Free Speech, Free Media, and Reality Compete

Despite (or perhaps because of) our many sources of information, we Americans are ill-informed, often unable to separate truth from obvious fiction, and we make terrible decisions that negatively affect our lives. Millions of us:

1. Refuse vaccination, despite the clear facts that refusal costs lives — the lives of the unvaccinated and the lives of those who contact the unvaccinated.
2. Believe the most recent Presidential election was stolen, despite massive evidence and at least 62 lawsuits before Republican and Democratic judges showing that it was not.
3. Believe human-caused global warming is a “Chinese hoax.”
4. Take illegal drugs despite all the evidence of what drugs do to users and their friends and families.
5. Smoke cigarettes, despite all the evidence of the wreckage tobacco use causes.
6. Own guns despite the evidence that when you own a gun, your odds of being shot go way up.
7. Think the federal debt is “unsustainable,” the same claim being made 84 years ago when the debt was $40 Billion, and every year after that, with the debt now $30 Trillion.
8. Not understanding the difference between federal finance and personal finance, think a nation that created its sovereign currency from thin air, repeatedly created more of that currency and often changed the value of that currency somehow can run short of the currency it created unless taxes are increased.
9. Believe the life of a fetus is more important than the life of a mother.
10. Believe that downplaying COVID, being a compulsive liar, paying a $25 million fine for cheating students, paying a $2 million penalty for cheating on taxes, cheating multiple times with prostitutes on three wives, as President, rewarding the rich and punishing the poor, fostering bigotry against gays, non-Christians, and immigrants, being indicted 4 separate times (91 counts), expressing admiration for dictators Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Viktor Orban, and Rodrigo Duterte,  repeatedly having mental lapses that include thinking Barack Obama is President and World War II is yet to be fought, encouraging people to attend COVID-causing events, and organizing, encouraging, refusing to stop the attempted coup of the U.S. government, bragging his followers are so stupid they would vote for him even if he shot someone on 5th Ave., and publicly vilifying those moral souls who attempt to follow the rule of law — believe those are desirable traits for President of the United States.

In the vein of the American public believing utter nonsense, I give you this excellent article by Margaret Sullivan:

The public doesn’t understand the risks of a Trump victory. That’s the media’s fault.

Margaret Sullivan With democracy in the balance, the press must relay the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win.

Thu 9 Nov 2023 06.11 EST

Whatever doubts you may have about public-opinion polls, one recent example should not be dismissed.

Yes, that poll – the one from Siena College and the New York Times that sent chills down many a spine. It showed Donald Trump winning the presidential election by significant margins over Joe Biden in several swing states, the places most likely to decide the presidential election next year.

The poll, of course, is only one snapshot and it has been criticized, but it still tells a cautionary tale – especially when paired with the certainty that Trump, if elected, will quickly move toward making the United States an authoritarian regime.

Add in Biden’s low approval ratings, despite his accomplishments, and you come to an unavoidable conclusion: the news media needs to do its job better.

The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.

It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.

The US  then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies.

The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.

Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s “freewheeling” style. They blame the public’s attitudes on “polarization”, as if they themselves have no role. And, of course, they make the election about the horse race – rather than what would happen a few lengths after the finish line.

Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries.

When Americans do understand how politics affects their lives, they vote accordingly. We have seen that play out with respect to abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and beyond. On that issue, voters clearly get that well-established rights have been ripped away, and they have reacted with force.

“Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs,” as Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast said on MSNBC, referring to the theocratic House speaker.

Abortion rights is a visceral issue. It’s personal and immediate.

Trump’s threats to democracy? That’s a harder story to tell. Harder than “Joe Biden is old”. Harder than: “Gosh, America is so polarized.”

Journalists need to figure out a way to communicate it – clearly and memorably.

It was great to see the digging that went into that Washington Post story about Trump and his allies plotting a post-election power grab. But it was all too telling to see this wording in its subhead: “Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.”

So others think it’s fine, right? That suggests that both sides have a valid point of view on whether democracy matters.

Deploying the military to crush protests is radical. So is putting your cronies and yes men in charge of justice. These moves would sound a death knell for American democracy. They are not just another illustration of Trump’s “brash” personality.

We need a lot more stories like the ones the Post and the Times did – not just in these elite, paywalled outlets but on the nightly news, on cable TV, in local newspapers and on radio broadcasts. We need a lot less pussyfooting in the wording.

Every news organization should be reporting on this with far more vigor – and repetition – than they do about Biden being 80 years old.

It’s the media’s responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels, not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time.

Polls can be wrong, and it’s foolish to overstate their importance, especially a year away from the election, but if more citizens truly understood the stakes, there would be no real contest between these candidates.

The Guardian’s David Smith laid out the contrast: “Since Biden took office the US economy has added a record 14m jobs while his list of legislative accomplishments has earned comparisons with those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson … Trump, meanwhile, is facing 91 criminal indictments in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington DC, some of which relate to an attempt to overthrow the US government.”

So what can the press do differently? Here are a few suggestions.

Report more – much more – about what Trump would do, post-election. Ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with those plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon.

Use direct language, not couched in scaredy-cat false equivalence, about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

Pin down Republicans about whether they support Trump’s lies and autocratic plans, as ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos did in grilling the House majority leader Steve Scalise about whether the 2020 election was stolen. He pushed relentlessly, finally saying: “I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?” When Scalise kept sidestepping, Stephanopoulos soon cut off the interview.

Those ideas are just a start. Newsroom leaders should be getting their staffs together to brainstorm how to do it. Right now.

With the election less than a year away, there’s no time to waste in getting the truth across.

Most Americans vote with their guts, not with their brains. They have neither the time nor the inclination to learn the facts, and instead grope blindly for a feeling. That is how the dictators of the world get elected. They pose as strong saviors who will protect the nation from dangers, real or imagined. But once in office, they create new threats far worse than any that may have troubled the voting public. Once the public allows the dictators to get a foot in the door, dictators, having rid the nation of those who tell the truth, are impossible to dislodge without massive bloodshed and destruction. This lesson has been given throughout history but seldom is learned. For 200+ years, America was a remarkable exception. But now, we are on the brink of making the same mistake so many nations, small and large, made and now endure. We are on the verge of allowing a dictator to rule us. “It couldn’t happen here” has been replaced by, “It’s about to happen here.” If you value an America ruled by law and not by a tyrant, please send Ms. Sullivan’s article to as many people as you can. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY