CSotD: The Nation Normally Seen at This Time …
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Dave Whamond offers a thought-provoker that would make a good prompt for a government seminar.
The Founders took steps to prevent an immigrant from heading the government, but they assumed a nation guided by the votes of responsible citizens.
They made no law about race, gender, age or wealth of voters, though individual states subsequently did. But they assumed a certain level of responsibility and intelligence. We all know what happens when you assume.
They knew a press that was strongly partisan and sometimes indulged in vicious lies. John Adams tried to squelch it, but Jefferson removed the barriers despite getting plenty of negative press coverage himself. As he wrote to Edward Carrington, he felt active debate would result in intelligent, fair responses.
I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where.
Indian society was influential on the Founders, and the practice in nearly every tribe of talking things out as a group tended towards just and well-accepted outcomes. At the time of the founding of our nation, we were still small enough to attempt something similar.
But Jefferson not only called for an active, free press but for an educated populace. And for want of that nail, the war is now being lost.
We’ve seen hateful, divisive nonsense peddled successfully before, in entire movements like the Know Nothings and the Klan. We’ve seen lynchings and the burning of a convent and mass murders in Tulsa and in Lawrence, Kansas.
This illustration comes from a Substack column by press critic Dan Froomkin, who argues that the mainstream press needs to start covering Trump as a conman rather than as they have been, as a normal politician. That’s not partisan, he argues, but responsible journalism: People need to know the impact of their president’s actions and policies.
It’s not hard to find examples: Voters need, for instance, to know that what he says about tariffs simply isn’t true. They’re not paid by exporters, they’re paid by importers and the additional cost is, naturally, passed on to consumers.
They need to be reminded that he was against H-1B visas before he was for them, and that he campaigned on a promise to lower grocery prices but now admits he can’t.
And they need to know that he behaves irresponsibly, spreading hateful lies and disinformation about immigrants, as in this posting about the New Orleans car-ramming assault:
First of all, the driver of the truck was born and raised in Texas.
And the crime rate is down. Not only is it not “at a level that nobody has ever seen before” but it was higher under his administration.
Those aren’t opinions. They’re facts. And the more that hatred and division are stirred up, the more we’ll see mass shootings and exploding cars and maniacal assaults with automobiles, both in agreement with the lies and in reaction against the lies.
Fox News at least retracted its report that the truck driver had come from Mexico. Still waiting for an apology from Mar A Lago.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Byrnes spoke too soon. The price of eggs has replaced Hunter Biden’s laptop as something to be trotted out as an accusation that does not require evidence.
As of December 11, the average price of a dozen eggs was about $3.65, more than twice what it was 20 years ago, though it has a lot more to do with avian flu than with who is in the White House.
Here’s a state-by-state listing for 2024, which is meaninglessly imprecise without being specifically dated but provides a sense of how prices vary. Predictably, Hawaii is most expensive, but neither this listing or the more specific one cited above shows anyone else paying so much. The previous high average ever for a dozen large Grade A eggs was $4.823 last January.
Mike Lester (AMS) is one of several cartoonists who protested Biden’s selling off of materials needed to build the wall that Mexico didn’t pay for. However, it was Congress, not Biden, who ordered the sale, and while Lt. Governor Dan Patrick objected to the move, he belittled the loss:
The Texas Facilities Commission told us today that the material for sale was mostly junk, with most panels covered in concrete and rust. There were a few panels that might be usable but not worth the cost of shipping to Texas from Arizona.
A judge has now halted the sale, and Trump is vowing to continue building the wall once he is in office.
In his first four-year term, he repaired and replaced 373 miles of existing barriers and constructed about 69 miles of new barriers. His wall now totals about 776 miles of primary and back-up barriers.
The border is 1,954 miles long.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Pett is among a number of cartoonists who have compared the late Jimmy Carter with the incoming president, emphasizing both policies and personal integrity. It seems as much a commentary on our judgement as voters as it does a salute to Carter at Trump’s expense.
By contrast, Kelly contrasts Carter with Biden, comparing one of Carter’s post-presidency activities with Biden’s overall policies as president.
He calls it a “calamity” but looking at the folders, Biden’s tenure doesn’t seem so bad: Crime is down, inflation is under control, we’ve invested in clean energy and produced more petroleum and natural gas than ever, and spending is down from the previous administration’s levels.
And while Biden’s DOJ could have been more active in pursuing stolen documents and attempts at producing fraudulent votes in Georgia, at least he didn’t, as Matt Davies suggests, indulge in the sort of “Lawfare” that includes suing media for unfavorable coverage.
As for Hunter, he paid all his back taxes, interest and penalties. How much of the money she’s owed has E. Jean Carroll collected so far?
The nation normally seen at this time will not be seen for the next four years so that we may bring you this important infomercial.
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