supposed to start associating images with the relevant spoken word they heard. It was probably a great reading aid, too, once my formal education began.

I start off with this brief nostalgia trip because the Washington Post print edition that arrives at my home every morning is supposed to be a one of my windows out on the world. And today’s paper – as is often the case – is worth reviewing because it’s such a vivid reminder of how cracked, and in fact, distorted the pane of glass provided by this Mainstream Media mainstay so often is.

I still start off each day with the Sports section, truncated and, frankly, depressing, as it is. And on the front page what did I see but columnist Jerry Brewer – who’s overall a pretty sensible type – reporting that

“After George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody, the Los Angeles Lakers [U.S. pro basketball team] made a declaration that speaks for how most players in sports — especially those in predominantly black leagues — feel: “If YOU ain’t wit US, WE ain’t wit Y’ALL!”

Nothing from him, or apparently from the Lakers, elaborating on what “wit US” means. Are the players (and coaches? and management?) telling me and other basketball fans that I need to support the full agendas of Black Lives Matter movements? Police defunding efforts? Defacing or unlawful pulldowns of all supposedly offensive statues? Moreover, what about issues that it seems no one asssociated with the Lakers is “wit”? Like the massive oppression of human rights by China, a market that’s been immensely profitable for the entire franchise.

And finally, what do the Lakers mean when they say “WE ain’t wit Y’ALL”? Will fans need to pass a political litmus test before they’re permitted to attend games once post-CCP Virus normality returns? For the time being, do the Lakers want to prevent anyone “who ain’t wit THEM ALL” from watching or listening to their games once they’re broadcast? Are they to be forbidden to purchase Laker gear? So many questions. And never even asked, much less answered, by Brewer. Maybe tomorrow?

Next I turn to the main news section.  Today’s lede story is headlined “Trump stirs fear he won’t accept an election loss.” The President’s recent statements to this effect are undeniably newsworthy. But did the article, by supposedly straight news reporters Elise Viebeck and Robert Costa tell a straight story? Grounds for skepticism include their decision to award the first color quote to a long-time Clinton-ite think tanker, to write of Mr. Trump “seizing” on “the shift to absentee voting during the coronavirus pandemic” – as if this development raised no legitimate questions about voter fraud – and to turn somersaults trying to avoid flatly acknowledging that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore did indeed challenge the decisive Florida results in the 2000 election, not to mention their failure to note that all manner of Democrats and many other Americans have spent the better part of the last three years trying (and failing) to prove that the President’s own election was illegitimate because of interference from Russia with which the Trump campaign colluded.

Nor did tendentious front-page reporting end there. Post headline writers also told me that the President is “framing” his recently announced law enforcement operations in major cities as a “crime-fighting tactic.” And although headlines sometimes don’t perform swimmingly in capturing the essence of what reporters are trying to convey, this wasn’t one of those times, as reporter Matt Zapotosky began his story with “President Trump announced Wednesday that he is sending more federal law enforcement agents into Chicago and Albuquerque, casting the effort as one meant to help fight crime while delivering a speech that appeared designed to score political points against Democratic leaders and burnish his law-and-order image.”

In other words, according to Zapotosky (and his editors, it must always be noted), we live in a world where politicians who claim that the dispatch of federal agents to areas where crimes are unmistakably being committed, and whose own political leaders (e.g., Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot) have – after a burst of posturing –  declared that they welcome a federal presence, bear the burden of proof that these actions actually are intended to fight these crimes. Even if you’re a Trump hater, you’ve got to admit that this is downright Orwellian.

Sometime, however, the front page coverage is downright incoherent. Thus the headline for the companion piece to Zapotosky’s proclaimed “Right’s Depictions of push for ‘law and order’ boost Trump – for now.” But do you know how much evidence the article contained for this declaration? Try “none.” Maybe that’s why the header on the “break” portion of the article (the part that continues on an inside page) was “Trump’s effort to ‘dominate’ cities risks bipartisan backlash.” Is everyone clear on that?

For the longest time, this native New Yorker ignored the Post‘s Metro section – because for many years after moving to the D.C. area, I clung to the hope of returning home, and saw no point in following local news. But since I’ve come to terms with my geographic exile, I’m now a Metro regular reader, and this morning was especially struck by the Post‘s report of the latest developments in George Washington University’s ongoing debate as to whether the school should drop “Colonials” as its mascot and erase the term from the numerous buildings on campus using the name.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, some of the anti-Colonials sentiment stems from the fact that the many of the American colonists held the racist views regarding black slaves and native Americans all too common (and even prevalent) among whites during the late 18th century. But although reporter Lauren Lumpkin amply described this reasoning in the third paragraph of the article, nowhere was it mentioned that “Colonials” is also how the American colonists who decided to rebel against British authority have long been routinely described – especially in accounts of the American Revolution before independence was declared. After all, during those years, there literally was no United States of America. Indeed, if you Google “colonial forces” and “American Revolution,” you come up with more than 61,000 entries.

So although, as just mentioned, many and even most of the colonists held offensive views on race, there’s no evidence that the name “Colonials” has been intended to honor or even normalize those attitudes.

I’d like to close on the optimistic note that Lumpkin (and her editors) did bother to note that “The histories of” the men whose names some members of the George Washington community also want to expunge from the university’s physical footprint “are complex.” These include former U.S. Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, 20th century Arkanas Democratic Senator J. William Fulbright, and Winston Churchill (who I trust I don’t have to describe).

I just wish that Lumpkin’s efforts to provide perspective were a little less threadbare than noting that Fulbright “championed international exchange and education” (ignoring his early and influential opposition to the Vietnam War) and that Churchill “helped steer his country through World War II” – if only because it’s all too possible that many of George Washington University’s and other name-changers don’t know their full stories.

I won’t include here any criticism of the Post‘s editorials or opinion columnists here because opinion-ating is the job of these offerings, they make no bones about it, and no thinking reader could possibly view them as transmitters of straight news. (I mentioned sports columnist Brewer just because I’m so sick and tired of the politicization of sports in general lately, and because I really do read it first – so it makes a special impression on me. If you believe that’s not very sound analytially, you could be right.)

But the paper’s hard news coverage needs to provide a much less varnished picture for its readers. In the meantime, I’ll be grateful that I haven’t yet seen any sign that a Woke version of Out of My Window has come out. Yet.

Im-Politic: Why the Cancel Culture Can Be Really Useful These Days

14 Tuesday Jul 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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1619 Project, Adam Silver, Adrian Wojnarowski, arts, Ben & Jerry's, Black Lives Matter, cancel culture, celebrities, China, Dan Snyder, entertainment, ESPN, free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, history, human rights, Im-Politic, Jefferson Starship, Josh Hawley, National Basketball Association, NBA, Nike, police brutality, racism, Roger Waters, sports, Starbuck's, The New York Times, Washington Redskins, wokeness

Of course, what sports reporter Adrian Wojnarowski thinks about Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley, or the Black Lives Matter movement, or racial justice and police brutality issues generally, or even the proper role of politics in sports, has no intrinsic importance.

I mean, he’s a…sports reporter. As a human being, he’s entitled to his views, and in principle he’s entitled to express them in public. But although he’s great at scooping the competition on the latest roster moves by the Minnesota Timberwolves or whoever, he brings no special qualifications to these matters, and based on what we know, has no distinctive, much less especially valuable, insights to offer. Indeed, he does’t even apparently have any interest in offering them (unless you’re the kind of person impressed with the eloquence of an F-bomb).

Nonetheless, Wojnarowski’s outburst, and suspension by his employer, ESPN, represents a particularly informative opportunity for explaining why the industries like sports and entertainment should stay away from politics not necessarily for the good of the country (a subject that’s unexpectedly beside the point for this discussion), but for their own good. Just as important, his moments of fame outside the professional basketball world make clear that the so-called Cancel Culture that’s emerged with special force recently in the United States has some genuinely constructive uses in these current fraught times.

To recap, Wojnarowski covers pro basketball for sports cable network and website ESPN, and clearly has strong feelings about racial justice/policing etc issues. We know this from his reaction last Friday to message sent by Hawley to the National Basketball Association (NBA) protesting its decision for allowing players to wear “messages that promote social justice on its jerseys this summer but not allow messages that support law enforcement or are critical of China’s Communist Party.” He responded by emailing his F-bomb to Hawley, who proceeded to send out a tweet containing the communication’s image. (See this account for the details.)

To his credit, Wojnarowski has apologized completely, and with apparent sincerity for showing disrespect. But regardless of what you think about the issues above, the NBA’s decision under Commissioner Adam Silver, to “uphold” and even “stand for” values that no one of good will could object to in the abstract is bound to be a recipe for continuing trouble and a hornet’s nest it would do well to avoid for two main and overlapping reasons.

First, what non-arbitrary yardsticks, if any, does the NBA, or a similar organization, use to decide which views it endorses. As widely noted, the NBA is a strongly majority African American league, and Silver has explained that he therefore has tried to be sensitive to the concerns of black players, many of whom have experienced firsthand the varied socioeconomic problems and forms of prejudice that have plagued the black community for so long. That’s perfectly fine, and in my opinion laudible, when it comes to supporting these players expressing their views off the court, as individuals. But as representatives of a team or entire league? And when the league itself takes stances?

This is when a raft of thorny issues rears its head, especially if the league’s policy isn’t “anything goes.” For example, what if – as Hawley suggested – a player wants to wear on his jersey a pro-police or pro-military slogan, or perhaps “All Lives Matter”? Would the league allow that? And if not, on what grounds? Does the NBA really want to permit some forms of Constitutionally protected expression but not others? Would it be willing to establish an issue-oriented inspired litmus test for permission to be drafted or otherwise sign a contract? Would non-playing employees be subjected to the same requirements, too? Or would the league impose a “shut up and dribble”-type rule on players who dissent from its orthodoxy?

These questions may seem academic. But what if the day comes when most NBA players aren’t African Americans? As the league keeps proudly observing, athletes from abroad keep pouring in even now. Maybe they’ll care a lot about police brutality in America’s inner cities, either because they’ve been following the issue closely or because their consciousness has been raised by their African American teammates. But what if, some day, Bosnian-born players wanted to wear jerseys decrying what they see as Serbia’s ar crimes during the Balkans wars that broke out in the 1990s? (Intra-ethnic tensions in the region remain high to this day.) What if Lithuanian-born players wanted to use their uniforms to protest Russian President Vladimir Putin’s apparent designs on their homeland? If enough European players filled NBA rosters, would the league relish the thought of taking institutional stands on these matters? And if it did, how would it decide which positions to take? Majority vote of the players? The owners? Both? The fans?

Or take an international issue on which (as Hawley noted) on which the league has already made clear it prefers not to speak out – human rights in China. What if a player wanted to wear a slogan that slammed Chinese dictator Xi Jinping? What if a player of Chinese descent sought to protest Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong? What if one of the NBA’s Muslim players wanted to publicize atrocities committed by China against his co-religionists in the Xinjiang region? Would such players be censored? That option certainly can’t be ruled out, because the league’s lucrative China business has unmistakably led it to tread warily on this ground – even though its influence in the People’s Republic is considerable precisely because of the huge numbers of ardent Chinese NBA fans. But could the league proscribe this or any other kind of selective censorship on the basis of principle? Good luck with that. In fact, as with the other international issues mentioned above, it’s hard to imagine a better formula for sowing bitter divisions up and down league rosters and throughout the fan base. What intelligently led business would want to stir up that hornet’s nest?

Which brings us to the second major reason to de-politicize the NBA – and the related entertainment industry: They’re businesses. Any efforts to impose official orthodoxies will antagonize significant shares of their customer bases as sure as it’s bound to please others. And the league would expose itself to the Cancel Culture – which would have every right to rear its head, and which in these circumstances arguably would serve useful social, political, and economic purposes. After all, if it’s OK for the NBA as a business to take a stand I don’t like, it’s just as OK for me to register my dislike, and/or try to change its mind through the most effective legal means available to me and other individual customers – our pocketbooks.

These actions would by no means amount to calls to censor the NBA, or deny it or any of its franchises a right to free speech. If business owners want to use their assets to push certain agendas, that’s their prerogative. (I’m much less comfortable with permitting businesses to use unlimited amounts of money to fund campaigns for political office – but let’s leave that subject for another time.) It’s anyone’s prerogative, however, to object by not purchasing the product – just as it’s anyone’s prerogative to turn the channel if they decide they don’t like a TV or radio program. If these consumer actions endanger a business’ profits – too bad for them, and no great loss for the nation. If these organizations aren’t willing to pay a commercial price for their principles, chances are they’re not that deeply held to begin with.

The same rule of thumb, by the way, should apply to organizations as such that are resisting becoming politicized – like the Washington Redskins football team, which just yesterday announced that it will be changing its name because many (though no one knows exactly how many) view that monicker as a racial slur. As I see it, owner Dan Snyder has the God-given right to name the team anything he wants. And fans have the right to object by avoiding games in person or on TV, shunning team merchandise etc.

At this point, it’s crucial to note that skepticism about the wisdom of sports leagues and their teams (and other businesses) taking institutional stands on public issues doesn’t automatically translate into opposition to individual athletes or owners or other employees of sports leagues and other businesses taking such positions as individuals, without identifying themselves with their employers. That freedom needs to be respected – or at least that’s how I see it.

But how I see it, it turns out, isn’t the law. Private businesses generally can fire employees for any reason they like, including speaking out politically outside the workplace, as long as the reason has nothing to do with race, religion, gender and, now, sexual orientation. One reason surely is that such actions can reflect poorly on a business, reduce its earnings, and wreak non-trivial collateral damage – e.g., via a revenue drop big enough to endanger salary and wage levels, and even jobs. In other words, in most cases, you as an individual worker can legally be canceled.

Another reason evidently is that this kind of firing doesn’t inherently prevent you from expressing yourself. It simply prevents you from expressing yourself and holding a particular job. Given how important jobs are, that can easily look like a distinction without a difference. But again, if a principle is held strongly enough, it should be worth an economic price.

Speaking of reflecting poorly on business, that’s apparently what the Washington, D.C. pro football team’s sponsors decided when they started threatening Snyder recently with withdrawing sponsorships if he didn’t relent and drop “Redskins.” In effect, they told him they’d fire his business, as they had every right to do And Snyder quite understandably decided that his profits were more important than preserving his memories of his boyhood sports idols. (He’s a native Washingtonian and lifelong-fan,)

Celebrity status, as in sports, of course, creates interesting wrinkles – mainly, a team could in theory fire an athlete for expressing a view that owners consider objectionable, but enough fans might disagree strongly enough to retaliate commercially against the team. In these cases, the only reasonable conclusions to draw are that (1) life is sometimes unavoidably unfair and (2) some decisions are risky, and businesses that employ and even foster outspoken stars, like sports franchises, need to hope they have the judgment to come out on top. The same goes for keeping or dumping controversial names and mascots.

Generally speaking, Cancel Culture-type entertainment issues play out like Cancel Culture-type sports issues, but some crucial differences should be taken into account. Principally, whereas sports as such have absolutely nothing to do with public issues, literature, music, theater, the movies, and the like have always been closely connected with these matters. How could they not? Of course, the arts have created any amount of pure fluff. Much so-called serious art plays purely to our pure emotions, too.

But from their beginnings, the arts have represented expressions of ideas as well, and any healthy society that wants to stay healthy should hope that individual artists and organizations keep sounding off vigorously on “politics.” Moreover, logically speaking, there’s no built-in problem with entertainment companies and those institutions that organize the industry (and administer awards) championing and condemning specific positions as well.

By the same token, however, whether you denigrate the practice as intolerant Cancel Culture or not, it’s any art or entertainment consumer’s right to choose not to patronize any individual entertainer or artist or entertainment business or organization they disagree with about anything, and even to encourage others to join in. The market and the consciences of individuals and companies and organizations in the arts and entertainment fields will decide what kind of arts and entertainment products will be produced, with whose sponsorship (if any) and how influential and commercially successful they’ll be.

The real dilemmas for consumers come in when, say, your favorite singer makes terrific music but expresses offputting ideas on public affairs. In those cases, there’s no reasonable alternative to each individual figuring out which he or she values more – the instrumentals and vocals, or the lyrics – and there’s no ready formula for doint so. For me, it’s how I justify continuing to play Jefferson Starship’s musically magnificent but politically infantile (putting it mildly) 1970 album “Blows Against the Empire,” but also how I’ve decided that I’ll probably keep ignoring Roger Waters’ new material because I find the Pink Floyd co-founder’s anti-Israel invective so despicable.

Of course, Cancel Culture-type issues have arisen in connection with other industries as well. For me, because they generally have nothing to do with ideas and values, the sports rules of thumb seem to be appropriate for them, too. So I’ll keep passing up Ben & Jerry’s – and not simply because they always put in too many fill-ins and too little ice cream. Ditto for Nike’s various social justice kicks (which the athletic shoe company apparently views as being perfectly compatible with its massive job and production offshoring). And since I can now get a good cup of joe, find a comfortable place to sit, take a load off, and use free WiFi at any number of coffee bars around the country, so long to Starbuck’s and its insufferable in-my-face “commitment to racial justice and social equity.”

Whatever you think of the above arguments, they still leave unresolved three big aspects of the intertwined rise-of-institutional “wokeness/“Cancel Culture debate still unresolved.

The first, concerning historical monuments, markers, and names etc. I’ve already dealt with extensively, and you can examine my views by entering terms like “Confederacy” or “history” in RealityChek‘s search engine.

The second concerns the view that the kind of voting with your pocketbook that I’m recommending clashes with the idea that vigorous debate is a cornerstone of any sound democracy. I strongly agree with that notion. But it strikes me as naive to believe that at present, or in the foreseeable future, the conditions exist or will exist for any kind of helpful debate about the emergence of woke corporate culture.

For decisions like the NBA’s to take up certain causes (but not others) didn’t result from any engagement with the fan base. I’m sure some polls have been taken, but those were undoubtedly market research exercises to try to see whether such moves would pass muster with its customers – or whether they mattered at all. But to my knowledge, neither the league nor any of its corporate counterparts offered the general public the option of commenting substantively, much less indicated that these comments would be taken into account. The decisions were made by fiat. And given the vast disparity between the power and influence of a huge, well-financed business on the one hand, and individual customers or fans on the other, who can reasonably doubt that these debates won’t even happen until it’s clear that fan objections are impacting bottom lines?

If anything, these points are even stronger when it comes to institutions that are widely supposed to be in the debate-fostering business themselves, at least in part. It’s true, I’ve argued, that at least when we’re talking about the news media, or the broader information industries, these suppositions are largely misconceptions. It’s also true that I wouldn’t advise anyone to stop reading, say, The New York Times, because it’s chosen to enter the field of education and create the (in my view recklessly slanted) “1619 Project” to rewrite American history, or because its news coverage too often seems to be shaped by a widely held staff view that the sins of President Trump are great enough to warrant abandoning traditional journalistic ideals like objectivity.

But these Times decisions also were made by fiat, with no substantive input sought from readers. So if at some point I or anyone else concludes that the Times‘ reporting and analysis has become so unreliable as to be useless, I’ll cancel my subscription with a perfectly good conscience, and hope others do likewise.

The third dimension of the wokeness/Cancel Culture debate concerns wrongs committed or controversial remarks made by high profile individuals, and the proper responses both of the general public and of whatever employers or constituencies to which they’re responsible. Simply put, should such words and deeds be forgiven or punished, and if the latter, is there a statute of limitations?

Clearly, some of the deeds (like sex crimes) bring into the picture the criminal justice system, which I assume everyone views as the way society should deal with these actions. More difficult to decide, at least in principle, is how to treat those convicted once they’ve paid their debt (assuming they get released). At this point, I don’t see any viable alternative to engaging in or avoiding Cancel Culture-type responses, since the offenses cover such a wide range of actions, and since the subsequent behavior of the guilty is certain to vary greatly as well. Therefore it seems impossible to figure out a cookie-cutter blueprint for forgiveness or lack thereof. Case-by-case seems to be the best strategy for their employers, too.

Nor do I see any viable alternative to dealing with case-by-case to speech that’s legal but that offends for all sorts of valid reasons. In other words, there’s no escaping judgment calls.

So let’s give the Cancel Culture one or two cheers (as opposed to the full three). I just wish I was more confident that America’s national supply of judgment was adequate or increasing strongly.  

Im-Politic: Why CNBC’s Bias isn’t Simply Partisan

30 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Im-Politic

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bailouts, Ben Carson, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, boardroom liberalism, capitalism, Clinton Democrats, CNBC, crony capitalism, Democrats, Donald Trump, free markets, globalization, Im-Politic, Immigration, Larry Kudlow, media, media bias, Noam Scheiber, Obama, Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, Trade, Wall Street

Many of those nice enough to comment on my post yesterday on CNBC’s awful presidential debate performance have attributed the often abusive questions posed by the moderators as evidence of liberal/Democratic media bias. And that’s what some of the Republican candidates charged as well. My response? I wish the fundamental problem was that obvious – and therefore that correctable, at least in theory.

Instead, what the network’s evident mindset represents is the much more insidious development of a national political class homogeneous enough to share fundamental values, assumptions, and positions (with all too superficial variations) and powerful enough to ignore and, when necessary, keep out of the governing system against-the-grain views.

Part of this analysis reflects my own experience as a frequent CNBC viewer – and not only as background noise during the workday. I think the network’s coverage of finance, business, and economic headline developments is acceptable, and it at least mentions major breaking news in other spheres. Yes, I could watch Bloomberg, or Fox Business. But as my father used to say, we’re all creatures of habit, and my sampling of the newer competition has not yet persuaded me to change the channel permanently. Nor have I yet found any other continuous sources of reasonably serious hard news.

And when I hear or see the letters, “CNBC,” my first reaction isn’t “Democrats.” Quite the opposite. Even with the blatantly partisan Larry Kudlow gone from daily programming, the network clearly is tailoring its material towards the investment community and the steadily shrinking pool of American retail investors – groups not known for progressive leanings. In fact, with the latter ever more skewed toward the upper income strata, it hasn’t been surprising to see CNBC broadcast more and more segments that openly celebrate the “lifestyles of the rich and famous.” That’s of course on top of the broader tendency of the business press to create and glorify the “Superstar CEO” – a practice that (amazingly? or not?) has survived the financial crisis and ensuing recession.

When it comes to policy – overwhelmingly economic policy, of course – CNBC is firmly in the free market camp. Minimal taxation and regulation are constantly touted, as are free trade agreements, un- or barely fettered immigration policies, and the supposedly iron, unchangeable, undeniable realities that make them necessities – the historically inevitable and beneficent globalization of business; the equally inexorable triumph of capitalism worldwide; and the resulting supreme imperative of participating in and growing foreign market opportunities. And when the focus is domestic, CNBC therefore places on a pedestal “business-friendly” states, which unlike their more neanderthal (usually Democratic governed) counterparts are supposedly wise enough to spare companies of nearly all the costs of public goods and services – and to discourage unions.

It’s true that much else that’s central to CNBC’s worldview isn’t very consistent with free markets. But institutions like activist central banking are accepted not so much as regulatory exceptions to a more liberal rule, but as fixtures without which the economic landscape would be unrecognizable, and therefore literally inconceivable. Similarly, although the bailouts of non-financial companies were positively scorned, the bailout of Wall Street was (a little sheepishly) accepted because, well, it beat global destruction.

These exceptions to free market norms have convinced many that CNBC is extolling not genuine market capitalism, but crony capitalism, in which the biggest, most politically connected businesses manipulate government to serve their own selfish purposes and especially to marginalize newer, less influential competitors or even prevent them from forming. I agree that the network isn’t inclined to assail this form of corruption. (Of course the pugnacious Rick Santelli is a prominent exception.) But another implicit assumption needs to be added here to flesh out the full CNBC worldview, and it concerns the ostensible virtues of what I’ve referred to as “boardroom liberalism.”

This is a school of thought identified by New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber, and he put it better than I ever could:

“It’s a worldview that’s steeped in social progressivism, in the values of tolerance and diversity. It takes as a given that government has a role to play in building infrastructure, regulating business, training workers, smoothing out the boom-bust cycles of the economy, providing for the poor and disadvantaged. But it is a view from on high—one that presumes a dominant role for large institutions like corporations and a wisdom on the part of elites. It believes that the world works best when these elites use their power magnanimously, not when they’re forced to share it. The picture of the boardroom liberal is a corporate CEO handing a refrigerator-sized check to the head of a charity at a celebrity golf tournament. All the better if they’re surrounded by minority children and struggling moms.”

Scheiber used the term to describe the outlook of President Obama, and obviously it holds for Clinton-style Democrats, too. Just as important, because the most powerful ideologies and worldviews can accommodate a fair amount of diversity, it’s easy to imagine a conservative version of “boardroom liberalism,” and in fact, between the two of them, they dominate the perspectives of the establishment politicians, senior bureaucrats, media figures, and so-called policy intellectuals that in turn dominate American politics and discussion thereof.

In my view, this is the perspective that reigns at CNBC, and throughout the establishment media. And although it’s surely closer to the Democratic Party mainstream than to the Republican rank and file, and reserves special contempt for the Tea Party faction (as well as religious conservatives), it doesn’t hold much affection for Bernie Sanders and the Occupy Wall Street crowd, either.  (History-induced guilt typically inspires more indulgence for Black Lives Matter.)

I’m sure it’s clear why an ideologically uniform press corps is as big a threat to a democracy worthy of the name as an ideologically uniform party system. But an even greater danger is posed when the same precepts unite those media and political worlds – along with their colleagues in think tank ranks and academia. Conventional wisdoms become completely ossified and the decision-making apparatus becomes almost impervious to fundamentally new ideas – even in times of crisis.

When powerful challengers from utterly alien universes do loom on the horizon (e.g., a Donald Trump or a Ben Carson, Tea Party-ers uninterested in politically convenient compromises), all the major occupational groups and ideological sects comprising this polyglot establishment rush to join forces against the invaders. And they employ all the (predominantly verbal) weapons they can muster, ranging from slanderous invective to loudly professed indifference to chortling condescension to outright ridicule. This counterattack, moreover, is conducted with unusual vehemence when the outsiders make perfectly clear that they have no use, much less respect, for the conventional wisdom-mongers.

On the one hand, it’s comforting that a lively alternative media-verse has emerged in recent years – precisely in response to the power, intolerance, and resulting arrogance of the establishment. On the other hand, the establishment still seems firmly ensconced – in journalism and in both parties. Since it’s still early in the 2016 presidential cycle, this year finally being different can hardly be ruled out. But as Yogi Berra once said, “It gets late early out here.”

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