Tag: The Nation

Start Making (Non)Sense of January 6

Ray Gunner
Ray Gunner
2213
 

So I was listening to Start Making Sense, a podcast put out by The Nation (yeah, I know) because I wanted to get a progressive take on the January 6 hearings.  As expected, their take is that Trump intentionally provoked a violent insurrection by pushing the Big Lie that the election was stolen when he knew it was not.  Then, The Nation’s National Affairs Correspondent, John Nichols, offered this comparison to the disputes of the 2000 election:

Election night 2000, back when Bush was running against Gore. Karl Rove made a series of instantaneous decisions that made George Bush president. They hired up all the lawyers in Florida. They got on message in a whole bunch of ways.  They decided they were going to send James Baker in. These were instantaneous decisions which all ended up benefiting Bush tremendously, even though he actually lost Florida and lost the election. 

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The Nation and Dissent vs. American Affairs

Titus Techera
Titus Techera
47
 

One of my friends showed me today one of the few left-right debates available in American political talk. It’s over on Facebook, organized by lefties — editors from The Nation and Dissent. They invited Messrs. Julius Krein and Gladden Pappin, the people who run American Affairs, a journal which many on Ricochet should like. American Affairs offers a thoughtful view of populism and how Americans could take their nationalism (as opposed to importing European ideas of nationalism). American Affairs is more partisan as nationalism against globalism — less partisan as right against left — so it’s more interesting if you think a big shift might be happening in American politics.

This is a long debate, so perhaps listen only to the 20 minutes or so of opening statements. If you’re curious to see how America’s editors can talk to each other across partisan lines, then listen to it all, as I did. I’ll tell you a few things that matter about rhetoric and politics as they show up here.

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The Nation’s False and Dishonest Crimea Narrative

Pejman Yousefzadeh
Pejman Yousefzadeh
1612
 

For those who believe that the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia might actually unite Americans of all ideological stripes in opposition to the thuggishness of the Putin regime, I give you this piece by editors of the Nation. It shows that even now, in the immediate aftermath of the annexation, while historical memories are still fresh, there are those who are willing to rewrite current events in order to advance a narrative filled with desperate attempts to explain away unjustified Russian bellicosity. And of course, it ought to surprise no one that the editors are willing to put forth false attempts at establishing moral equivalence in order to leave readers with the idea that the United States is really at fault in this story.

The urgent issue today is to stop the drift toward hot war. Yes, Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea trespasses on international law, though it is difficult to bear US officials’ invocation of a principle that Washington itself has often violated (see, most recently, Kosovo and Iraq, the latter now marking the eleventh anniversary of an illegal US invasion and occupation). Financial and visa sanctions, while inflicting a cost on Russia, will not deter Moscow. As Putin argued in his March 18 speech before the Russian Federal Assembly, Russia feels “cornered” and has been repeatedly “deceived” by the West—particularly Washington—since the Soviet Union broke apart more than two decades ago, especially in light of the expansion of NATO to its borders.

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