Daily Archives: March 23, 2021

If Trumpism had an intellectual home, it would be the Claremont Institute.

Claremont is a small but influential conservative think tank, tucked away in Southern California. It publishes the Claremont Review of Books, a leading journal of right-wing intellectuals, particularly those influenced by the 20th-century philosopher Leo Strauss.

You might recall an infamous viral essay from 2016 comparing America to Flight 93, a reference to the hijacked plane on 9/11 in which passengers stormed the cockpit. That piece, published by Claremont, told readers they faced a choice in November 2016: charge the cockpit or you die. In other words, vote for Donald Trump or watch the republic burn.

The Flight 93 essay is the most well-known thing Claremont has published, and probably the most provocative, but its also aligned with the institutions broader mission. Over the past four years, Claremont has tried to put intellectual meat on the bones of Trumpism. They may not like Trump, the guy, but theyve worked hard to provide a theoretical framework for his politics.

The editor of the Claremont Review, and really the face of the institution, is Charles Kesler. A professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College (which is unaffiliated with the Claremont Institute), Kesler is what Id call a measured thinker. He supported Trump but was always very careful about how he expressed it.

Kesler is out with a new book, called Crisis of the Two Constitutions, so I reached out to him to talk about the appeal of Trump. There was nothing mystifying about the popularity of Trump among the conservative base. He was a godsend to anyone who lived to see the libs triggered. But Kesler and the authors at Claremont are different. They saw in Trump an opportunity, perhaps the last opportunity, to turn the country around.

In this conversation, I press Kesler to explain what, exactly, he saw. Does he think the country is in mortal peril? And if so, why was Trump the solution? Kesler is a serious person, and at times, this is a frustrating exchange. But I believe it offers some insight into what the intellectuals who backed Trumpism are thinking, and why the American right is where it is now.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

The tone of your book is not reactionary, but it did strike me as the lament of a reactionary, someone who really does believe that the country is on the brink. Is that how you feel?

I guess it depends on what you mean by on the brink. I dont think were on the brink of anything immediately. The trends are certainly bad, and I dont see a lot of healthy influences. But I dont think anythings inevitable in politics. Im definitely worried about my country, if thats what you mean.

No, thats not really what I mean. Were all worried. But there are many who think were in an actual political emergency.

I wouldnt say were in an emergency now. Were approaching a crisis unless things happen in between. I begin the book by pointing out that our politics could change considerably if some extraneous event happens, if a major war breaks out, or if the little green men land from outer space. There could be a game reset if the conditions really were to change suddenly.

But Covid-19 was a pretty big extraneous factor, and it seemed to make very little difference in our politics. It was easily absorbed into the ongoing disagreements. We just had more things to disagree about. We could argue about masks, and shutdowns, and opening up, and all the things that we have been arguing about in addition to the usual stuff from the past year.

Ill be honest: I think you think were in a political emergency, but you dont seem quite willing to say that at least not in the book.

There are lots of familiar conservative arguments in there about cultural decline, and, frankly, Im sympathetic to some of it, but my sense is that youre hesitant to signal your genuine alarm. And this is most clear when it comes to Trump, whom you never fully endorse but youre obviously not not endorsing him. For someone like you, a serious person with a real grounding in history, even a muted openness to Trump feels like an act of desperation.

An act of desperation?

I mean someone like you understands what Trump is, what he represents, and supporting him suggests you think things are sufficiently bad that the system has to be blown up in order to be saved.

I did, in fact, vote for Trump. And I published Michael Antons infamous Flight 93 essay back in 2016. So I cant be exonerated of Trump. But I honestly dont think theres an emergency.

I wrote my dissertation on Cicero, so I know something about Roman republican politics. And in that case, you had essentially 100 years of civil war, off and on, before what we would now recognize as the end of the republic. And its not clear that at any moment in that process, you couldve said, This is it. This is the last spiral, the last hundred years of republic. Were doomed. I think its very hard to read that. And were far from having pre-civil war conditions.

I dont agree with Ross Douthats account of America as a decadent society, though. His argument is that our decadence is more fundamental than our polarization, and that we could have many more centuries of continued rich decadence, and of being a superpower, without any impending catastrophe to worry about.

But that analysis doesnt recognize that America, as you say, has always been a contentious and fractious polity. Weve had a lot of diversity in American history and American politics. And thats why we should be concerned about challenges to unity, because our unity is a constructed political thing, and it takes more maintenance and inspiration than people may believe.

How could someone worried about American unity look at a guy like Trump and think thats a solution to our problems?

Well, I think he had a chance. His message, his policies, could have been very helpful in carving out a new middle in American politics. The problem was his tone, his affect, his showmanship and egotism, whatever you want to call it exactly, undercut that political attempt, and it left him in the strange position of governing a country in which 60 percent of the people in one poll said that they were better off now than they were four years before, and yet 20 percent of those people voted against him.

So he turned out a lot of pro-Trump voters, but he also turned out a lot of anti-Trump voters. He threw away whatever chance he had to be a unifying figure. And if you look at some of the micro-results, he did better among some Black voters and Hispanic voters in various places. So the simple story of Donald Trump the racist cant be entirely true. Despite his personality, or maybe because of his personality, he gave them some hope. Thats why I think it might have been a winnable election for Trump, if he had just been a little less Trump-like in his personality.

This is where you drive me nuts, Charles. Its true that Trump did surprisingly well among some Black and Hispanic voters, and there are some interesting potential reasons for that, but the idea that Trump was ever going to be a unifying figure is just absurd.

Youre smart enough to recognize the nationalist game Trump was playing. You know the appeals he made to white voters were racially tinged, you know he lunged into national politics by embracing the racist birther conspiracy about Obama, but in your book you talk about Make America Great Again as an innocent slogan from a man who just loves his country like a little boy loves his mommy and that it was the PC liberals who got it all wrong.

Look, you can be a nationalist without being a racist, and plenty of non-racist people voted for Trump, but your account of Trumps naive nationalist pitch is charitable to a degree that is frankly hard to believe.

I mean it sincerely. There are parts of Trump that Ive long disassociated myself from, like the birtherism. I wrote a book about Obama back in 2012, and I made a point in the beginning to say that I dont believe this. I never had any tolerance for this stuff. And there are things Trump said and did that were crude and regrettable and I dont want to hear it again.

But he did stand up for the traditional, patriotic civic culture. And he was one of the very few Republican politicians who had really any interest in tackling political correctness, or the eventual toppling of monuments and statues, which I think was very defensible on civic or nationalist grounds. This is part of what made Trump so attractive to a lot of voters.

Theres a lot there, but Im going to circle back to the point I was driving at earlier. I think there are right-wing intellectuals who have concluded that democracy has produced the wrong outcomes (culturally and politically) and therefore they believe it has to be rejected, or at least no longer considered inherently good.

Do you think thats true?

No, I think youre right. I must say, I read more about them than I read of them. Because a lot of them are on the web. If they remain on the fringe, I dont think its an imminent problem. But it could be a long-term problem on the right among a certain kind of disillusioned young male.

Im not talking about alienated 20-somethings posting Pepe the Frog memes. Im talking about conservative intellectuals, people like Michael Anton, whose Flight 93 essay you published. I mean, that essay told readers that the stakes of the 2016 election were literally existential, that they had to charge the cockpit or you die. I suppose you could argue that Anton thinks hes defending the republic there, but I also think hes saying that democracy has veered so far off the tracks that we need to explode it in order to revive it.

I would say in defense of Michael that the only action hes asking a reader to take is to vote for Trump. The metaphor he uses is histrionic, as he himself has admitted. In fact, I think he admitted that in the original piece itself. But it was designed to shake conservative voters out of a certain kind of lethargy that had come over them because of their discontent with Trump and with the whole process that started with 17 candidates and somehow, in the end, boiled down to Donald Trump. He feared apathy on the right, so he countered that with a dynamic and explosive image.

I think telling people to charge the cockpit or die is doing a little more than saying, Just go out and vote, but Ill leave Anton aside. You refer to something called the Weimar problem in your book that seems relevant here. You write: Every republic eventually faces what might be called the Weimar problem. Has the national culture, popular and elite, deteriorated so much that the virtues necessary to sustain republican government are no longer viable? You hedge on this, but honestly, do you think this is basically where we are?

No, but I do fear thats where were headed. Its a more comprehensive list than I gave there. It would also include doubt about the goodness of the republic. And the grounds of the goodness of the republic is a major part of our ambivalence. Its a major part of our moral and psychological disarray right now.

But its also economic dislocations and what has happened to the middle class and to the working class in America. I dont think any of that is irrecoverable, though. And I think we can do better. But I do think that, yeah, in some ways, I fear were hollowing out the republic. You have two adamant parties that increasingly deplore each other, and which of these parties has the time to take up the banner of the original republic? Which party cares about individual rights, about natural rights, about limited government, about a whole set of constitutional ideas that we were once so proud of but which figure only at the margins of our constitutional and political arguments?

Theres some both-sidesism in that answer, but you clearly think the progressive left is the driving force of decay, right?

I do lay a fair amount of blame at the feet of progressives, thats true. I think progressivism imported a whole new conception of political science and human nature, and really a new conception of the purpose of politics, which has turned government into a rights-creation industry. Were not in politics to defend our natural rights, or our God-given moral dignity, or whatever you want to call it. Were in politics to create rights. And the only rights we ever have are those that we humans create for one another.

Now, there are worse ways of looking at politics than that, to be sure. But I think its very demoralizing for a democracy. Although it tries to avoid this, it still undermines the restraint on human will in politics. It opens the vista of very great creativity in the making of rights, which can also mean the unmaking of rights, which can also be done very creatively. And it removes any authority above our will from rights, from the democratic process, from the safety and happiness of the people, all of these notions which were close to the heart of what I call the founders Constitution.

I try to be fair to the progressives in each of their versions as they make history in the 20th century. Theyre really out to save America, as they understand it, from the burden of an antiquated Constitution and the inefficiencies of the machinery of the Constitution, but also what they regard as the immorality of the ideas behind the machinery. I think they sincerely believe that. And they did accomplish some good things in the 20th century, but I think the reasons they give for what they do tend to undermine the goodness of those accomplishments.

This is one place where we just have a philosophical disagreement, because whatever one thinks of God, I do believe that rights only exist because human beings have decided they should, and because weve agreed to continually reaffirm them. But this is a point we cant argue here. Most of your ire in the book is directed at the woke left and what you call its abandonment of truth-seeking. Is relativism really a bigger problem on the left today than it is on the right?

Thats a good question. I think its more of a problem on the left. You could say many of the moral revolutionaries on the left, whether on the gender front or the anti-racist front, a lot of that does seem to be wrapped up with the notion of anti-foundationalism, or the idea that theres no foundation for any of our concepts other than human will. That tendency is more advanced on the left than on the right.

Im not here to defend everything that falls under the banner of wokeness, and Ive been pretty open about my issues with a lot of it, but your book is conspicuously uninterested in the post-truth politics on the right. I mean, the vast majority of the Republican Party believes the 2020 election was fraudulent, a claim without any basis in fact whatsoever.

Does that kind of epistemological pluralism bother you as much as some of the stuff youre seeing on the left?

No, it does concern me, and in the winter issue of the Claremont Review of Books, I ran three pieces that were critical of the hypothesis that the election had been stolen. I think its much more likely the election was won fair and square, or more or less fair and square with some cheating, but not the whole thing being stolen by Joe Biden. I think any political scientist would have to read the evidence that way.

Now, at the same time, there are complicating factors here. One is that the battle over the election came at the end of a series of battles about the truth of things like Russian collusion or Ukrainian intervention. After two or three years of every establishment organ assuring us that there was no doubt that the guy was guilty, it turns out he wasnt. So I think that contributed to the plausibility of Trumps story that this was the latest deception in a series of deceptions.

Okay, thats fine, and while I think thats a simplistic account of the Russia story, Ill avoid debating it and instead push on my previous point a little more. Were not in this situation merely because the left or because the media overplayed its hands on Russia, though Id concede thats part of the story.

A lot of conservatives believe these lies because right-wing commentators and politicians and intellectuals have cynically indulged them. I just heard your colleague Michael Anton on Andrew Sullivans podcast playing this exact game. He wont say outright that the election was stolen, but when pressed for evidence, he says hes just practicing epistemological humility. I mean, come on!

This is why I think people in your camp, sometimes called West Coast Straussians, are doing something very deliberate. One of the ideas of Strauss is that the philosopher, especially in times of crisis, may have to be a little deceptive, or tell lies in service of some higher goal, like saving the republic.

Honestly, is that part of whats going on here?

No, not at all. I would consider intentional deception about the election an especially despicable use of the noble lie excuse. As I say, I think that Trump lost. Ive published two essays on that very question, and my own, in the last issue, which more or less assumed the truth of that. I think Trump won a close election in 2016, and he lost a fairly close election in 2020. And theres nothing that really ought to be surprising about that.

But its true that Trump took advantage of what might have been, among reasonable people, some doubt about particular elections, and blew it up into a whole theory, a whole excuse, for losing the election. That is regrettable, and it is damaging.

Youre very careful in the book to say we havent reached the point of no return, so Ill ask you here: Wheres that line? And what happens when we cross it?

Its hard to say exactly. But it could be the result of a Supreme Court decision that a majority of the states refuse to enforce. It could be an abortion ruling or a guns ruling. But it could be sufficiently polarizing that people essentially say, I dont want to be in the same community with the people on the other side of this issue. And that would start by saying, Were not going to allow federal marshals to enforce the law in our state. But of course, for reasons that are familiar in history, that can escalate into something much bigger than anyone anticipated. I dont think that is necessarily going to happen, and, of course, Im hopeful that it doesnt happen.

But thats a mechanical answer to your question. I think a more philosophical answer would be that weve crossed that line when its clear that we really dont understand All men are created equal in the same way, or when we understand it in incompatible and even mutually impossible ways. If that happens, weve reached the limits of moral community, which helped to set the limits of political community. And thats when you have a real problem.

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Charles Kesler, author of Crisis of the Two Constitutions, on the case for Trump - Vox.com

Former President Donald Trump used to say he was the best thing that ever happened to the media.

Remember this quote from 2017? Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if Im not there, Trump said, because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.

Was he right?

The Washington Posts Paul Farhi writes that, yeah, maybe he was. Farhi wrote, Barely two months into the post-Trump era, news outlets are indeed losing much of the audience and readership they gained during his chaotic presidency. In other words, journalisms Trump bump may be giving way to a slump.

Farhi crunched the numbers and came up with some data to back his argument.

The nations top mainstream news sites including the Post and The New York Times saw traffic drop dramatically in February after setting records in January. This years February was worse than last years February. Farhi also accurately pointed out that cable news ratings are down. CNNs primetime audience is down 45% the past five weeks. MSNBC is down 26%. Even Fox News has dropped 6%.

So how do you explain it? Is it a Trump slump? Perhaps. Does it have anything to do with COVID-19? Could be. The news about COVID-19 is more positive and, arguably, less urgent now than a year ago at this time. And, lets not forget that a year ago, we were coming off a Trump impeachment, which led to one of the most divisive and bitterly-contested presidential elections in our nations history.

All of this was a perfect news storm. Now, things are quieter, more normal, even boring. After four years of the Trump Show, maybe boring is a welcome feeling for media consumers. Maybe its a good thing to go a day or two or three not knowing exactly what the president said or did that day. Maybe after four years of stress, some people are taking a break from the news.

Echoing something that CNNs Brian Stelter recently said on Jimmy Trainas Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, I find myself with several options for the lead of my newsletter each day, as opposed to it likely being about Trumps latest controversy. In fact, today is one of the rare days since the election that the lead and a few other items of the newsletter have been about Trump.

There is still major news to cover. COVID-19 certainly hasnt gone away. There are critical stories at the border. And we continue to address important issues regarding race.

So, yes, maybe there is a Trump slump. Thats not necessarily a bad thing. There were times when what Trump said or did or tweeted could not be ignored, but much of the news generated by Trump used to be low-hanging fruit for news outlets.

Now, for the most part, Trump can be ignored. Which means stories that really matter can be covered. Maybe it wont draw the audience weve seen in the past, but it will be important. News organizations, hopefully, can focus on journalism and trust that the audiences will ultimately return to consume whats good about their coverage not just what is bad and ugly.

In an all-too-familiar nightmare, there was another mass shooting in the United States on Monday. A grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, was the scene of this latest shooting. According to authorities, a gunman opened fire inside a King Soopers grocery store, killing 10, including a police officer.

News of the shooting broke Monday afternoon and, in terms of media coverage, this is when CNN was the go-to news source. On-the-scene reporting, interviews with witnesses, analysis from special guests such as national security analyst Juliette Kayyem and former Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey, and deft anchoring from Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper and others put CNN above the rest.

Take the 8 p.m. Eastern hour. CNN was in wall-to-wall coverage, while MSNBC also provided solid and extensive coverage of the shooting. Fox News, meanwhile, stuck with Tucker Carlson, who was on his usual anti-liberal schtick, as well as more conversation about COVID-19 vaccines. CNN and MSNBC aired the first news conference from the scene live. Fox News did not, opting to stick with Carlson and Sean Hannity. CNN and MSNBC also aired the second news conference of the night from Boulder, while Fox News aired Laura Ingraham.

This is why, on stories such as this, CNN should be viewers first choice.

What was especially notable was CNNs responsible coverage, given the lack of information in terms of the number of casualties and injuries and the shooters motivation. At no point did CNN speculate on these key aspects, and thus didnt put out any misinformation.

There will be much more coverage of this in the days to come. As Kayyem sadly but accurately said, Its an American story.

Fox News had an awful moment Monday. While talking on the phone with Donald Trump, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner reported that Alejandro Mayorkas had resigned as director of Homeland Security. One problem: Mayorkas had not resigned.

Faulkner originally said he had while talking to Trump, who said, Well, Im not surprised, good. Thats a big victory for our country.

Almost immediately, Faulkner who appeared to be listening to someone talking into her earpiece said, Hold on. Let me stop. Let me stop. Let me listen to my team one more time. Forgive me. Forgive me. That has not happened. And I apologize listening to the team and you.

In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said, The error stemmed from an audio issue in a virtual working environment. We corrected the mistake and continued on with the interview.

Mistakes happen, but this was pretty sloppy by Faulkner. That kind of news needs 100% confirmation before announcing it on the air. This was embarrassing for her and the network.

In fact, the whole interview was a mess.

Trump also pushed lies about the border and even said, We won the election as far as Im concerned with zero pushback from Faulkner.

At one point, Faulkner said, Before I let you go, most ex-presidents dont weigh in at this level. Why did you feel like you needed to on this issue?

Trump said, Well you called me, I didnt call you in all fairness.

This interview wont be going on Faulkners highlight reel.

What do you do when youre craving to post on social media, but the big social media companies have booted you from their platforms? Apparently you start your own social media company. Thats what former President Donald Trump has in store, according to longtime Trump adviser Jason Miller.

Appearing on Fox News MediaBuzz over the weekend, Miller said Trump will be returning to social media in probably about two or three months. Miller added that Trump will be coming back on his own platform and that it will attract tens of millions and completely redefine the game. Miller also said, This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media.

Call me skeptical. Certainly Trump still has a large following, and if he actually is able to get a social media platform off the ground, it likely would attract millions. But aside from the technical logistics, it sounds like it would be an echo chamber, which is not the foundation for completely redefining the game.

HBOs John Oliver (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

One week after destroying Fox News Tucker Carlson in a 25-minute takedown, HBO Last Week Tonight host John Oliver fired off another epic rant about hate crimes against Asians. Along the way, he called out The View host Meghan McCain. Oliver was talking about how Donald Trump and others used phrases like China virus to describe COVID-19. He then showed a March 2020 clip of McCain saying, If the left wants to focus on P.C. labeling, this virus is a great way to get Trump reelected. I dont have a problem with people calling it whatever they want. It is a deadly virus that did originate in Wuhan. I dont have a problem with it.

Oliver said, Oh good! Meghan McCain doesnt have a problem with it. Listen not to the scores of Asian Americans telling everyone that the term is dangerous and offensive. Instead, gather around and take the word of a wealthy white woman whos dressed like shes about to lay off 47 people over Zoom.

McCain did tweet Stop Asian Hate after last weeks shootings in Atlanta, but Oliver pointed back to McCains past comments, saying, The minimization of racist rhetoric plays into the harmful stereotype of Asian Americans as a model minority pitting them against other minority groups and pressuring them to swallow their experiences with racism, without making a stink because thats how you earn white acceptance, and that is something that takes its toll.

In wake of Olivers commentary, McCain tweeted, I condemn the reprehensible violence and vitriol that has been targeted towards the Asian-American community. There is no doubt Donald Trumps racist rhetoric fueled many of these attacks and I apologize for any past comments that aided that agenda.

(Courtesy: New York Magazine/The Cut)

The March cover story of New York Magazines The Cut is a conversation between CNNs Abby Phillip and CBS News Gayle King, which was moderated by The Cuts editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner. This is Peoples Wagners first digital cover as editor-in-chief.

In describing why Phillip is on the cover, Peoples Wagner wrote, Much of my time has been spent analyzing how I can make our point of view more inclusive; and questioning who we give this platform to, how do we decide equitably who is cool or worthy or important to feature on a cover. I know firsthand how much representation means to marginalized communities, and how it can change your life. In light of being a year into this pandemic, and with social-justice movements like Black Lives Matter to Stop Asian Hate finally given the respect they deserve, I wanted to put someone on my first Cut cover that brought these issues to the forefront, and gave people comfort in times when it felt like there was no hope.

In the conversation, Phillip tells King, The lesson of 2020 has been that more people need to be involved. We can encourage and empower other people to speak confidently and knowledgeably about race in this country. Its often said that Black people have a Ph.D. in race in America, but I think the time has come for the rest of America to get their education in these issues as well, so that they can share the burden of moving this country forward.

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey published a caption Saturday on a photo that was as jaw-dropping as it was offensive. It was misogynistic, it was racist and it included an expletive. I wont repeat it here, but if youre truly interested, you can click on this story from the New York Posts Keith J. Kelly.

In a statement to Kelly, Asbury Park Press executive editor Paul DAmbrosio said the caption was fixed on Sunday as soon as editors heard about it. He said, The words in the caption were totally unacceptable and in no way reflect the principles and practices of the staff of the Press and Gannett. The Press and Gannett have a long history of fighting for inclusiveness, diversity and womens rights. We took immediate and significant action once we became aware of the issue, and we changed our online procedures to ensure such an event never happens again.

Cond Nast chief content officer Anna Wintour in 2019. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Theres still a bit of a media buzz about Alexi McCammond who was supposed to take over as editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, but left the job before she even started because of backlash from anti-Asian tweets she posted a decade ago when she was a teenager.

Cond Nast, owner of Teen Vogue, was not blindsided by the tweets. They were aware of at least some of them before hiring her. McCammond had acknowledged, deleted and apologized for the tweets in 2019, but they resurfaced again when she was recently named editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. She issued two public apologies and met with Teen Vogue staff, but announced last week that she was stepping away. Some staffers at Teen Vogue voiced their displeasure over McCammonds hiring and at least two advertisers put their campaigns with Teen Vogue on hold.

On Sundays Reliable Sources on CNN, host Brian Stelter dedicated a segment to the topic. Stelter talked about how offensive the tweets were, but said, Ultimately, Cond Nast failed her. But they didnt open a door about tolerance and second chances.

Thats really what so much of this story is about acknowledging the harm of the racist tweets, but also asking if McCammond should be forgiven at some point. And should the fact that she was a teenager at the time of the tweets matter at all?

David French, senior editor at The Dispatch and a columnist at Time, told Stelter, A society that defines people by their worst moments as a teenager is going to be a pretty miserable society.

On Mondays Morning Joe on MSNBC, co-host Joe Scarborough said, I say all the time if Twitter had been around when we were teenagers, well, you wouldnt know who we are.

On Morning Joe, journalist Kurt Bardella called Cond Nasts actions a remarkable act of cowardice, also pointing out that McCammonds tweets were from when she was young.

The headline on Graeme Woods piece for The Atlantic was America Has Forgotten How to Forgive. Wood, too, pointed out that teenage years are the time when people make and correct the most mortifying errors of your life.

Wood wrote, If Teen Vogue, even in its current woke incarnation, does not exist to celebrate this period of still-expungeable error, then it may as well be calling for the abolition of the teenage years altogether. Its staff, as well as many of its advertisers, evidently think its readers deserve no bonfire, no sin jubilee, and should be hounded eternally for their dumbest and most bigoted utterances. This suggests an intriguing editorial mix of beauty tips, celebrity news, and vengeance.

And on her Substack, Elizabeth Spiers wrote that McCammond was fired because Cond Nast chief content officer Anna Wintour could not be fired.

Spiers wrote, McCammond should never have been hired as the editor in chief of Teen Vogue because she had no managerial experience, no experience editing, and no domain expertise in fashion, which is still the primary topic of the magazine. It is still Teen Vogue, not Teen Bon Appetit, or Teen New Yorker or Teen Car & Driver. And it says something about Wintours disregard for the publication that she thinks someone with no experience can run it. McCammond was an inappropriate hire and not because McCammond is an inappropriate hire for any position, but because she is an inappropriate hire for the editor in chief position at a large national magazine. Whos to blame for that? Anna Wintour, not Alexi McCammond.

Spiers goes more in depth on the whole ordeal, and its worth a read.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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President Trump said media ratings would tank without him. Was he right? Maybe. - Poynter

Well, Trumps people would tell you, he has the effervescence of Donald Trump! When Trumps Twitter account was revoked in January, he had almost 90 million followers. Surely, some of those will follow him to a new social media site, but even millions following one guy wont be enough to make the site viable. If you want to follow one guy, signing up for his email service is enough. But people open social media accounts to reach whole, expanding networks of people with varied interests. A thriving social media site allows you to itch all the niches of your personality. You might come for politics but also be looking for other people who share your interest in wine or movies or macram or the Cistercians. A social media site based primarily on an allegiance to the monoculture represented by Trump and his political positions would soon become pretty boring for even the dead-endingest of Trump dead-enders. If too identified with Trump, the new platform would become an anti-social media site and repulse people. If not identified enough with Trump, the new platform would cease to have any reason to exist. So, why bother?

One of the reasons Trumps social media presence became essential reading was that as president his every utterance and burp made news. If he tweeted a promise to incinerate some foreign foe, everybody wanted to be there to hear it firsthand, especially liberals who despised and feared him. But reduced now to a geriatric golf cheat whose only true power comes from political fundraising and supporting candidates who will primary his Republican enemies, Trumps clipped messages have lost their former valency and theres nothing he can do, short of regaining the presidency, to winning his old network back. Trumps political potency depends on convening an audience of not just Trumpies but other conservatives and a good number of liberals who feel a need to monitor him. You cant own the libs if the libs arent listening.

A smarter play for Trump would be to find a social media host that he could devour parasitically the way he did the Republican Party. Both Gab and Parler would be excellent choices for Trump. In fact, he already seems to have taken a run at Parler, according to a February story in BuzzFeed, which reported that the Trump Organization and social media upstart Parler had negotiated giving Trump a 40-percent interest in the company if he made it his primary social network. This would work to Trumps satisfaction because it would cost him nothinghe loves using other peoples capital in his businessesand it reunites him with Rebekah Mercer, who co-founded Parler and whose family supported his campaigns. But the limitations of starting his own site are only mirrored at Parler. He could bring in more of his supporters and curious looky-lous, but that would still not make for the variety needed to establish a vibrant social media network. Another downside is that Parler has only a reported 15 million users compared with Twitters 187 million, and its smartphone app has been banned by both Apples app store and Google Play for not moderating messages promoting violence, limiting its usability.

Perhaps the greatest limitation to a Trump-led social media entity is Trumps narcissistic personality. Would he be willing for his social media site to grow into a space that might threaten his propagandistic ambitions? It seems illogical. For as long as weve observed Trump, weve known that he looks inward only and has no skill at internalizing other peoples personalities, ideas or motivations. We can only laugh at a two-dimensional man who hopes to become a mogul in the three-dimensional world of social media. Hed be better off reentering the steak business.

******

I like my Trump well done and with ketchup. Send Trump recipes to [emailprotected]. My email alerts love McDonalds. My Twitter feed has a button on its desk that when pressed summons a waiter with a Diet Coke. My RSS feed likes its meat extra raw.

Read more:

Opinion | Why Trump Would Make the Most Boring Social Media Site Ever - POLITICO

Federal investigators are still examining Donald Trumps role in inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

Michael Sherwin, the departing acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, confirmed that the former president is still under investigation over the 6 January putsch in an interview with CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday.

Maybe the president is culpable, he said.

Sherwin also said there were now more than 400 cases against participants in the riot and said that if it is determined Brian Sicknick, the Capitol police officer who died, did so because he was hit with bear spray, murder charges would likely follow.

Its unequivocal that Trump was the magnet that brought the people to DC on 6 January, Sherwin said. Now the question is, is he criminally culpable for everything that happened during the siege, during the breach?

Based upon what we see in the public record and what we see in public statements in court, we have plenty of people we have soccer moms from Ohio that were arrested saying, Well, I did this because my president said I had to take back our house. That moves the needle towards that direction. Maybe the president is culpable for those actions.

But also, you see in the public record, too, militia members saying, You know what? We did this because Trump just talks a big game. Hes just all talk. We did what he wouldnt do.

Trump addressed a rally outside the White House on 6 January, telling supporters to fight like hell to stop Congress certifying his election defeat by Joe Biden, which he falsely claims was the result of voter fraud. A mob broke into the Capitol, leading to five deaths, including a Trump supporter shot by law enforcement.

Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted when only seven Republican senators could be convinced to vote him guilty.

Lawsuits over the insurrection, one brought by the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, are among proliferating legal threats to Trump now he has lost the protections of office.

More than 100 police officers were allegedly assaulted during the riot. Sicknick died the next day. Cause of death has not been released. But two men have been charged with assaulting the 42-year-old officer with a spray meant to repel bears.

Asked if a determination that Sicknicks death was a direct result of being attacked with the spray would lead to murder charges, Sherwin said: If evidence directly relates that chemical to his death, yeah. We have causation, we have a link. Yes. In that scenario, correct, thats a murder case.

He also said: That day, as bad as it was, could have been a lot worse. Its actually amazing more people werent killed. We found ammunition in [one] vehicle. And also, in the bed of the vehicle were found 11 Molotov cocktails. They were filled with gasoline and Styrofoam. [Lonnie Coffman, the man charged] put Styrofoam in those, according to the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], because when you throw those, when they explode, the Styrofoam will stick to you and act like napalm.

He also said pipe bombs placed near the Capitol by an unidentified suspect were not armed properly.

They were not hoax devices, they were real devices, Sherwin said.

Sherwin also said sedition charges, as yet not part of cases against participants in the riot, were likely.

We tried to move quickly to ensure that there is trust in the rule of law, he said. You are gonna be charged based upon your conduct and your conduct only.

The world looks to us for the rule of law and order and democracy. And that was shattered, I think, on that day. And we have to build ourselves up again. The only way to build ourselves up again is the equal application of the law, to show the rule of law is gonna treat these people fairly under the law.

Originally posted here:

Trump still being investigated over Capitol riot, top prosecutor says - The Guardian

Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Sometime in the coming weeks, Facebook Inc.s new Oversight Board will announce whether Donald Trump will be allowed to post again on Facebook and Instagram. Based on its recent rulings in other cases, the board seems poised to end Facebooks suspension of Trump, which began in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trumps return to social media would bolster his attempt to remain the dominant figure in the Republican Party. More broadly, it could reshape the way political speech is governed for Facebooks 2.8 billion users, making it more difficult for the company to remove harmful content and bad actors. A pro-Trump decision could also influence other platforms, including Twitter, which permanently banned the former president after the ransacking of the Capitol, and YouTube, which said on March 4 that it would end its suspension of Trump when the risk of political violence recedes.

Facebook Inc. had ample reason to separate Trump from his 35 million followers on its namesake website, plus 24 million on Instagram. Over a period of months, he used a range of social media platforms to undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Then, having drawn thousands of followers to Washington, D.C,. in January for what he promised would be a wild protest, he directed the crowd to march on the Capitol, where Congress was formally counting electoral votes. Five people died in the ensuing attack, and 140 police officers were injured. Explaining its decision to suspend Trump indefinitely, Facebook said it sought to prevent use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.

A view of Trumps Facebook page on Jan. 7.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

But then the company referred the Trump suspension to its Oversight Board, a quasi-judicial body that it set up last year to review content moderation decisions and issue rulings the company promises to follow. The board is made up of 20 globally diverse academics, lawyers, and civic leaders, as well as a former prime minister of Denmark and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. While the board hasnt been shy about second-guessing Facebook, overturning the companys decisions in five out of the six cases decided so far, that top-line number can be misleading. The board has jurisdiction only over Facebooks decisions to remove content, meaning its usually decided to restore it. At least for now, the board isnt allowed to review instances where Facebook has allowed potentially harmful materialsuch as incitement, hate speech, or disinformationto remain on its platform.

Some observers have argued that Facebook designed the Oversight Board as a clever sham that would allow it to keep controversial content on the platform. Such content drives user engagement, which, in turn, maximizes ad revenue. That seems overstated. The relatively tiny number of cases the board is likely to decide probably wont have a meaningful effect on the overall supply of engagement bait. Moreover, while Facebook has vowed to obey board rulings in particular cases, the company is not obliged to apply the principles the board enunciates to millions of similar cases. Rather than a sham, the oversight body appears to reflect an impulse to outsource responsibility for content moderationto have someone else make tough calls, at least in a handful of especially sensitive cases, like, say, the deplatforming of a former president.

Facebook management tends to outsource decisions about which posts stay up. The company sends the vast majority of its front-line human content moderation work to third-party vendors who employ relatively inexpensive local labor in places including the Philippines and India.

In an interview with Kate Klonick for a definitive New Yorker piece on the founding of the Oversight Board, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the body wasnt designed to deflect responsibility. Im not setting this up to take pressure off me or the company in the near term, he said. The reason that Im doing this is that I think, over the long term, if we build up a structure that people can trust, then that can help create legitimacy and create real oversight.

The analytical approach the Oversight Board has taken favors the restoration of Trumps account. As a corporation, Facebook isnt, strictly speaking, constrained by the First Amendment, which limits government restrictions on speech. But in some of its initial rulings, the board has skeptically scrutinized Facebooks own community standards, stressing the ambiguity of the rules under which the company has removed content. Its also tended to frame the factual context of the disputed posts in a narrow way, an approach that can minimize the potential harm the speech in question could cause. If carried over to the Trump decision, these inclinations would help him.

Consider a ruling that reversed Facebooks removal of a 2020 post from Myanmar that included the assertion that there is something wrong with Muslims psychologically. Facebook took down the post under its policy against hate speech. The board acknowledged the severity of anti-Muslim animus in Myanmar but referred to this instance as a mere expression of opinion, which did not advocate hatred or intentionally incite any form of imminent harm. The board could have taken a broader view of the recent history of Myanmar. Doing so would have put more emphasis on the Myanmar militarys ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, an atrocity partly fueled by dehumanizing rhetoric spread on Facebook. The companys belated vigilance about preventing further lethal abuse of its platform in Myanmar seems warranted.

In another case, the board overturned the removal of a post from France describing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19, a widespread claim that has been refuted by scientific evidence. Facebook took action under its rule against misinformation that risks imminent physical harm. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the company has vowed to remove claims of false cures and other medical misinformation. But the Oversight Board was dissatisfied with Facebooks inappropriately vague guidelines, concluding: A patchwork of policies found on different parts of Facebooks website make it difficult for users to understand what content is prohibited. So the misleading post about a phony cure was restored.

Which brings us back to Trump. Describing his pending case on its website, the board narrows its focus to just two posts from Jan. 6. In the first, Trump appeared in a video while the rioters were still ransacking the Capitol. We had an election that was stolen from us, he told the insurrectionists. He said they should go home but added, We love you. Youre very special. In a later written message, posted while police were securing the Capitol, he said, These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously ripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.

This framing of the case suggests the board may not consider adequately the broader context: the pattern of Trumps Facebook and Twitter pronouncements, going back months, in which he tried to erode popular faith in voting and the peaceful transfer or power. Another possible signal that should give Trump some confidence is the boards assertion in its case preview that Facebook wasnt crystal clear about which of its rules he violated. In earlier decisions, the board pointed to this kind of fuzziness to justify reversals of company sanctions.

Removing a political leader from a widely used platform should be a punishment of last resort. It narrows the scope of political debate and may deny voters valuable election-related information. In close cases, Facebook should lean toward penalties like labeling content as misleading or limiting its distribution.

To Facebook, though, Trump wasnt a close case. His social media communication, viewed in total, spread falsehoods about a rigged election and thereby created a real danger to our democracy. He praised and justified insurrectionists, even as they stalked congressional hallways, chanting that they wanted to hang Vice President Mike Pence. Facebook has no obligation to amplify speech that undermines democratic governance and incites violence. But the Oversight Board, as a result of its bureaucratic imperatives and analytical approach, might yet restore Trumps Facebook and Instagram megaphones.Barrett, a former writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, is the deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, where he researches disinformation.Read next: Marketers Push Black Lives Matter But Underpay Black Influencers

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Trump's Facebook Ban Will Likely Be Overturned by New Oversight Board - Bloomberg

Color. Me. Shocked. Former US President Donald Trump wants to make a return to social media with his own platform.

After getting banned from virtually every major social website on the planet earlier this year, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Shopify, he wants to build his own platform. Well, not like theres any other choice.

[Read: Theres more evidence Twitter is testing an undo button, but itll cost you]

Last night, Trumps senior adviser, Jason Miller, said on a Fox News show that the former president will launch a new platform in two to three months:

I do think that were going to see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here, with his own platform.And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media, its going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.

Miller added that hes expecting that this new platform will attract tens of millions of people.

Trump and his supporters tried to shift base to right-wing social media app Parler after his big tech ban. But due to lack of user dataprivacyand potentially violence-inciting posts, the platform was kicked out of the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store, and even the cloud hosting provider Amazon Web Services (AWS).

If the former presidents new app will have similar characteristics, it might be difficult to have a long-term hosting partner.

This is not the first time team Trump has expressed the desire for a brand new social network. In January, Donald Trump Jr. appealed Elon Musk to build a new unbiased platform but there was no response.

Read next: The tech industry is abuzz about the PRO Act. What is it?

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Of course Donald Trump is building his own social media platform - The Next Web