People in my house are tired of me ranting about how the republicans have, once again, framed the issue in a false, but compelling, way. "Packing" the court has instantly become the official media term for being forced to consider balancing the court's disposition as a means of saving ourselves. I especially liked your point, Eric, about having the 8-person court forced on us by republicans who, of course, do not bat an eye when they mire themselves in hypocrisy.
Democrats are terrible at framing an argument in simple terms - they can't do it. They seem to be unable to disengage from the need to talk as if they're wearing all of their post-grad degrees around their necks all the time. It's almost as if Democrats think simplifying and argument is beneath them.
They are most likely waiting until the election is over. Fear of those people who don't like/understand Bernie, or AOC, is part of it. They are afraid those people will not show up/ cast a ballot. Dems are persnickety, if they can't have it all now, at once they take their, bats and balls and stay home
Mr. Boehlert, the answer lies with Biden. Each time he’s asked if he’ll “pack the Court”; he should answer that the Republicans have been “packing” Courts for years. When the Federalist Society has to approve nominations on political grounds. That’s packing. When McConnell refuses to even consider any appointment by President Obama; that’s packing.
Wow. Dems can come out of nowhere with their local political cliques. I saw it in my little town back in, 08. I work on the periphery these days. Don't like the "haters" in my own party. You are correct about professional opinion people. I would rather pay for it, and have it be successful, instead of those trying to be the messengers, but not getting the job done.
Is it fair to turn the coverage at that point back on to the reporters themselves. “Are you for court packing”? Why don’t you ask Mitch McConnell who refused to seat Merrick a Garland and is shoving Amy Barrett down our throats, what do you call that?
Seriously what is the deal with this packing question, no one cares except the media, was there a memo that said packing is the “gotcha” question for Biden?
A major reason the press does that is that they have been so intimidated by years of right wing attacks that journalists are desperate to prove they are not biased against conservative.
I don’t thing the public realizes just how effective attacks by the right wing media and leaders really are. I was struck by just how powerful they are when I recently heard Andrew Weissmann say that the investigators on the Mueller investigation team were intimidated by those kinds of attacks. If that can influence men who have spent their lives going after mobsters and terrorists, imagine how easy it is to intimidate journalists.
I recently read in the book Reaganland by Rick Perlstein that Reed Irvine, the founder of the right wing Accuracy in Media organization, bought shares in the NYTimes so he could show up at their board meetings and harass them. This affected the publisher Arthur Sulzberger so much that he started having one-on-one meetings with the odious Irvine and even made some concessions to him. The Times’s executive editor Max Frankel was so angry he said would be ashamed to pass muster with those nitwits — to Sulzberger’s face.
He gets big $$$ to do what his backers want him to do. Those backers also have their fingers in a lot of other places including lowdown media.. A good deal of media people, especially new people who haven't planted their feet yet, are told what they can and cannot cover. I am pretty sure, R. Maddow has made it clear in her contracts, she doesn't play that game. She reports what she wants to report and no crap from the bosses. The same for the folks over on FSTV. They want the truth, not the corporate nonsense equivalent
I noticed the finger pointing heading the wrong way.. Do think there is any chance that Garland could get a shot at SCOTUS, again, or has his day come and gone :(
I watched Lindsey Graham this morning make the most hypocritical opening statement in Senate history. It was absolutely sickening. Everything you stated is spot on. The only thing I would add is that voters that did not vote for Hillary four years ago, pissed off at how Bernie was treated by the DNC helped to bring us to this place. Had a relatively small amount of voters held their nose and voted for Clinton, this discussion of "Packing the Courts" would be moot. I hope voters have learned their lesson. You're never going to get the perfect candidate. But you can get the better candidate. VOTE!
Democrats have a history of doing that, despite what it means for the Court. Republicans take that issue much more seriously so they hold their noses and vote even if they aren’t crazy about the nominee. Imagine where we would be today if Democrats on the left hadn’t believed all those misleading media stories about how terrible Gore was and voted for Nader. Bush gave us the odious Alito and Roberts as well as a slew of right wing judges for the other federal courts. You can scroll down that seemingly endless list here:
Nailed it again, Eric. Been shouting the same thing for weeks. Just another Republican manipulation of the language, the same way they’ve bastardized “Defund the Police.”
I realize it and I hate it, these are people who are supposed to be just telling the people what's going on. Not taking sides, I hate that they do that. It has made a lot of people lose respect for the media. I subscribe to your news letter because I can hear the truth in your speaking. It would be great if the media understood speaking the TRUTH.
The expression, 'Defund the Police', was an open invitation for republicans to distort its meaning. It is a good example of what Paul Arzooman has argued. It is not just that republicans are good at framing issues. It is also because democrats are terrible at it.
I believe that part of the reason Democrats are bad at framing issues is that the media is much more likely to mock them and call them out when they attempt to do so but they generally adopt the frame when it comes from Republicans, even when they know that frame is dishonest. The media knew that Al Gore was not a big liar and exaggerated who had claimed to have invented the internet but they gleefully repeated those accusations anyway. When Gore tried to make the environment an issue he was mocked in the Times by Maureen Down as “so feminized... he was almost lactating.” When Kerry tried to highlight his military service in his acceptance speech at the DNC the media derided him more than they ever criticized Bush or Cheney for being chickenhawks who had done everything they could to avoid service in a war they both professed to believe in.
When you know you are dealing with a media that has a blatantly double standard and will judge you much more harshly than your opponent it makes it very hard to get control of the discussion.
Another issue with the Dems is, there are half a dozen versions of who and what, Dems are.. They divide themselves that way so it makes it impossible to ensure their votes. Herding cats has been mentioned in the past. The GOP gets their daily marching orders and there are no questions, no deviations allowed. They are in lockstep all the time. Right or wrong.
Agreed. The Dems walked both feet right into that one. Once the candidate is trying to either, correct what they said, or add to it for a better explanation... the interview is over and on to a GOP, talking point.
We have to get the message out and complete in like 15 seconds, or else you lose your best opportunity.
Eric, you have a lot of sharp, perceptive people judging from your reply page. Congrats on all of the great comments here. There sure isn’t anything I can add !
I would like to add one comment. Like you and the others here, I would hope that when the Democrats are asked about that, they would begin to bring the point up that they are NOT talking about packing but about expanding the number of judges and there is a big difference.
Well Aaron Blake at the Wapo is having a temper tantrum... People, it is important to make the distinction that the GOP did not ***pack*** the courts, they “stacked” them. Thus the “but her emails” court packing question is fair game... Your large liberal news papers hard at work, sigh.
I recommend "Hacking Your Mind" for insight into why this works and why the GOP favors it (PBS). Why the press parrots it is anybody's guess. Thanks for this.
Hacking Your Mind is an excellent overview of some of the best research on how our minds work, how bias affects us all and how our minds can be manipulated. I was reminded of it when I read this arable by the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent today explaining why so many Republicans are going to vote for Trump even though he will destroy their healthcare coverage — “None of them can begin to imagine someone would face the voters and ask for another term as president while standing for such an indefensible position”. They felt the same way about Romney’s plan to end traditional Medicare while lowering taxes for the wealthy. Clearly the belief that their Republican leaders are decent people at heart is the basis for their willingness to vote against their own self interests.
Of a piece with this is how they believe their taxes have been cut despite the sun-setting two years ago (for all but the very rich) and of which more is yet to come (again, for all but the very rich) which was built into the bill. The Sargent piece is highly illuminating. Thanks.
I have been recommending it too. The first episode has some eye opening examples of how unconscious bias affects police treatment of African Americans as well as a lot of other interesting information.
Time to play like the GOP. When the question comes up, simply smile and walk away. At this point, I do not give a daxx, what they think. Every day there is another news "blip", about the GOP cheating going full gear. Now, they get caught putting fake ballot boxes out, in CA i think it was. Two other states they were challenged for taking away ballot boxes. They will do whatever, whenever, wherever. I hope for the hell of it, they do load SCOTUS. That will be a nice "bitch slap" to Bitch McConnell. This would all be on him, for his dishonest Judiciary shenanigans. It doesn't look like McConnell is going to lose, and he has already stated his intentions as a Minority Leader in the Senate. With him, being voted out of the Senate is the only chance this country has to start rebuilding the Senate/Judiciary..
When I read The Boys on the Bus, I thought, well, that's just them, at that moment. No. They all move in packs.
There's a great story at our local paper from before the internet about a human interest story that none of the reporters wanted to do. Why? Because it was human interest. It wasn't "meaty." When it was assigned to one reporter, the other reporters made fun of him and he asked to be taken off of the story ... ALTHOUGH HE WAS ON THE FRONT PAGE EVERY DAY. Why? Clips mattered less than being able to go to the cafeteria. And he's now a leading network correspondent. It would appear they take the attitude with them.
I have been thinking a lot about toxic masculinity recently and the destructive effects it has on our democracy. I still can not believe how many in the media seem impressed by men who clearly display that type of manliness, especially the women. Mika B. fawned over the obnoxious Chris Christie and clearly was impressed by Trump for a long time. Those two chickenhawks Bush and Cheney so impressed the media with their tough guy acts that they preferred those chickenhawks to Gore and Kerry, two men who volunteered to serve in Vietnam.
Toxic masculinity is based in the belief that life is a zero sum game and the only way to be a winner is to make others losers. The idea that by giving up something like tax money to help others can be a win for all is rejected by these people and those who admire them.
Not sure if the problem is that they are dumb or just stuck in adolescence. There seems to be a strong tendency for political journalists to think like high school kids judging candidates for prom king and queen and to strive to be “savvy” enough to fit in with the Kool Kids. As Jay Rosen of NYU’s Journalism Institute once explained: “Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political.”
People in my house are tired of me ranting about how the republicans have, once again, framed the issue in a false, but compelling, way. "Packing" the court has instantly become the official media term for being forced to consider balancing the court's disposition as a means of saving ourselves. I especially liked your point, Eric, about having the 8-person court forced on us by republicans who, of course, do not bat an eye when they mire themselves in hypocrisy.
Yes, GOP is very successful at framing issues, mostly thanks to DC press
Democrats are terrible at framing an argument in simple terms - they can't do it. They seem to be unable to disengage from the need to talk as if they're wearing all of their post-grad degrees around their necks all the time. It's almost as if Democrats think simplifying and argument is beneath them.
Unfortunately I agree. They also haven’t figured out a way to explain the potential positives of The Green New Deal.
They are most likely waiting until the election is over. Fear of those people who don't like/understand Bernie, or AOC, is part of it. They are afraid those people will not show up/ cast a ballot. Dems are persnickety, if they can't have it all now, at once they take their, bats and balls and stay home
Mr. Boehlert, the answer lies with Biden. Each time he’s asked if he’ll “pack the Court”; he should answer that the Republicans have been “packing” Courts for years. When the Federalist Society has to approve nominations on political grounds. That’s packing. When McConnell refuses to even consider any appointment by President Obama; that’s packing.
Dems def need to push back on the “packing” phrase
Well there’s our disagreement.
I contend we need to push back on who’s been doing the packing.
Wow. Dems can come out of nowhere with their local political cliques. I saw it in my little town back in, 08. I work on the periphery these days. Don't like the "haters" in my own party. You are correct about professional opinion people. I would rather pay for it, and have it be successful, instead of those trying to be the messengers, but not getting the job done.
Very true
It's past time for the dems to start playing hardball.
Is it fair to turn the coverage at that point back on to the reporters themselves. “Are you for court packing”? Why don’t you ask Mitch McConnell who refused to seat Merrick a Garland and is shoving Amy Barrett down our throats, what do you call that?
Seriously what is the deal with this packing question, no one cares except the media, was there a memo that said packing is the “gotcha” question for Biden?
Press gave McConnell a pass on Garland, actually often framed it as Obama picking fight w/ Senate!
Why does he continue to get this pass. Why is the pliant press lapping up the republican talking points?
A major reason the press does that is that they have been so intimidated by years of right wing attacks that journalists are desperate to prove they are not biased against conservative.
I don’t thing the public realizes just how effective attacks by the right wing media and leaders really are. I was struck by just how powerful they are when I recently heard Andrew Weissmann say that the investigators on the Mueller investigation team were intimidated by those kinds of attacks. If that can influence men who have spent their lives going after mobsters and terrorists, imagine how easy it is to intimidate journalists.
I recently read in the book Reaganland by Rick Perlstein that Reed Irvine, the founder of the right wing Accuracy in Media organization, bought shares in the NYTimes so he could show up at their board meetings and harass them. This affected the publisher Arthur Sulzberger so much that he started having one-on-one meetings with the odious Irvine and even made some concessions to him. The Times’s executive editor Max Frankel was so angry he said would be ashamed to pass muster with those nitwits — to Sulzberger’s face.
He gets big $$$ to do what his backers want him to do. Those backers also have their fingers in a lot of other places including lowdown media.. A good deal of media people, especially new people who haven't planted their feet yet, are told what they can and cannot cover. I am pretty sure, R. Maddow has made it clear in her contracts, she doesn't play that game. She reports what she wants to report and no crap from the bosses. The same for the folks over on FSTV. They want the truth, not the corporate nonsense equivalent
I noticed the finger pointing heading the wrong way.. Do think there is any chance that Garland could get a shot at SCOTUS, again, or has his day come and gone :(
I watched Lindsey Graham this morning make the most hypocritical opening statement in Senate history. It was absolutely sickening. Everything you stated is spot on. The only thing I would add is that voters that did not vote for Hillary four years ago, pissed off at how Bernie was treated by the DNC helped to bring us to this place. Had a relatively small amount of voters held their nose and voted for Clinton, this discussion of "Packing the Courts" would be moot. I hope voters have learned their lesson. You're never going to get the perfect candidate. But you can get the better candidate. VOTE!
GOP very good at creating their own reality—Graham’s opening starved to was perfect example
Democrats have a history of doing that, despite what it means for the Court. Republicans take that issue much more seriously so they hold their noses and vote even if they aren’t crazy about the nominee. Imagine where we would be today if Democrats on the left hadn’t believed all those misleading media stories about how terrible Gore was and voted for Nader. Bush gave us the odious Alito and Roberts as well as a slew of right wing judges for the other federal courts. You can scroll down that seemingly endless list here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_George_W._Bush
Nailed it again, Eric. Been shouting the same thing for weeks. Just another Republican manipulation of the language, the same way they’ve bastardized “Defund the Police.”
it is! and I’m not sure l most people even realize it
I realize it and I hate it, these are people who are supposed to be just telling the people what's going on. Not taking sides, I hate that they do that. It has made a lot of people lose respect for the media. I subscribe to your news letter because I can hear the truth in your speaking. It would be great if the media understood speaking the TRUTH.
The expression, 'Defund the Police', was an open invitation for republicans to distort its meaning. It is a good example of what Paul Arzooman has argued. It is not just that republicans are good at framing issues. It is also because democrats are terrible at it.
I believe that part of the reason Democrats are bad at framing issues is that the media is much more likely to mock them and call them out when they attempt to do so but they generally adopt the frame when it comes from Republicans, even when they know that frame is dishonest. The media knew that Al Gore was not a big liar and exaggerated who had claimed to have invented the internet but they gleefully repeated those accusations anyway. When Gore tried to make the environment an issue he was mocked in the Times by Maureen Down as “so feminized... he was almost lactating.” When Kerry tried to highlight his military service in his acceptance speech at the DNC the media derided him more than they ever criticized Bush or Cheney for being chickenhawks who had done everything they could to avoid service in a war they both professed to believe in.
When you know you are dealing with a media that has a blatantly double standard and will judge you much more harshly than your opponent it makes it very hard to get control of the discussion.
Another issue with the Dems is, there are half a dozen versions of who and what, Dems are.. They divide themselves that way so it makes it impossible to ensure their votes. Herding cats has been mentioned in the past. The GOP gets their daily marching orders and there are no questions, no deviations allowed. They are in lockstep all the time. Right or wrong.
Agreed. The Dems walked both feet right into that one. Once the candidate is trying to either, correct what they said, or add to it for a better explanation... the interview is over and on to a GOP, talking point.
We have to get the message out and complete in like 15 seconds, or else you lose your best opportunity.
Eric, you have a lot of sharp, perceptive people judging from your reply page. Congrats on all of the great comments here. There sure isn’t anything I can add !
I really do have smart, perceptive readers! I love the convos here
I would like to add one comment. Like you and the others here, I would hope that when the Democrats are asked about that, they would begin to bring the point up that they are NOT talking about packing but about expanding the number of judges and there is a big difference.
Well Aaron Blake at the Wapo is having a temper tantrum... People, it is important to make the distinction that the GOP did not ***pack*** the courts, they “stacked” them. Thus the “but her emails” court packing question is fair game... Your large liberal news papers hard at work, sigh.
I recommend "Hacking Your Mind" for insight into why this works and why the GOP favors it (PBS). Why the press parrots it is anybody's guess. Thanks for this.
oh thanks, I’ll take a look
Hacking Your Mind is an excellent overview of some of the best research on how our minds work, how bias affects us all and how our minds can be manipulated. I was reminded of it when I read this arable by the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent today explaining why so many Republicans are going to vote for Trump even though he will destroy their healthcare coverage — “None of them can begin to imagine someone would face the voters and ask for another term as president while standing for such an indefensible position”. They felt the same way about Romney’s plan to end traditional Medicare while lowering taxes for the wealthy. Clearly the belief that their Republican leaders are decent people at heart is the basis for their willingness to vote against their own self interests.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/01/trumps-health-care-stance-is-so-bad-that-his-voters-cant-believe-he-holds-it/
Of a piece with this is how they believe their taxes have been cut despite the sun-setting two years ago (for all but the very rich) and of which more is yet to come (again, for all but the very rich) which was built into the bill. The Sargent piece is highly illuminating. Thanks.
I have added it to my PBS Watchlist. Thanks..
I have been recommending it too. The first episode has some eye opening examples of how unconscious bias affects police treatment of African Americans as well as a lot of other interesting information.
Time to play like the GOP. When the question comes up, simply smile and walk away. At this point, I do not give a daxx, what they think. Every day there is another news "blip", about the GOP cheating going full gear. Now, they get caught putting fake ballot boxes out, in CA i think it was. Two other states they were challenged for taking away ballot boxes. They will do whatever, whenever, wherever. I hope for the hell of it, they do load SCOTUS. That will be a nice "bitch slap" to Bitch McConnell. This would all be on him, for his dishonest Judiciary shenanigans. It doesn't look like McConnell is going to lose, and he has already stated his intentions as a Minority Leader in the Senate. With him, being voted out of the Senate is the only chance this country has to start rebuilding the Senate/Judiciary..
When I read The Boys on the Bus, I thought, well, that's just them, at that moment. No. They all move in packs.
There's a great story at our local paper from before the internet about a human interest story that none of the reporters wanted to do. Why? Because it was human interest. It wasn't "meaty." When it was assigned to one reporter, the other reporters made fun of him and he asked to be taken off of the story ... ALTHOUGH HE WAS ON THE FRONT PAGE EVERY DAY. Why? Clips mattered less than being able to go to the cafeteria. And he's now a leading network correspondent. It would appear they take the attitude with them.
good pt abt lack of newsroom diversity. I think that drives lot of DC media problems
I have been thinking a lot about toxic masculinity recently and the destructive effects it has on our democracy. I still can not believe how many in the media seem impressed by men who clearly display that type of manliness, especially the women. Mika B. fawned over the obnoxious Chris Christie and clearly was impressed by Trump for a long time. Those two chickenhawks Bush and Cheney so impressed the media with their tough guy acts that they preferred those chickenhawks to Gore and Kerry, two men who volunteered to serve in Vietnam.
Toxic masculinity is based in the belief that life is a zero sum game and the only way to be a winner is to make others losers. The idea that by giving up something like tax money to help others can be a win for all is rejected by these people and those who admire them.
Not sure if the problem is that they are dumb or just stuck in adolescence. There seems to be a strong tendency for political journalists to think like high school kids judging candidates for prom king and queen and to strive to be “savvy” enough to fit in with the Kool Kids. As Jay Rosen of NYU’s Journalism Institute once explained: “Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political.”
https://pressthink.org/