Althouse: "More and more, we doubt not just the explanations and rationalizations and imprecations and animadversions directed at the phenomenon of Donald Trump's election."

December 29, 2016

"More and more, we doubt not just the explanations and rationalizations and imprecations and animadversions directed at the phenomenon of Donald Trump's election."

"The scales have fallen from our eyes and we find that we don't care about almost anything they have to say about any subject. That subtle unspoken contract of implicit trust — between news providers and news consumers, between pedagogues and students, between experts and the rest of us — that bond has been broken, that trust shattered."

Writes Roger Kimball, encountering a question asked by me.

My question was: "The experts got blindsided by what happened on Election Day, so why should we care how they try to explain it now?"

Kimball thinks the Trump election is dissolving "the smug, 'progressive' (don't call it 'liberal') dispensation that had insinuated itself like a toxic fog throughout our cultural institutions — our media, our universities, our think tanks and beyond."

Kimball also talks about an article in Elle that I've noticed but avoided blogging. But I'm going to make a separate post for it.

31 comments:

David Begley said...: Kimball is unrealistically optimistic. See Cass Sunstein in the post below.; 12/29/16, 5:50 AM
rehajm said...: Dissolving? Liberal smug is not water soluble.; 12/29/16, 6:30 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Dissolving?"

It's Kimball's metaphor.

He gets a lot of metaphors going.; 12/29/16, 6:44 AM
Michael The Magnificent said...: Kimball thinks the Trump election is dissolving "the smug, 'progressive' (don't call it 'liberal') dispensation that had insinuated itself like a toxic fog throughout our cultural institutions — our media, our universities, our think tanks and beyond."

Like every other failure of progressivism, I fully expect progressives to reject any suggestion that their "solution" did not work, all the while insisting that they just didn't push their solution hard enough.; 12/29/16, 6:57 AM
rhhardin said...: Trump is what broke through the media.

What he shut down was the soap opera woman editorial voice, not the news media. What has legs is what Trump wants not what the MSM wants.

The news media will go on as it always has because their audience is unchanged, just without any reputation.; 12/29/16, 7:03 AM
Quayle said...: The news media is just as much a for-profit business as is Exxon and Koch Industries, no matter how much they prattle on about their constitutional role and the 4th estate and all that. That's all PR hype. They thrive on controversy which requires division and divisiveness.

Sum it all up in an elevator statement and you get: "The media makes money by and on dividing the nation and society."

Some red state AG should investigate and charge the MSM for collusively causing and promoting manmade body politic warming.; 12/29/16, 8:45 AM
Quaestor said...: I'd been sure I'd be raising a small woman during a new age of feminism, one where we didn't even need to call it feminism anymore, one where it was normal for a woman to be the leader of the free world. But that was no longer the case.

Midgets are autonomous adults. They don't need to be "raised" by anyone, particular bigoted San Francisco snowflakes. Jo Piazza is guilty of sizism and owes an apology and penance to all midgets, dwarves, homunculi, Lilliputians, halflings, gnomes, pygmies, and shimpkins.; 12/29/16, 8:52 AM
Quaestor said...: So many of the other things I thought were true had turned out wrong this year. Why should I trust my hunches? The thought of having a boy terrified me, paralyzed me even.

Her hunches? It looks like Jo Piazza is also guilty of hunchism, the perfidious notion that just because someone has bad posture he is inferior, suitable only for chattel servitude, not only that, that hunchbacks are stupid and untrustworthy. It looks Jo owes apologies everywhere. Do yourself a favor, Jo Piazza, check yourself into a nearby Trump re-education camp today, before the NRA brownshirts have to come for you without a warrant.; 12/29/16, 9:10 AM
tcrosse said...: one where it was normal for a woman to be the leader of the free world.
Isn't "the free world" an outmoded expression from the Cold War ? I would be interested to hear what Piazza would call the unfree world. Probably Texas.; 12/29/16, 9:18 AM
Roughcoat said...: I like Kimball and I especially like this article.; 12/29/16, 9:28 AM
Mick said...: The MSM was not "blindsided". It knew that Trump was going to win if they did not put their finger on the scale. But all of the effort to demoralize the deplorables failed, and exposed the MSM for the liars, propagandists, lackeys and political hacks they are. The whole "Clinton has a 90% chance of winning" meme was a psy-op, and most of you fell for it.; 12/29/16, 9:58 AM
Chuck said...: There could actually be a detente, between Trumpkins like Mick, and Republican Trump-haters like me.

As long as Mick remains personally committed to everything Trump says and does without question, and as long as Trump does things (forget about whatever he says) that are in full accord with a conservative Republican Congress, we could have a peaceful four years.

It will require that Trump do very little of what he explicitly promised during the campaign, of course.

And I expect that I am much more likely to be right on this point, than Mick. One of the easiest bets you can find in America is that a politician isn't actually going to follow through on his campaign promises. In Trump's case, the loony nature of most of his largest promises makes it almost a no-brainer.; 12/29/16, 10:24 AM
Kathryn51 said...: There is a reason that I read Althouse first thing in the morning and it's 'the same reason that I usually don't bother to read Roger Kimball. Althouse usually writes with clarity and personal insight in posts that are focused and thought provoking. I pick and choose what looks interesting. When I read Kimball (usually due to a link), I give up after the 1st five paragraphs - it's the same critique (MSM bad) with different examples. I suppose he has a contract that requires a column on a regular basis.; 12/29/16, 10:53 AM
Lloyd W. Robertson said...: Many in the media are still celebrating: Hillary won the popular vote by a significant margin, and those stupid Republicans don't (apparently) realize this fact. Trump voters are attached to fake news.

Surely we could get some perspective: outside California (49 states and DC), Trump won the popular vote. If California had gone for Hillary in the same proportion as in other states she won, the popular vote would have been a tie. She ran a great race for governor of California--er, wrong race Hillary.

Surely we could get a hint of a debate: have all sane people suddenly decided that presidential elections should be decided by national popular vote, period? So a candidate who wins based on California can claim to have some kind of national mandate? Small states don't matter? Really? Should we just let Barbra Streisand choose the President?

They belittle Trump's electoral college victory: historically, many presidents have done better. None has made the top 20 since Bush Senior in 1988 (almost 30 years ago): and he won California. Quite possibly (and bright, hard-working journalists and academics should be able to figure this out) it has become more difficult to win a landslide in the EC.

They're not making much effort to find out the truth, and then tell it.; 12/29/16, 11:05 AM
buwaya said...: Chuck,
I like Mick's judgement call here.
He called this election long ago, more than a year before, which was way ahead of the pack, even than of the very limited number of pundits that predicted it. I think Mick was even ahead of Adams. In media prophet terms that's a better track record than Nate Silver.
So much so that I am now inclined to think he may be on to something about Obamas birth certificate. History may justify him.
Pundits like pitchers are either born or made. Don't bet against a natural.; 12/29/16, 11:08 AM
Big Mike said...: @Chuck, how about we wait and see what Trump can and can't accomplish? What I get from him that I also got from Reagan, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, and Trump is that they fundamentally mean well by this country. I did not get that from Barack Obama or Bill Clinton's wife. I absolutely do not get that from Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Chuck Schumer. Maybe he won't get everything but I think he'll get some things and that this country will benefit thereby.

I also have to wonder how much of what you are calling "promises" are actually initial negotiating positions by a wily and very experienced negotiator.; 12/29/16, 11:14 AM
Big Mike said...: Anyway, I was going to comment that Kimball taught me a new word: pleonasm. Trouble is, it kind of describes his writing as far as I'm concerned. I agree with his sentiments, but he could say the same thing in fewer words.; 12/29/16, 11:25 AM
Earnest Prole said...: The experts got blindsided by what happened on Election Day, so why should we care how they try to explain it now?

Michael Crichton called it the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:

“Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I refer to it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward -- reversing cause and effect. I call these the ‘wet streets cause rain’ stories. Paper’s full of them.

“In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

“That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.”; 12/29/16, 11:26 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: "The scales have fallen from our eyes and we find that we don't care about almost anything they have to say about any subject."

You just now noticed that?

Due in part to proliferation of media; numberless specialty cable TV channels, and the internet. Dedicated 24/7 'news' channels, high expense of original in-depth research; result is mostly vacuous jabber.; 12/29/16, 12:07 PM
Chuck said...: Big Mike said...
...
I also have to wonder how much of what you are calling "promises" are actually initial negotiating positions by a wily and very experienced negotiator.

See? You've already started! Trump wasn't "promising" anything; he was setting markers for negotiation. Don't take him so literally!

So when Trump doesn't actually do crazyextremist stuff, but instead does more sensibly conservative things as a President Rubio or a President Kasich would have done -- and most importantly as Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell think should be done -- you will be able to tell yourself that "Campaign Trump" was just posturing for the best deal. And I will be able to tell myself, "That's actually a great result in legislation."

That was the mutually-satisfying détente that I was talking about.; 12/29/16, 12:09 PM
Chuck said...: buwaya puti said...
Chuck,
I like Mick's judgement call here.
...
So much so that I am now inclined to think he may be on to something about Obamas birth certificate. History may justify him.

Mick's "judgement" on Obama is that Obama was illegitimate/unqualified as President, because he had a father who was not a US citizen. That's an unsupported legal position. It may or may not ever get tested by a federal court, but no matter; if that is the position, Obama's birth certificate never mattered. Obama's parentage is not and was not otherwise in doubt. His mother was a native-born American citizen, and Barack was born in Honolulu. The birth certificate has nothing to do with any of that. The birth certificate always was and still is a stupid preoccupation. I don't even have to take issue with Mick's legal position (as I do), to declare him to be an idiotic, tinfoil-hat birther.; 12/29/16, 12:15 PM
johns said...: It's funny that Kimball chuckles about how pundits were wrong about everything, then turns around and makes his own pundit prediction that progressive PC thinking is on its way out:

"What we are witnessing is its dissolution. It won't happen all at once and there are bound to be pockets of resistance. But they will become ever more irrelevant even if they become ever shriller and more histrionic. The anti-Trump establishment is correct that what is taking place is a sea change in our country."

No. What we are witnessing is a one-time phenomenon called Trump. Whether anyone else can pull off this kind of FU to political correctness is a complete unknown at this time.; 12/29/16, 1:15 PM
Mick said...: Chuck said...
buwaya puti said...
"Chuck,
I like Mick's judgement call here.
...
So much so that I am now inclined to think he may be on to something about Obamas birth certificate. History may justify him".

"Mick's "judgement" on Obama is that Obama was illegitimate/unqualified as President, because he had a father who was not a US citizen. That's an unsupported legal position. It may or may not ever get tested by a federal court, but no matter; if that is the position, Obama's birth certificate never mattered. Obama's parentage is not and was not otherwise in doubt. His mother was a native-born American citizen, and Barack was born in Honolulu. The birth certificate has nothing to do with any of that. The birth certificate always was and still is a stupid preoccupation. I don't even have to take issue with Mick's legal position (as I do), to declare him to be an idiotic, tinfoil-hat birther".

Oh Chuckie, how does it feel to be an internet troll boot-licker of the Usurper?
Is the Supreme Court not a "Federal Court"? It defined natural born Citizen with precedence in 1875 in Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162 (1875), and then cited that precedence 14 years later in Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649 (1898):

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162, @167 (1875); and See also, Wong Kim Ark, 169, US 649 @680 (1898).

"born in the US of US Citizen parentsssssss" has always been the definition of natural born Citizen, as defined by the Original Common Law of the US, law of nations (Bk. 1 Ch. 212). Law of nations has been held to be the ORIGINAL COMMON LAW OF THE UNITED STATES many times (See for instance The Nereid (1815), “[T]he Court is bound by the law
of nations, which is a part of the law of the land.” ; and see also Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain (2004), CITING LAW OF NATIONS AS "ORIGINAL COMMON LAW").

Any other definition of natural born Citizen does not comport with the well known purpose of the requirement, which is "prevention of foreign influence" (See Federalist 68). If "prevention of foreign influence" is the purpose, then it is illogical that one born in a foreign country, or of a foreign father is an eligible natural born Citizen.

The birth Certificate is an abject and obvious FAKE, as determined on 12/15/2016 and turned over to Congress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk3KRxTfkLM&t=97s; 12/29/16, 1:38 PM
Chuck said...: You are making my point, Mick.

Your theory is that someone like Obama, born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan-national father, is not eligible to serve as president because he was not born of two American parents (on U.S. soil? was McCain ineligible? was George Romney?).

I don't accept your theory. And we will never agree. But since Obama's own story is that he was born on U.S. soil to an American mother and a Kenyan national father, and since there is no serious dispute on that, why the kerfuffle over a birth certificate? You don't need any birth certificate for your legal theory.

I am NOT going to waste an hour listening to Joe Arpaio. I have wanted for years to like Joe Arpaio. He's good, at making some of the best enemies. But I am not going to listen to him blather about birth certificates. What a stupid fucking waste of time. You think the Hawaiian newspapers from the time of Obama's birth are forgeries? You stupid fucking Teabag douchenozzle. What a crock of shit. What a tinfoil hat-level waste of time.

You could have some street-cred, as someone who foretold a Trump presidency. But the notion that you are still a Birther makes you look like a zombie. A blind squirrel that lucked into one acorn.; 12/29/16, 3:46 PM
Mick said...: Chuck said...
"You are making my point, Mick.

Your theory is that someone like Obama, born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan-national father, is not eligible to serve as president because he was not born of two American parents (on U.S. soil? was McCain ineligible? was George Romney?)".

No I'm not, and of course you cite no legal authority to your claim that anyone, regardless of parentage is a natural born Citizen. Again, I cite the SCOTUS itself, with precedent:

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." Minor v. Happersett, 88 US 162, @167 (1875); and See also, Wong Kim Ark, 169, US 649 @680 (1898).

And of course you stay far away from that. So where is the SCOTUS precedent stating otherwise? And of course there is now MUCH DOUBT as to the birth story of Obama, since the BC was PROVEN to be an absolute fraud, copied and pasted from a real BC from 16 days later. PROVEN by a 40 year professional document expert, who has given expert testimony for Perkins - Coie--- Obama's law firm.

Now there is doubt as to who his mother is, who his father is, and where he was born, but by the story he has told, from his own mouth, he is not an eligible natural born Citizen, because he was born to a foreign father--- no matter if born on the Oval Office desk.

How does it feel to be a bootlicker of the Usurper. SUUURE you're a "lifelong Republican".; 12/29/16, 4:46 PM
Mick said...: "Your theory is that someone like Obama, born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan-national father, is not eligible to serve as president because he was not born of two American parents (on U.S. soil? was McCain ineligible? was George Romney?)".

George Romney was not eligible because he was born in Mexico to parents who were not serving in the military. McCain may have proven eligibility because he was within the law of nations exception of being "purportedly born in the US" due to birth to parents serving the armies of the state abroad. Mitt Romney was born in Detroit to US citizen parents-- i.e he was eligible.; 12/29/16, 4:50 PM
Chuck said...: You're a worthless cretin, Mick.

I told you that I am not going to argue your silly theory about who is an Article III "natural born citizen." You can think whatever you want to, about that. I don't care about changing your mind. You won't change mine.

I say again to all who may be reading this; for Mick, Obama is ineligible by Obama's own admission, since Obama (AND the records, AND the newspaper accounts of the day, AND everyone of sound mind) all agree that his father was a man with a Kenyan passport. So you don't need any birth certificate to "prove" that Obama is not eligible for the presidency, IF you [are stupid enough to] believe Mick's obscure legal theory on a peculiar Constitutional theory of "citizenship" for presidents.

So all the baloney about the birth certificate is not merely an embarrassment (and maybe a particularly personally-invested embarrassment, because Trump was such a loony public birther for so long); it is also a logical irrelevancy.

You are crazy, Mick. I don't have any idea as to what your personal problem(s) may be, but absolutely no one who persists in "Birtherism" is worth any serious discussion.; 12/29/16, 5:02 PM
Chuck said...: "...Article II "natural born citizen"..." to be correct.

And in case anybody wants to read something semi-serious on the topic, and who would prefer not to get their information from a Joe Arpaio press-stunt, here is a Heritage link with a good bibliography:

http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/82/presidential-eligibility; 12/29/16, 5:06 PM
ccscientist said...: One of the flaws of the pundits is a single-factor explanation. Some voters no doubt loved Trump for countering PC culture. But some also loathed the illegality and vapidness of Clinton. Some were wowed by Trump's charisma. Some simply always vote Republican. No single factor explains what happened.; 12/29/16, 8:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Why is it when my anuerrysm damaged brain, which makes my eyes to a square dance and hard to type, see the word election there's a bit of my brain damage that subtitutes and R fr the "L". Seems perfectRy appropriate to me. So who knows who M.O's father, was, we probably have a better idea of his montyr, but as far as I know, nowone has done a DNA, test though the Russians have geen know to d this to see if there's extprtion opportunity, dna from hair and other bocily flids and not.

I haven't gone an looked, but I suspect if I'd been born 20 years earlier, teh all lady team that had offices in teh same area as Ben Carson wouldn't have been able to stop teh bleeding in my right parietal lobe and you'd be free of one annoying commenter. What's most interesting as I walk one of the corridors with Dr. C's. life in photos he clearly goes from an angry young man or 5h3 60s to q handsome erudite model for everyone of today. Granted hfing an entire surgical team of ladies was quite en53r5qining at my qge, I think there were times when they were calling tout to me to show some signs of life they woul have vveen happy fro me tograg them gy the crotch. All in all good fun and quite an education. For someone with an IQ tht's now half of what it was. I do thank our host efery day for mental exercise she gifes me, where half of what I had is more than enough to keep me amused. And I don't have the patience with a spelling corrector, mostly because a backspace key causes refocusing tht doesn't quite work. Again think youAnn. May you live long and prosper. Anx snjoy every day. says someone who thinks every day is a blessing. Odds aen't bad, but having one puts you on the wrong side fo the curve.; 12/30/16, 9:22 AM
Mick said...: "So you don't need any birth certificate to "prove" that Obama is not eligible for the presidency, IF you [are stupid enough to] believe Mick's obscure legal theory on a peculiar Constitutional theory of "citizenship" for presidents."

Heritage foundation is NONSENSE and not the SCOTUS. I noticed that you AGAIN ignore SCOTUS PRECEDENT:

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners." Minor v. Happersett 88 US 162, 167 (1875): and SEE ALSO Wong Kim Ark, 169 US 649 @ 680 (1898), quoting Minor v. Happersett.

Until the SCOTUS overturns this precedent that you ignore, Obama is a USURPER, and not a natural born Citizen.

The Usurper's birth Certificate is a FAKE, and has been definitively proven as such, therefore his entire story may not be true, then who knows where he was born, or who his parents are. If he would lie about his BC then what else would he lie about? The notice in the Hawaii paper can be made by any resident, upon notification of the newspaper, and needs no proof .; 12/30/16, 12:37 PM