Category Archives: Liberal

Martyn Turner began contributing cartoons to The Irish Times in the summer of 1971. Half a century later, hes still a satirical genius

Martyn Turner is at his drawing board, brush in left hand, inking an addendum to the Irish Times guide to common garden birds that satirises vulture-like law professionals, cuckoo funds and the recently chosen leader of the DUP. Do you think The Irish Times will allow me callEdwin Poots a Wee Orange Tit?

Turner is nearly 73, and his first Irish Times cartoon was published 50 years ago this weekend. He is a satirical genius.

He is tall and bearded and has colourful clothes and, currently, a shock of grey hair. I said to Jean [his wife], The Irish Times are coming out on Thursday and she said, You should get your hair cut and I said, Oh no, they might want to take photographs and it would be much funnier with my hair like this.

Were sitting in a refurbished cowbarn connected to their house a few kilometres outside Naas. Its Turners studio. Theres an exercise bike in the middle of the room (Wasted on us) and a Duracell bunny stuck to the half-door. Ollie, an exuberant red setter (their 22nd red setter to date), has been expelled for the duration of the interview. Turner draws on paper and then scans his work on to a computer in the corner, where he adds colour sparingly.

His collection of cartoon books is smaller than it once was but there are still loads on the shelves. He has donated most of it to University College Cork (and while Im there, he donates one book to me). His own older cartoons went to the National Library of Ireland. He has, over the years, published 20 books himself. On his shelves I see copies of The Whole Earth Catalogue, Art Spiegelmans Raw, Alan Moores Watchmen and Goscinny and Uderzos Asterix.

The walls are lined with pictures by Erich Sokol, Clay Bennett, Hunt Emerson, Roy Peterson and more. By his drawing desk theres a painting of Neil Young by Sebastian Krger. The international fraternity of cartoonists all know each other and swap pictures at festivals such as the Guinness International Cartoon Festival, which Turner ran with the late Terry Willers in the 1990s.

He and Jean have lived here since 1976, the year he got his first full-time contract with The Irish Times, buying the property with money from Jeans father and her bank in Slough Jean had a real job as a librarian after a bank manager at EBS rejected him. I said, Im a freelance political cartoonist. He just started laughing. Which I thought was great. Nobody ever laughed at my cartoons.

Turners love of print media started in primary school in Essex, where a schoolteacher and local journalist called Ms Cook encouraged the pupils to create their own paper. In secondary school he produced an anti-school newspaper pseudonymously.

Fifty years later I met the guy who was the manager, he says. I was responsible for all the writing and the drawing. He was responsible for selling it. He said to me, We made a great profit. I didnt remember any money. But its nice to know I worked at a newspaper that actually made a profit. I dont remember working on any other newspapers that managed to make any money.

He was a scholarship boy at Bancrofts public school inWoodford Green, on the northeast edge of London, which he hated. He had wanted to go to Leighton County High because the footballer Phil Woosnam was the chemistry teacher, but his mother (she kind of lived her life through me) insisted on public school.

There were two places for poor boys I got one of the two places and it was hideous. So when I applied for university, I applied for all the ones as far away from the school as was physically possible.

This is how he found himself studying geography in Queens University Belfast in the late 1960s. Did he know much about Ireland? I had never heard of Ireland, he says. You can live a whole life in England without hearing the word Ireland ever mentioned.

At Queens he edited a general interest magazine called Interest. Then in 1970 he became a cartoonist on the non-partisan political magazine Fortnight, before later becoming its editor when the guy who started it decided to go off and write the constitution of New Guinea.

At Fortnight, Turner had friends on both sides of the political divide. Being an outsider is useful for a cartoonist, he says. I dont have any baggage. Im not Protestant or Catholic. Im not a unionist or a nationalist. I dont give a fig for either of them really. And when I came down here, I wasnt Fianna Fil or Fine Gael. They both seem equally daft to me.

Its quite handy to be of the culture but outside the culture. Its quite common in cartooning A lot of the British cartoonists are Australians Vicky, the other great British cartoonist, was Hungarian.

He began contributing cartoons to The Irish Times in summer 1971. When he joined the paperofficially in 1976, after five years of sending cartoons down on the train, it had, to his knowledge, never had a full-time political cartoonist.

They had a lovely pocket cartoonist in the 1960s called NOK [Niel OKennedy]. I met him one day on the street, and he told me that he stopped because when he got middle-aged he suddenly started seeing other peoples point of view. He laughs. Which is something Ive never suffered from. Ive always been a liberal bigot.

Turner is instinctively self-deprecating. I ask him about the evolution of his style. My secret is I cant really draw, he says.

I tell him I love the way he scratches and shades his work and he says, I used to do a lot of lines because I used to figure the more lines I did, the more theyd think it was worth paying money for If I had a very simple style, youd think: Well, anyone can do that.

He resists any attempt of mine to elevate cartooning to a higher plane. When I paraphrase a Steve Bell quote about how its a cartoonists job to go too far, he laughs and says: A cartoonists job is to feed his family.

In the early days cartoonists were so low in the hierarchy, people would just cut up the original cartoon to fit the page, he says. Cartoons would come back in pieces Once I went in to [The Irish Times] and there was a hushed silence and a pompous subeditor came up and said, I really liked that cartoon you did the other day. I decided Id have the original, so I took it home. Heres a pound for yourself.

So cartooning is a slightly disrespected, disgraceful branch of news media? He laughs. Well, I hope so.

Cartooning is much more respected in Europe. He tells me about sitting in a Parisian cafe with Steve Bell from the UK and Eric Rauschenbach from Germany. Steve said to me, Hows your book going? And I said, Fine. We printed 5,000 and weve almost sold out. I said, What about you? And he said, We printed 9,000 and about half of them are gone so far. We said to Eric, Have you ever had a book out? and Eric said, The last one sold a quarter of a million.

Whats it like when someone new comes to the forefront of politics and he has to figure out how to draw them? He puts his head in his hands and whispers in despair, I cant draw I remember after Bertie [Ahern] took over, [Irish Times colleague] Pat OHara used to send me text messages or emails saying, Almost Almost and after nine months of drawing Bertie every day he said, Yes.

He likes finding little details he can use as shorthand. He stuck a cigarette in Brian Cowens ear. He drew Haughey with a fish in his pocket after his boat capsized. The little worm that frequently turns up in the corner of his own frames was an attempt to fit in extra jokes.

The editors who hired me left The Irish Times and then [Douglas] Gageby came back, he says. We were thick as thieves when he left but initially he wasnt very keen on me because he didnt approve of what I wrote in Fortnight. I was far too non-republican for his liking So Id make the cartoon reasonably bland so Gageby wouldnt get upset but then Id put this little thing in the corner, which is what I really wanted to say. Then I was in the office one day, and Gageby said, You know what I really like about your cartoons? I like that little thing in the corner.

People didnt always take kindly to his work. In 1995 he was unsuccessfully sued for blasphemy for a cartoon he drew featuring Christ during the divorce referendum. Charles Haughey kept trying to get him sacked, he says.

I met PJ Mara [Haugheys adviser] once at a do, and Mara asked did I ever get any offers from any other newspapers. I said, Funnily enough I just got asked if Id like to go and work in Scotland but [its] a lot of upheaval and I really like The Irish Times. Mara said, If youre thinking of moving we would probably pay your removal expenses. You could never tell with him if he was being serious.

Does he get many complaints? He doesnt know. The woman who once fielded the calls at the newspaper told him that if he had done a cartoon on the church, she used to call in sick.

Does he worry about the responses he might get? I made a pact with myself that as soon as the cartoon leaves this house, I dont care what happens to it. Because otherwise you go crazy.

I tell him my wife asked me to thank him for the cartoon he did about the X case, in which a little girl stands on the map of Ireland, surrounded by fences. The caption reads: The introduction of internment in Ireland ... for 14-year-old girls.

They say that every cartoonist has one cartoon in their life if theyre lucky enough, and that was my one, he says. At the time, it was just another cartoon.

Later, he says: The X case one is awful because you hoped that the situation was that you never have to draw that cartoon. And its the most reprinted cartoon. Ill never take any money for it. You cant take money from someone elses misfortune.

A year later the girl at the centre of the case visited him with her social worker and her mother. She spent the day here. Shes got the original of the cartoon.

In 2014 The Irish Times printed a Martyn Turner cartoon featuring three priests looking at the new Children First Bill stipulating mandatory reporting of abuse and singing, Id do anything for children (but I wont do that).

It was removed from the website and The Irish Times printed an apology to Catholics who were offended. What I said was quite reasonable, particularly if youre a parent. I know what they mean when they say its unfair to demonise the whole of the clergy for just a few thousand rotten apples, but these are cartoons.

He estimates that the paper has rejected his work about six times in 50 years, which, compared with the experiences of his international colleagues, he thinks is a very good record. If I was an editor, I wouldnt print half of them, he says. When I was an editor [at Fortnight], I used to leave out almost all my cartoons Theres no other paper Ive worked for that leave you alone so much [as The Irish Times]. And I dont know whether thats a conscious decision or whether thats just neglect.

He still does four cartoons every week for this paper. He was once talking with his friend, the longform comic book legend Will Eisner, and I was about to say to him, I dont know how you do this; I couldnt do this in a month of Sundays. Just before I opened my mouth, he said, I dont know how you do your job. I dont know how you think of things every day.

The truth is, he says, he has 400 ideas an hour because thats the way my mind works. Most of them are stupid. Poor Jean has to listen to the nonsense I spout because I have no sense of whats terribly clever or whats good and whats bad.

Does he show his work in progress to Jean? Jean isnt allowed [to see them], he says. She used to, but if she didnt smile or groan or react, Id tear it up and start again, so she isnt allowed.

Whats his routine? I wake at seven. I listen to the radio all morning until I can listen no more and then I go and lie on the bed at lunchtime. I usually fall asleep during the one oclock news. When I wake up at around 1.45pm, theres usually something in my head, even if its just the notion of a subject to do. And then I labour away until theres something that I can use.

The core of it, he says, is an attitude. I always have to disagree with something. It was a lot easier in the old days, but Ireland has changed so much since I arrived. They kind of agree with me now on everything. Whereas you can imagine what it was like in the 1970s. I was interviewed once by this radical student newspaper, who said, Youre very extreme left-wing arent you? Not really, why do you think that? Well, you believe in divorce and contraception.

He worries for younger artists that there isnt much future in cartooning, but he seems content with his own lot. He and Jean are both fully vaccinated (Im coming up to 73 and Jean is 140, he says) and hes back playing golf. He nearly became a professional golfer in his teens, he tells me, but his mother put a stop to that. He loves the sport. Your mind goes completely blank. The cares of the world go off your shoulders.

Hes also a relatively new Irish citizen, a status he and Jean pursued after the Brexit vote. He never understood nationalism, he says. People kept trying to explain to me that because you live in this country, youre perfect and because you live in this country youre absolute crap.

Why does he keep drawing? Whats it all for? I start from the point of view that Im trying to change peoples opinion or to reinforce peoples opinion, he says. But trying to make people laugh is one of the most noble causes you can have.

He remembers a quote: Laughter is the best medicine ... Unless youve got syphilis then try penicillin.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Martyn Turners cartoons in The Irish Times, you could win a signed collection of his 16 political cartoon books by going to irishtimes.com/martynturner50

Original post:

Fifty years of Martyn Turner cartoons: I have always been a liberal bigot - The Irish Times

Media top headlines June 4

Mike Pompeo alleging that the NIH tried to suppress a State Department COVID-19 probe, Fauci telling Americans to not be so accusatory with China, and a Yahoo News reporter asking Jen Psaki about a possible White House cat round out todays top media headlines.

CNN was mocked this week for its a piece citing a study that disparaged conservatives' news judgment.

In the piece, the liberal network cited a "small but intensive" study compiled by communications specialists at Ohio State University, who claimed that "more engaging but false stories tended to support beliefs held by conservatives, while viral news stories that were also true tended to support beliefs held by liberals."

The network promoted the piece in a tweet Thursday, writing, "The research is the latest in a series of studies that show people on the political right tend to not only be targeted by fake news, but to believe it's correct."

CNN CALLED OUT FOR USING OUT-OF-DATE STORY TO HIDE RATINGS COLLAPSE: CANT GET MORE FAKE NEWS THAN THAT'

Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway slammed CNN for its report, saying it had repeatedly misled its viewers and readers on key issues.

"They lied about Russian collusion. They lied about the 2016 election. They lied about Brett Kavanaugh. And they lied about the origins of COVID-19. And their liberal viewers believed them," she said. "These corrupt partisans in the media are in no place to lecture anyone about disinformation, of which they are the most responsible for its harmful spread."

This led to the liberal outlet being lambasted on social media with examples of "fake news" it had been criticized for pushing in the past, including outright dismissing the lab-leak theory on coronavirus' origins, reporting on the racial controversy in the infamous Covington Catholic incident, and misinformation revolving around the Russian dossier following the 2016 election.

CNN HAS SHED MORE THAN HALF ITS VIEWERS SINCE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE, DOWN STAGGERING 60 PERCENT IN KEY DEMO

DON LEMON CLAIMS CNN RATINGS DIVE DUE TO TRUMP ABSENCE WORTH IT, 'BETTER FOR THE WORLD' HE ISN'T POTUS

FACT-CHECKERS IN EMBARASSING POSITION AFTER LAB LEAK THEORY ABOUT-FACE: REALCLEARPOLITICS

One conservative writer shared a photo of CNN's Brian Stelter interviewing disgraced Democratic attorney Michael Avenatti, who became a ubiquitous presence on CNN and MSNBC in 2018 for his anti-Trump activism.

The piece noted that the study ran from January to June in 2019, but did not cover the period under the coronavirus pandemic. It also noted the research team was now separately looking into misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The network also claimed that the researchers "carefully fact-checked" every article that was considered in the study based off social media engagement, but it didn't offer an explanation as to what the fact-checking process entailed.

Read more here:

CNN mocked over reporting study conservatives more likely than liberals to believe misleading news reports - Fox News

"It is only in this country that things are very liberal where health is concerned", remarked Justice M. R. Shah on Tuesday in a plea for anticipatory bail in a case of adulteration and sub-standard quality of grain.

On Tuesday, Justice Shah expressed incredulity at the relief of anticipatory bail being sought in the facts of the case and the offences of which the petitioners have been accused. "This is a case of adulteration and sub-standard quality of grain and they have come in an anticipatory bail plea!", commented Justice Shah at the outset.

"Would you and your family eat that grain? Be fair to the court! When you are not willing, should we let the citizens die?", asked Justice Shah.

"That issue would arise upon conviction. And I am not even asking for quashing of the case! I am only on bail", pressed the advocate.

The bench even refused the plea for protection for a limited period to allow the petitioners time to move the appropriate court for regular bail.

"Please grant me protection for 4 weeks for moving the court for regular bail. Only limited protection for this purpose", pleaded the advocate.

"No, no, no", said the bench.

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It Is Only In This Country That Things Are Very Liberal Where Health Is Concerned: Supreme Court - Live Law - Indian Legal News

Trudeaus Liberals promised to end the blood ban. Now they say its 'complicated'. - 660 NEWS Rogers Media uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Learn more or change your cookie preferences. Rogers Media supports the Digital Advertising Alliance principles. By continuing to use our service, you agree to our use of cookies.We use cookies (why?) You can change cookie preferences. Continued site use signifies consent.

by the big story

Posted Jun 7, 2021 5:13 am MDT

Last Updated Jun 7, 2021 at 6:27 am MDT

In todays Big Story podcast, the promise was pretty clear: During his first successful campaign as Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau told LGBT voters that we would end Canadas longstanding ban prohibiting men who have sex with men from donating blood. At the time, it seemed like a simple promise to keep. A few years later, he claimed it wasnt so simple.

Now, its 2021 and Erin OToole is criticizing Trudeau for his failure as the Conservatives seek LGBT support. How is the blood ban still in place? When Trudeau claims his government will follow the science what is he referring to? Is a discriminatory approach really still necessary when technology has rapidly advanced and Canada needs blood more than ever?

GUEST: Justin Ling, investigative journalist

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.

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Trudeaus Liberals promised to end the blood ban. Now they say its complicated. - 660 News

LETTER | After 13 years of education in a controlled and strictly disciplined environment in schools, we send our children to a university to broaden their horizons in preparation to face the real world. They are already young adults by then with minds like a sponge eager to absorb and grow into this new phase in their lives.

The university is where we entrust our children will be taught how to think laterally and out of the box to meet the challenges of the real world. We expect them to be mature and confident with the ability to grow and excel in their chosen professions and compete with their peers nationally and internationally. Only then can they make a difference in the world and blaze new trails through their innovative minds.

However, looking at the situation today and how our children are not given the freedom to be exposed to the realities of life, is this hope just wishful thinking? How can the horizons of our children be opened when their minds are still conditioned and encaged? They are not given the liberty to be adventurous, encounter new perspectives and form their own perceptions and opinions. This only dampens their thirst for knowledge and the unknown.

A case in point is the abrupt cancellation of an online dialogue with Ramli Ibrahim, a renowned artiste in the performing arts. This is an opportunity missed to pick the brain of someone who pursued his passion in an art form of another race and religion. What made an engineering graduate embark and excel in an artistry alien to his natural psyche? They will never know nor be able to cross borders like Ramli did - to take a leap of faith to achieve his dreams.

I was fortunate to be an undergraduate at Universiti Sains Malaysia in the 70s. The rounded exposure I experienced was like opening a new world to me. In the first year, I was exposed to a diversity of subjects within the school of Humanities. These included Visual Arts, Critical Thinking, Performing Arts, Communication, Statistics, to name a few. Two of the 10 subjects had to be from a cross-discipline, so I did International Relations and Sociology.

In the second and third year, I majored in Mass Communication but still had to take subjects across disciplines so I added French, Philosophy, Photography and Dance to my course. All this was to provide a fully rounded education and knowledge I never experienced in my primary and secondary education.

The beautiful part of the system was also to accrue marks from coursework throughout the year. As such, we had to work hard throughout the year and there was less pressure in the year-end final exams. We would already know our grades for most subjects and could therefore spend more time and focus on the weaker subjects. It was less mental stress compared to when the final exams accounted for 100 percent of your marks.

On a lighter note, I found that I could take better photographs than my other travelling companions - understanding light and composition - and managed to find my way when lost in France with the splatter of French words I could still remember!

My hope is for a more liberal and open-minded exposure to the real world and applicable living skills to survive in this competitive world today. Education is key to make this happen. Otherwise, our future graduates will remain jobless, not in demand, and ultimately end up being garbage collectors in Singapore as has proven to be the case.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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LETTER | Let's have a more liberal, open-minded university education - Malaysiakini

From the start, it was an audacious idea: Take a dozen or so liberals from Maine and a dozen or so conservatives from Mississippi, combine them all into an eight-week Zoom course on politics, core beliefs and everything in between, and see what happens.

My ultimate goal is to challenge folks to think in new ways, Mike Berkowitz told me in an email back in February. Its my modest attempt to work on the us-versus-them orientation that is crippling our citizens, our Congress, and our country.

Berkowitz, a retired Maine public school teacher, is a longtime instructor at the University of Southern Maines Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Commonly known as OLLI, its a place where older folks turn for later-in-life education, intellectual stimulation and, perhaps most important, social interaction with others who see retirement not as a time to slow down, but as an opportunity to keep growing.

But this course, even by Berkowitzs exacting standards, had challenge written all over it. Titled Conservatives and Liberals, Not Conservatives Vs. Liberals, it aimed to take participants where too few of us dare go these days to weekly, two-hour gatherings designed not to confront or convert those on the other side of the Great Political Divide, but simply to better understand them.

The last class was on Wednesday. The course worked. Sort of.

To counterbalance the Maine liberals, Berkowitz looked to the OLLI program at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg he chose that location because hed long noticed that if you Google USM OLLI, you were as likely to get the Mississippi website as the one here in Maine.

But almost immediately, Berkowitz ran onto a glitch: While he had so many liberal Maine applicants that he had to turn some away, enrolling 12 conservative Mississippians through the OLLI organization there wasnt that easy.

Maybe it was because liberals are generally more attracted than conservatives to senior learning programs like OLLI. Or maybe, as Berkowitz put it in an interview last week, some people heard me as saying, Im assuming everybody from Mississippi is conservative, if not a redneck. And so I think a few individuals were turned off by that.

In the end, the perfect balance Berkowitz had envisioned proved unachievable. The Mississippi group, which started at 11 but in the end shrank to seven or eight, included only three or four people who identified as staunchly conservative. By the time the course got underway, the brave conservatives who did sign up found themselves in a distinct minority.

One of them was Saundra Lockwood, a native Mississippian and the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. She retired after 30 years as a civil servant with the U.S. Air Force, holds a bachelors degree in music education, a masters in business administration and is still working toward her Ph.D. in psychology.

But Lockwood, outspokenly conservative and proud of it, may best be remembered by her classmates as the one who, during a discussion on unwanted pregnancies, declared that the best form of birth control is for a woman to keep her knees together. Its that simple. Just keep your legs closed!

Lockwood said in an interview on Thursday that she felt some of the Mainers were simply regurgitating what they heard on CNN. But truth be told, she said, it was a fellow Mississippian a good ol boy conservative, as she put it who rankled her most.

He came in with an agenda and he was determined that he was going to be the star of the show, she recalled. Much to her relief, the man stopped showing up for the course after only a few sessions.

Overall, Lockwood said, I think it was wonderful. I learned a lot. I didnt feel intimated.

Rob Petrillo of Westbrook retired in 2014 after teaching at Biddeford High School for more than 30 years. He skews left politically and saw the course as an opportunity to look beyond the stereotype of the Deep South conservative and get to know real-life people whose views might not align with his own.

I think I came away basically unchanged in any of my deeply held beliefs or values about politics or social policies, Petrillo said. But I think I understand a little bit more clearly why someone might feel a certain way, such as supporting Donald Trump, despite his personal shortcomings, because he placed three conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dave Gauthier, a Rhode Island native, spent 30 years working in Mississippi and Louisiana shipyards before his retirement a few years back. Hes conservative, a devout Roman Catholic and teaches OLLI courses himself in Hattiesburg not on politics, but on such religious topics as the role of angels in Scripture and ancient biblical scholarship.

In south Mississippi, those are popular courses, theyre well attended, he said. Can you do that at Maine OLLI? I dont know.

Looking back on the first political course hes ever taken through OLLI, Gauthier said he often felt, as a member of the conservative minority, that if I didnt say something, nobody would.

So he spoke up. In fact, in one class, Berkowitz allowed Gauthier to explain in detail again focusing on Trumps Supreme Court appointments how his strongly held views on religious freedom shaped his support for the former president.

Did he win over any Trump opponents? No.

But did everyone listen respectfully to what he had to say? Yes, time after time. It was that opportunity to be heard and to hear others that Gauthier appreciated most about the course.

Somewhere along the line (in this country), weve lost the ability to have conversations, he noted.

Kathleen Carroll of Westbrook, a retired school social worker who identifies as a liberal, felt empathy for the conservatives in the class because there were fewer of them.

But Berkowitzs calm, measured approach questions carefully constructed to avoid conflict rather than stoke it, for example fostered an atmosphere of civility across the demographic spectrum, Carroll said.

It was a good contrast to when you see liberals and conservatives talking in public, like on TV, she said. You often just see name calling and just sticking really hard to your opinion.

What Carroll learned from this course, by contrast, was that when you tread more carefully, when youre polite to someone with different views, something good happens.

You hear more that way, she said.

Its a theme that ran through all my interview with participants: The more we listen before speaking, the more we get to know another person beyond their political label, the more likely we all are to find common ground.

And to a man and woman, the classmates credit Berkowitz for keeping the temperature under control as they tackled such hot-button topics as political partisanship, human needs, abortion, the medias impact on politics and society, and navigating our regional differences.

Berkowitz is now setting his sights on a new-and-improved version of the course, this time drawing from OLLI programs at Louisiana State University and Auburn University in Alabama. He plans to recalibrate the classes to allow more time not just for people to express their views, but also to delve into why they hold them, what factors in their lives most influenced how they now see the world around them.

Berkowitz also will be less nave than he was heading into this course. Finding a dozen rock-ribbed conservatives in Mississippi and a dozen deep-blue liberals in Maine may sound easy, but the reality is that were all more complex than that.

Meaning the war between the stereotypes with one side all blue and the other all red might be somewhat of a mirage?

It is a mirage, Berkowitz replied. But that wont stop me.

Nor should it. In a country seemingly paralyzed by political warfare, long live the peacemakers.

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Two groups one conservative, the other liberal walked into a Zoom class - Press Herald

Photo: J Scott Applewhite/AP/Shutterstock

Liz Cheneys apparently imminent defenestration from House Republican leadership has spawned a genre of liberal commentary that could be summarized as Liz Cheney Was No Angel. Yes, these columns concede, Cheney might be finally doing one good deed, but her career consists of a long string of misdeeds that matter far more. Liberals responded to Trumps derangements by bathing the Bush-Cheney crowd in a flattering nostalgic light, writes Maureen Dowd, So, shockingly, the Republicans who eroded Americas moral authority selling us the Iraq war, torture, a prolonged Afghanistan occupation and Sarah Palin became the new guardians of Americas moral authority. Complete with bloated TV and book contracts. Other examples of the genre can be found here, here, and here.

I certainly wouldnt vote for Cheney as the guardian of Americas moral authority or for any other public office, for that matter. I agree that she has spent her career advocating ideas and policies I find misguided, immoral, and sometimes completely deranged. And yet this round of liberal complaints misses the profound significance of her current stand.

In some sense, the entire Republican Party is complicit in Donald Trumps assault on democracy. The partys turn against democracy has unfolded over decades and has its philosophical roots in the conservative movements belief that majority rule is a danger to property rights. All the Republicans helped nurture a right-wing misinformation bubble that would permit their voters to disregard any sources of news not working within the party and the conservative movement; all of them promoted in some form a deep paranoia about the slippery slope toward socialism created by even the most moderate Democratic Party policies.

But Cheneys break with her party is not just one issue, to be weighed on the ledger alongside all the others. Its a question of singular importance.

The Republican Partys democracy skepticism is crossing a dangerous new threshold, and is now making routine the practice of rejecting any election loss. Trumps autogolpe matters because the party is internalizing his belief that Democratic election victories are not just inherently fraudulent, but can and should be challenged and overturned. The Republicans who broke with Trump are being punished and in some cases removed from their positions, and those who stood behind him rewarded. Republicans were too divided to carry through Trumps attempt to reject the election, but next time, the party will be far more united.

Cheneys decision to challenge the party on democracy is remarkable for several reasons. First, she is putting the issue squarely. Rather than softening her line or couching her stance in the logic of messaging (i.e., Trumps rhetoric will hurt Republicans with swing voters), she is straightforwardly instructing her fellow Republicans that their current path is a menace to the Constitution and the rule of law. Second, she has absolutely nothing to gain and a great deal to lose.

And third, the fact she is such a dogmatic right-winger on economic, social, and foreign policy gives her support for democracy more, not less, weight. The very point of her dissent is that support for democracy ought to be separated from policy outcomes. Republicans should not succumb to the temptation of siding with a would-be authoritarian merely because he promises to advance their policy goals. Hell undermine the Constitution, but give us low capital gains taxes and friendly judges is not a morally defensible trade-off. Democracy is the one question not subject to horse-trading.

When Cheneys liberal critics place her support for democracy alongside her other positions, they implicitly endorse the same calculation made by her conservative opponents: that the rule of law is just another issue.

The only way democracy survives is if both sides respect the outcome of a free and fair election as a precondition to all their other disagreements. Democracy is a system for maintaining domestic peace. You make peace with your enemies, not your friends.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Liz Cheneys Liberal Critics Are Missing the Point - New York Magazine

I agree with Rachel Maddow.

Hows that for an opening? Hear me out.

The TV show host took a break from MSNBCs wall-to-wall Rep. Liz Cheney coverage and shared that she needs to rewire her brain.

I feel like Im going to have to rewire myself so that when I see somebody out in the world whos not wearing a mask, I dont instantly think, You are a threat. Or You are selfish, or You are a COVID denier and you definitely havent been vaccinated, tshe said.

While Maddows judgmental and paranoid internal monologue doesnt shock me, its surprising she would admit to this level of lunacy on television.

That being said, I fully support this rewiring.

But it cant stop with Maddow or with this one particular mask-focused psychosis. This overhaul needs to be extensive.

Liberals across this country need to find a way to rework their brains so they are not solely focused on their hatred for T.F.G.

T.F.G, according to the New York Times Gail Collins, stands for The Former Guy.

The nickname has caught on with Democrats who are too triggered by former President Donald Trumps existence to actually say his name aloud like Voldemort, from Harry Potter.

This type of all-consuming hatred doesnt just dictate the lives of Twitter trolls and your nagging neighbor with the Hate has no home here lawn sign on her front yard.

Sadly, Trump Derangement Syndrome has become the basis for President Bidens entire disastrous agenda.

Recently, the Biden-Harris administration announced it was revoking a Trump-era order that enacted stricter penalties for defacing monuments.

As conservative author Ryan Girdusky noted in response, But why? How big is the constituency for defacing statues?

The crowd that applauds these boneheaded decisions arent actually thinking about the content of the orders. They are only thinking about the man who enacted them.

Remember the motto What Would Jesus Do?

Todays progressives ask, What Would Trump Do? and then they do the opposite no matter how clearly a bad idea that is.

A perfect example of this mindset is the crisis at the southern border. According to Customs and Border Protections, immigration agents caught a record number of people trying to illegally enter the United States 179,000 people to be exact.

The White House Semantics Secretary, Jen Psaki, told her loyal fans in the press corps that her boss inherited a broken immigration system from the Trump administration.

In reality, Biden reversed all of the Trump-era policies, including the Remain in Mexico policy, that had kept illegal immigration from spinning out of control.

But why keep the previous presidents effective policies when you can reverse them and appease your radical and irrational base?

Now that the Democrats are five months post-Orange Man, they are slowly dropping the charade that any of their insane actions are reason-based.

Liberal activist David Hogg who started a spite pillow company to stick it to MyPillow owner and Trump supporter Mike Lindell tweeted: I feel the need to continue wearing my mask outside even though Im fully vaccinated because the inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think Im a conservative.

Hoggs honesty is refreshing. However, I have a suggestion for the young entrepreneur who has since resigned from his budding pillow enterprise. The Harvard University student should create badges for Democrats that read I hate Trump with all my heart.

He can sell them to his like-minded liberals so that they can virtue signal and also breathe fresh air like the rest of us Make America Great Again nuts.

Welch poet/priest George Herbert from the 1600s once famously said, the best revenge is living well.

But todays Democrats have a new outlook: The best revenge is covering up my face with a mask for the rest of eternity so that everyone knows I am not a Trump supporter.

I wonder how Trump is dealing with the agony of knowing that all of these Karens are wearing their masks as a sign of vengeful protest against him.

Someone should ask the former president when he isnt busy being a billionaire or enjoying a round of golf at one of his properties in Florida.

Im sure it keeps him up at night.

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Curley: Liberals must rewire their brains away from knee-jerk Trump hate - Boston Herald

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER / GETTY IMAGES

White identity is a potent force in American politics with wide-ranging consequences that are increasingly difficult to ignore. Former President Trump came to power, after all, by using subtle and not so subtle language to appeal to millions of white Americans worried that their power and influence in American society are on the decline.

His strategy of white identity politics has continued to work. Not only did Trump campaign on this message in 2016 and win, but after he lost the 2020 election, some of his supporters were so taken by his message that they stormed the U.S. Capitol in defense of white power and white supremacy. While white identity politics have a long, sordid history in the U.S. that predates Trump, we can see how his strategy has taken root in states across the country. Today, Republican lawmakers across the country are working to implement antidemocratic and illiberal policies that threaten to undermine a multiracial democracy all while protecting the power and status of white people.

Understanding the grievances and fear fueling white identity politics on the political right is paramount to our politics. But whiteness isnt something that only animates the politics of white conservatives. Whiteness is central to white liberals political identity, too, especially as white Americans must navigate a social and political world in which whiteness is often and explicitly tied to racial injustice an uncomfortable association for both white conservatives and white liberals.

For years, we have sought to understand how whiteness and perceived threats to it (in social science lingo, social identity threats) affect white Americans perceptions of their standing in society. Specifically, we have been interested in capturing white Americans sense of how their racial identity is viewed by others, especially in light of increased discussions where white Americans are seen as both the perpetrators of racial inequality and the beneficiaries of white privilege.

To do this, we asked white Americans in our research to list the characteristics, traits or behaviors that they think other people associate with white people. Participants came up with a variety of responses, including positive stereotypes like hard working and negative ones like arrogant. They then rated those characteristics, describing most of them as either extremely positive or extremely negative. But whether white Americans believed others thought of whiteness positively or negatively varied a lot by ideology white liberals were more likely than white conservatives to list negative stereotypes.

There were also important themes in the kinds of stereotypes listed. The most consistent included stereotypes that linked whiteness to racism and bigotry like biased and the KKK, and stereotypes that linked whiteness to privilege, like wealthy and entitled. Not all of the traits respondents listed mapped neatly as racist or privileged, but almost two-thirds of participants listed at least one trait that could be categorized as such. In sum, white people, both liberals and conservatives, think of their racial identity as having both positive and negative connotations. The difference then is in how they think other people perceive whiteness, and how they, in turn, handle situations in which their racial identity is called into question, especially when it is uncomfortable, e.g. suggesting whiteness may confer privilege or harbor racism.

A wealth of research on this topic has shown that the discomfort of being associated with either racism or privilege can lead white people to adopt a variety of defensive beliefs and attitudes. In fact, studies found that concerns about being seen as racist lead many white people to avoid situations where they may say or do anything that could be construed as racist, including having conversations with Black people. Psychologists Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio call this aversive racism, or a form of racial discrimination rooted in avoidance. They find this practice more common among white liberals, who tend to be more motivated to protect their self-image as egalitarian.

And when white Americans feel that their whiteness is negatively associated with privilege, research demonstrates that how they react is particularly complex. As psychologist Eric Knowles and colleagues write, there are at least three possible ways that white Americans react to associations between whiteness and privilege: 1) They can deny inequality exists; 2) they can distance themselves from their whiteness; or 3) they can work to dismantle the systems that sustain white privilege in the first place (although this strategy, the authors note, is likely the least preferred strategy for most white Americans).

In one of many studies illustrating how people may deny being the beneficiaries of privilege, scholars L. Taylor Phillips and Brian Lowery find that after being reminded of their racial advantages, white Americans are more likely to try and distance themselves from any racial privilege they may have benefitted from and instead describe their life story in terms of personal and economic disadvantage. Phillips and Lowery find that these narratives help white people protect their self-image and avoid discomfort without having to deny inequalities in ways that may betray their values or relinquish privileges they may prefer to obliviously enjoy.

Understanding how white Americans react to perceptions of their whiteness can help us make sense of behavior across the ideological spectrum. For instance, one reason why white people on the political right may be so opposed to The New York Timess 1619 Project, which emphasizes the role that slavery played in structuring many aspects of American society, is because the project inherently implicates whiteness. This, in turn, reminds white Americans of negative associations that are attached to white identity, namely the relationship between whiteness and racism. And because white conservatives may be more likely to believe that critiques of whiteness are baseless, relative to their white liberal counterparts, they may show greater feelings of anger and backlash to associations they see as unfair.

On the other hand, white liberals often feel motivated to act in racially egalitarian ways to distance themselves from these same negative stereotypes of whiteness. The thinking may go something along the lines of, Those white people are bad, but I want to see myself as a good person. However, committing to antiracist action is not a straightforward solution, as it is not always effective at staving off the negative emotions that come with acknowledging a legacy of racism. Moreover, this strategy can fall short in actually addressing racial inequality, as it does not alway prioritize the practical needs of people of color over the emotional and psychological needs of white antiracists.

So, whats the bottom line? White identity is an important part of our politics, particularly in shaping both white conservatives and white liberals beliefs. And as conversations around white identity center more on the privilege and inequality that whiteness can engender, its likely well see more concerns among white Americans that their identity may be threatened and socially devalued. But a key insight from decades of social science research is that people have a variety of strategies they can use to cope with threats to their identity, and some of those strategies serve to maintain the status quo while others challenge them. Which path white Americans take then may not simply boil down to whether they are conservative or liberal, but may depend on how they think others perceive their whiteness in a particular moment.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation; the views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

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How The Politics Of White Liberals And White Conservatives Are Shaped By Whiteness - FiveThirtyEight

Shona Ortiz

Our society has an obsession with labels. Because of this, I believe that there are certain labels that are misused, or that carry certain meanings, associations and implications that cause more harm than good. As of late, especially on social media, I have found irksome the overuse of the following terms: liberal, a word so broad that it now has a wide range of less-than-positive associations; girl boss, a term that became popular despite its negative implications and activist, which is commonly misused.

First, the word liberal. It is, I suppose, used properly, as most of the people who identify with the term are Democrats, and it counters the Republican-affiliated word, conservative. Still, saying that Im a liberal seriously gives me the icks; I hate to be associated with their tone-deafness in regards to issues related to people of color. Take the issue of undocumented immigrants, for example. Too many times, the only reason why liberals want them to come to this country is because they think, well, who else is gonna clean our houses and do the work that we dont wanna do! This type of thinking is gravely problematic; labeling these people as just a workforce instead of people coming to this country in search of new opportunities is grossly dehumanizing.

I also find the fawning over (non-liberal) politicians for doing the bare minimum to be quite odd. For example, when President Biden recently raised the refugee cap to 65,000 people, he was met with an eerie complacencyliberals didnt question why he went against his initial promise of a refugee cap of 125,000 or more, and why Biden, when he first entered office, actually agreed with former President Trumps 15,000-person refugee cap. Similarly, when Democrats for some reason decided to wear Ghanaian Kente cloth when kneeling in memory of George Floyd, white liberals applauded their commitment to diversity instead of addressing the big picture: systemic racism and why police in this country are legally defended instead of defunded. These are the bad habits that I associate with the term liberal: performative activism that diverts attention from big problems and focuses on politicians instead of people. My qualms with the label aside, instead of obsessing over politicians or doing #quirkyliberalthings, there needs to be a focus amongst liberals on holding politicians accountable for their actions, both past and present, and recognizing that being selectively open-minded ultimately goes against what liberalism truly is.

Next, onto girl boss, my least favorite of these labels. By Sophia Amorusos definition, a girl boss assumes high-ranking, male-dominated company positions in the hopes of creating equality. While the terms intent was seemingly innocuous in that it implied that women deserve to be in roles of power, its impact has been harmful. For starters, I am surprised that we even began adopting the term in the first place: why would you identify with a label that blatantly infantilizes women? Already, women in male-dominated spaces are not often seen as competent counterparts, but rather as girls who should know better than to rise against a man. This infantilization of women is more widespread than we realize, as people are met with scalding criticism when addressing the actions of, for example, female politicians. Ill take a recent example: Kamala Harris. While it is a milestone that she is our countrys first female vice president, her being a girl boss does not, and should not, excuse her past of incarcerating Black and brown bodies. If we want true equality, both women and men should be held accountable for their actions: infantilization gets us nowhere.

Thankfully, more people have been criticizing the label, as many believe that it actually encourages women to assimilate into these sexist spaces but ignores corporate workplace issues that are rooted in capitalism, white supremacy and the patriarchy. And of course, when race-related issues in the workforce are brought up, they are shut down and ignored, as girl boss and white feminism are snakes of the same vine. I think that is why we are seeing the phrase, Girl boss, gentrify, gaslight, trending on social media. As funny as the phrase is, it is scarily accurate. Women, mostly those who are white, identify as girl bosses, climb up corporate ladders and, in doing so, drive up rent prices and push out Black residents. Then they gaslight women of color in an attempt to silence them and even make them doubt their own lived experiences in the workplace. For some reason, girl boss feminism has created the idea that youre no longer a feminist if you call out other women for exclusionary actions. This notion couldnt be more untrueno one, regardless of gender, should be complicit in systemic racism.

Above all, what people who stand by the word girl boss dont realize is that the key to womens rights is agency. Agency is something that we have not had over our own lives and bodies: women HAD to stay at home and HAD to take care of the children. But now, thanks to the valor of many, agency can be used in several ways: to go to school and work, or to stay at home and take care of kids, or both. So, girl bosses shaming women who choose to become stay-at-home moms, for instance, is nonsensical, as they are forgetting that women having choice over their lives is ultimately the objective. And the obsession with trying to fit into male-dominated workplaces leaves out the women who either cannot or simply just dont want to become CEOs, thus pushing a singular, conventional idea of success. In reality, success looks different for everyone and can be reached by taking many different avenues. Just as success isnt one-dimensional, feminism isnt either, and thus girl boss feminism should be traded for intersectional feminism, as it better represents the range of female experiences and how they are affected by race, sexuality, class, etc.

Lastly, we have the word activist. While the term does imply that it refers to anyone who advocates in favor of or against an issue, social media has run with this meaning. What do I mean by this? Well, why do people who repost someone elses post about an issue or event get to call themselves activists and slap it on their Instagram bios? I believe that we cannot call a serial re-poster an activist if people like Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Angela Davis, Malcolm X and MLK, just to name a few, are also activists. While I appreciate my generations drive to stand up against what we believe is unjust, I do not condone the loss of respect that the word activist has faced in recent years, at least online. Many people seem to be forgetting the gravity of the term: that people like the ones I mentioned made impacts on local, national and global scales. And, they did not live easy lives because of it; they received death threats and were physically injured, and some faced time in jail and died early deaths. While I dont want to gatekeep the term or argue that you have to be an internationally-regarded social leader who has faced time in prison or was injured due to their beliefs, I want to drive home the idea that it is no easy thing to be an activist, as it is physically and mentally taxing. In the same way that not everyone can be a parent, and not everyone can be a teacher, not everyone can be an activist, and that is okay. Above all, regardless of whether or not youre an activist, the term itself should be honored, and mutual respect and support for not only activists of the past but also genuine activists of the present should exist.

While I focused on just three terms, I am sure that there are many words that people identify themselves with that may have complicated meanings, associations and nuances. While using labels is socially ingrained in us, we shouldnt blindly follow the leader: we should research the origins and ideals of a term and the moral and ethical values of those who ascribe to it. Actually, better yet, I believe that we should move toward forging our beliefs away from labels to avoid being swept up in a hive mind that is actually unconsciously reversing the progress of the social movements that are of importance to us.

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Liberal. Activist. Girl boss. The complicated nuances of popular labels that often go unpacked The Bowdoin Orient - The Bowdoin Orient