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Progressives Against Facts, Case #35,675,223
Mr. C. shared The Constitution in Crisis: Madison, the Media, and the Mob video with me, starring the three Goldbergs: Jeffrey of The Atlantic, Jonah (formerly) of NRO, and Michelle of the New York Times. And, no this isn’t brought to you as yet another Trump supporter’s criticism of Jonah Goldberg, who makes many salient points but still concedes too much at times. This post is to show you how utterly and completely clueless the Left is about reality and how totally lacking in self-awareness.
The video is teed up at 22 minutes to watch Michelle Goldberg’s masterful projection of her idiotic leftism onto conservatives. You have to see it to believe it:
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Published in General
Yeah, projection indeed. Also, it’s along the same line as “punch a nazi” where everyone is a nazi, but in this case everyone to her is a disingenuous interlocutor who doesn’t really believe what they’re saying so they can be safely and even healthily ignored.
Then there is the Two Movies On One Screen idea. Even Michelle alluded to it while she was beating a retreat back to her “camp” – there is a whole universe of facts (Alternative Facts?) she never knew existed and isn’t sure she can trust. As conservatives we’re well aware of this except that we are free to select from the full range of info while Michelle seems content to stick to her turf and sneer at any competing info simply because she doesn’t trust the source.
Jonah Goldberg at around 30:00-33:00 makes a great point (I knew there was a reason I used to like Jonah) that the reason something like Fake News has gained traction is because people increasingly see that those “preening” about claiming to be just fact driven and reality based in fact have biases and points of view which shape what they report, how they report it, and even what they don’t report.
Where Jonah falls on his face (I knew there was a reason I started ignoring Jonah) is when he buys into the equivalence. Sean Hannity (an opinionator) is not the equivalent of the entire rest of the MSM disingenuously or naively claiming a just-the-facts-maam approach in which they, like Michelle Goldberg, are either unaware of this whole alternate universe of fact claims or actively ignore or deplore it. To the extent that this is all perpetuated knowingly it does most certainly put them in the position of Enemy of the People because the ideas they represent and that they are replicating in the MSM world are antithetical to what “the people” actually want and to actually performing the function the MSM is supposed to perform: to keep the people well informed and to ask the questions which expand our understanding of what is happening and what is the truth. When Jonah says “If you think only the other side is tribal then you might be in a tribe too”. True enough, I guess, but what position is he claiming for himself? Does he claim that all sides are arranged in tribes but he can occupy the rare position of completely disinterested observer? Unlikely. Even if he claims that, though, he seems to have turned toward criticizing tribalism – forming the tribe which primarily likes to go around saying “oh look at all of those tribalists putting aside reason in favor of their loyalties” unlike us who are reality and ideas based. Sounds familiar, like I heard that criticized somewhere recently (hint rewind the tape a coupla minutes). Doesn’t that mean that he must be in a tribe too? Which tribe is that? The good one, probably. Oh.
She even says at one point, [Chris Hayes] “he does genuinely believe he is giving you the most accurate picture of the world as he sees it!” [emphasis mine] Wow, that’s called “bias” among people who acknowledge the meaning of the word.
Someone help Michelle with that beam in her eye, the poor dear.
Uh. I don’t know if I understand her – even though I know she was speaking English. I wonder if its that a leftist focuses on one thing and that becomes the template. IE Fox News talks about the murder of Seth Rich therefore nothing said on that channel is valid. But the main stream media can get thing after thing wrong but they remain valid. I think I’m beginning to sound as gibberishy as her but, unfortunately, no one is paying me scads of money for it.
You are far less gibberishy than Michelle Goldberg, colleen. Unfortunately I can’t pay you for that.
Ha! No, you’re right. The one thing I agree with her about the media is it’s “an issue of trust.” Yes. Yes it is. And you at the NYTs are untrustworthy.
I think that Michelle Goldberg is to be greatly commended for her open-mindedness. She has clearly engaged, deeply and often, in dialogue with those who have different political views.
My evidence comes from something that she said:
This explains everything, doesn’t it? She has been so diligent in her effort to engage with the other side, that it has made her dumber and sent her down rabbit holes of nonsense.
She must have done this a lot to have reached such an extraordinary level of dumbness and nonsense.
She pronounces it “premi-seees,” so she must be smarter than I am. (Even though she injects “like” and “sort of” into every other sentence)
She lost me when she started praising MSNBC. What?!
The tribe of people like Jonah who have somehow convinced themselves that they (“alone”) are not in a tribe, might well be the worst of them all. At least those who might genuinely be unaware of “tribalism” have THAT excuse. Jonah has none.
I’m happy to see that some of the smart people found her almost unintelligible. I thought it was just me. She speaks so quickly and she must’ve eaten a dictionary. I found it difficult to keep up. I really sort of like, you know, learn a lot on Ricochet. Thanks
This is what an expensive postmodern critical theory education will get you — a lot of blather with almost no truth spoken. She’s obviously a highly intelligent person. It’s a crime what the academy has done to these people.
Morning WC,
The discussion was interesting in that it demonstrates a type of smug blindness. If one asked how would an enemy’s media description of America differ from our media’s description of Amaerica, I would observe that their descriptions would be similar. When Trump says that the media is the enemy of the people, I think he has a more accurate understanding of the press than those on the panel.
Completely agree, Jim. The press is supposed to be holding the government accountable, not the people. Instead, they’ve been running interference for the Deep State. They’ve discredited themselves.
And if Jonah ever agrees to appear with people like that again, we’ll know something more about him, too.