Another headline this morning:
It turns out that "historians confirm" means two (2) historians say there's a lot of stuff going on right now.
32 thoughts on “Chaos! Upheaval! Uncharted territory!”
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Cats, charts, and politics
Cats, charts, and politics
Another headline this morning:
It turns out that "historians confirm" means two (2) historians say there's a lot of stuff going on right now.
Comments are closed.
"a troubled, exceptional era."
I mean, I guess. But certainly, less troubled and exceptional than just a few years ago (recall covid, unemployment, BLM protests, Afghanistan war, etc.)
"And there is seemingly no relief ahead"
Aside from the fact that the headline examples of the exceptional troubles include a Trump trial that will be over in a few weeks and campus protests that will be over when the semester ends, also in a few weeks.
True, the Israeli assault on Gaza and the Russian invastion of Ukraine don't look to be ending soon, but I think that the number of US soldiers fighting in either conflct adds up to zero, so unless the breathless headline is about the exceptionality of the US _not_ fighting in a war, I think those aren't really causing a "cloud of chaos" for Americans.
Well, two is certainly twice as many as one.
This feels perfectly placed to back up Mathew Yglesias’ argument that the audience is the problem. Writers starting out with a premise designed to back up the relatively niche audience’s conception of the world. It’s especially bad at the kinds of nation outlets like WP that rely on a wealthier audience who seem to be in doom and gloom mode even though the world isn’t especially doomed.
6 more months. Then the poop hits the fan for real.
Not as exceptional as the late-60s (King assassination, civil rights fight, integration resistance, Vietnam, etc.), though, or the early 2000s (Bush v Gore, 9/11, two wars, etc.).
There was no danger to American democracy in any of these times. This is totally new.
True, and it looks like the Biden administration will be allowed to continue to censor people it doesn't like through Twitter, FaceBook and YouTube.
Reminder: The Biden administration has never once 'censored' people on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
oh! "twitter," facebook and youtube have been federalized?!? the first amendment no longer exists? i'm sure this come as a shock to elan musk, mark zuckerberg and the mucketymucks at google/alphabet.
Please don't feed the "roboto" troll.
Bullshit, ever hear of Watergate?
Watergat wasn't even close to a danger to democracy.
If Nixon had "won", he would have finished his term and go home. He never had any intention to try to break the constitutional order, and if he tried he wouldn't have had any chance of succeeding.
What if Nixon told Judge Sirica and the Supreme Court to go fuck itself and not turned over the White House tapes for reasons of "executive priviledge" and "national security" hmm? And then had the tapes burned? There were many around him who wanted this done. Then what?
Then what?
At worst, It would have meant that Nixon wouldn't be punished (forced to resign) as he should have been. But it would have no effect on future elections.
I don’t really buy this. History is really cyclical. There have been so many challenges to American democracy.
Really?
When was the last time that anybody tried to break the process of election by invading the Capitol before J6?
challenges to democracy exist in many forms, not just overt ones like jan. 6. watergate certainly was an attempt to subvert democracy. there were movements in the '30s and early 40s seeking to overturn the government and establish a fascist dictatorship. you could argue that some actions by the wilson administration during world war l moved in that direction. there was the civil war, john c. calhoun and the nullification movement, the burr conspiracy.
None of the events you mention after the civil war presented any serious danger to the elections process. Until the civil war, yes there were serious issues.
Watergate was an effort by a president to avoid a deserved punishment. There was no serious effort to nullify elections.
Wilson "movement in this direction" didn't affect the process of elections, and wasn't even close to it.
The movements in the 30s and 40s didn't have any chance at all of affecting the elections process.
Since the Civil war, currently is the closest the US has got to abandoning democracy.
"Watergate was an effort by a president to avoid a deserved punishment. There was no serious effort to nullify elections."
"Watergate" was the scandal that revealed the scandal. The WH was using law enforcement and other organs of the executive branch to undermine people running against Nixon.
Jesus, it wasn't about a coverup of a bungled burglary--it was about the much broader and more serious attempts to subvert the election with use of federal agencies. The burglary is just what brought it to light.
I went and read the wikipedia page about Watergate.
Nothing about affecting the process of elections.
Corruption, criminal actions, "high crimes and misdemeanors" - definitely yes.
Subverting elections - no, not even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
Oh, the wikipedia page? That's precious. How old are you?
Here's a snippet of contemporanous reporting:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/101072-1.htm
It's like the 60s never happened.
Sucks to get old.
I saw that headline this morning and my eyes have only just stopped rolling. Bit of a boss NYT move by the Post there.
So Kevin, do you actually ever contact the authors to correct them?
Chaos!
https://wgntv.com/news/chicagocrime/west-side-cinco-de-mayo-parade-canceled-after-reports-of-violence/
Cermak is still closed from Rockwell to California, with some surrounding streets closed, after a massive disturbance that included multiple groups shooting at each other while police were trying to disperse crowds.
The Super Bowl parade, college violence, now this! Seems maybe kinda a little chaotic. Not the 1960s, but it can always get worse. Bring it on!
Some foolishness in Buffalo, NY last night too.
Apparently, according to you link, the parade did take place, just along a different route:
Despite this, 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez and his office said, the parade did go forth, however, that it took a different route.
“In response to the alleged cancellation of the Cinco de Mayo parade in the 25th Ward, we want to clarify that the event was not canceled, but relocated, and was carried out as planned with the active participation of the community,” the alderman’s office wrote to WGN TV.
"According to Alderman Sigcho-Lopez, the parade 'took place smoothly,' starting on Damen Ave. and continuing along Blue Island until it finished at Blue Island and Washtenaw Avenue.
“We thank all the residents who came together to celebrate this important cultural and community occasion,” Sigcho-Lopez’s office wrote."
I mean, the bottom line is that all of this is just news. That's it. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with any bigger picture or overarching theme or what have you. Violence in Chicago? Happens every fucking day. That's not anything "new" and it's been true since I've been alive having been born and raised there. Why anyone would look beyond the sheer number of headlines for "pattern" is just stupid.
I tell you what, four years ago, even I was afraid because what was going was all "inter-connected" from a pandemic that caused economic hardship and death that resulted in riots and looting due to the police response on top of an election going on (because nothing else was going on). It seemed like there was no end in sight to all of it. Back then you had cities where people shopped and did business affected by what was going on. Here and now, are you kidding me? Am I inconvenienced because some "kids" in a college town camp out on a quad? No! It's just nuts people would think otherwise.
I'd hate to think such "news" is being written in such away to try an sell it to whatever remaining audience is there. If so, it shows you how desperate they are. I can't think of a day where a news anchor on TV or the radio said "And absolutely nothing happened today. Thank you and good night!" Why do they presume that's now the standard before going into panic mode. Sheesh!
And anyone who says "world on fire!" I'm going to reach for the Eject button!
I live in DC and a friend who lives in a suburb of DC texted me and asked me “what’s going on with campus protests in DC?” I replied “I don’t know, why would I?” He’s also a liberal but clearly thought that me living in the District meant that anything more was going on outside the immediate confines of some campuses. The actual effects of these protests are so much more limited than the media coverage.
A recurring theme of Mr. drum’s writing is that life is ok, good enough, and as good as it gets so quit complaining. And he’s right up to a point. He doesn’t live in a gang infested neighborhood so it looks good to him. He uses national statistics to obscure the high crime areas.
What’s wrong with Chicago? Why is it so violent? Why are gangs so prevalent in certain neighborhoods? I don’t know. Do you? Does anyone have a solution? No. No one does.
“It started out as a really nice neighborhood, lots of friendly people, and eventually it started getting worse with the gangs and the drugs and things like that,” said Portillo. “People are afraid to come into the neighborhood, and people are moving out, but this is home.”
Democrats don’t have an answer to this guy and I don’t much like the republican answer. I’m really annoyed by people who, it seems to me, enable this.
the point of kevin's post isn't that things are just swell. rather, we have a kind of narcissistic view of our times — our times are the toughest, our problems are the toughest, gosh wasn't life easier back in the day, forgetting that back in the day we felt the same way. in large measure, it's the foundation of trump and the maga movement. let's go back to a simpler time, when ward came home from work and june had dinner on the table, when minorities knew their place and turmoil only occurred in some far off country and had no bearing on our lives. in other words, a time that never really existed.
Apparently, it's getting harder and harder to make people click that link. Dial up the outrageousness level of the headline! Maybe bring in David Pecker to show how it's done!
Two is plural so the headline is safe. It's like how CNN played it safe, in an article about Russian males fleeing Putin's 2022 draft en masse: "Many of those leaving appeared to be men". Sure. True at any border crossing at any time. Also meaningless. Unless they were all wearing dresses and the intrepid journalist found their hairy legs suspicious.
Increasingly, news doesn't say very much but pretends to.
Too true.