News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Turning universities into right-wing propaganda factories
The authoritarian parallels
A compendium of solid reporting, commentary, and direct-from-the-source information surrounding the pivotal 2024 elections in the United States. You won't find horse race coverage here, or the standard "both sides" (even when one is lying) BS that passes so often for political journalism. What you will find are links – with brief quotes from the coverage and short commentary from me – to work that I believe advances the conversation we should be having about America's, and the world's, future. Remember: Everything is at stake this year. (Unfortunately, some of the work I point to is behind paywalls.)
Until a month ago, if you were a Democrat, you were also terrified that your party’s standard-bearer, was not up to the task of keeping Trump from winning back the White House—which if it happens will undoubtedly bring down much new pain to millions. So when Biden chose to pass the torch to Harris, and she seized it swiftly and decisively, with confidence and laughter, the dam broke and defiant joy exploded. It’s not just that Democrats are putting up a prosecutor against a convicted felon; it’s that as a Black woman, a feminist, and an empathetic mother, Harris is in every way Trump’s antithesis.
This commentary explains, better than anything else I've seen so far, what's behind the palpable joy being expressed in Chicago. We've been living for years now in dread: Trump, covid, and so much more. The opportunity to feel more optimistic – the real thing, based on reality – is a welcome one. One excellent suggestion at the end of the piece: If you are going to donate, the most important and cost effective place to send money is an organization called the Movement Voter Project, supporting the nitty gritty of grassroots campaigning. I've just contributed.
"Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy." – Timothy Snyder
Hope and joy are contagious. The Harris-Walz campaign is, reasonably enough, trying to be positive – to give Americans an affirmative reason to vote for them. But it is essential to keep in mind that the reasons to support the Democratic ticket go far beyond the candidates' optimism of what our future could be. That's what makes this piece from Thomas Edsall so important. He has consulted with some of the top experts about what will happen if Trump gets back into the White House. The bottom line: catastrophe for America and the world. Even if I disagreed with Harris' views on most of the issues (and I do disagree on some), I would remind myself that our democracy faces an existential threat from Trump. And the world faces a raft of dictatorships that eviscerate freedom and human rights, and engender economic chaos that leaves everyone worse off.
State-level Republican officials have been making a big show of the work they are doing to boot alleged non-citizens from the voting rolls — an emphasis that echoes the efforts by presidential candidate Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to stoke pre-election panic about the false and dangerous narrative that non-citizens are voting en masse for Democrats.
No journalism organization, large or small, has been covering voting rights as relentlessly as Talking Points Memo. I point to this comprehensive look at just one aspect of the Republicans' loathsome strategy to prevent eligible voters (if they tend to support Democrats, that is) from casting ballots; rigging state legislatures and congressional boundaries; and, after elections are held, using any and all means to prevent legitimate winners (Democrats only) from being certified as the winners. If you aren't reading TPM, you really should start.
Wall Street Journal covers epitome of corporate greed
Steward Health Care System was in such dire straits before its bankruptcy that its hospital administrators scrounged each week to find cash and supplies to keep their facilities running. While it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Steward paid at least $250 million to its chief executive officer, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and to his other companies during the four years he was the hospital chain’s majority owner.
This isn't a political story, per se. But it reflects the absolute failure of our political system to prevent – or at least hold accountable – this kind of predatory looting. You can be certain that another Trump administration would see much more of it. The Biden administration has been tougher than any in decades on the untrammeled greed and self-dealing represented by this guy, but not tough enough. What does Harris believe about the mockery of honest capitalism we've endured in recent decades? It's not clear, but at least there's some hope. (Note: This kind of work is what the Wall Street Journal is capable of doing at its best.)
[T]he concept of fact-checking is a noble one, but the way it is actually practiced does more harm than good. That’s because the fact-checkers are so devoted to not “taking sides” that instead of exposing the vast gulf in truth-telling between the two parties, they effectively hide it. They want to mete out their dings if not equally, at least comparably. And that’s impossible to do, ethically, given that one party is constantly lying and the other is not.
It's been mind-boggling to watch the "fact checkers" at work during this campaign, and they are at their epic worst during the Democratic convention. The canonical terrible example (so far) is the one posted by the Washington Post's Amy Gardner, who – this is not a joke – wrote: “'Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again,' Biden said. But that’s not true. Trump just hasn’t said that he would accept. And he has previously said the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.” As press critic Dan Froomkin notes in this piece, this is some incredible hair-splitting. My own view of fact-checking, as practiced today, is that the genre has thoroughly discredited itself. It needs to reorganize for a world where it isn't rendered comically futile by (one party's) design. If you want to read credible fact checking, your best bet is CNN's Daniel Dale.
Voting is just part of democracy, but it's the essential place to start. Make sure you're registered. Doublecheck in the fall, well before Election Day, because in some states Republican officials are removing people, mostly those who tend to vote for Democrats, from voting rolls.
Please send your suggestions
I spend a lot of time looking for essential coverage, and hope you'll help me by letting me know about the good stuff you find. Let me know.
Micah L. Sifry
Dan Froomkin
