Who are These Doe-Eyed Naïfs? So-Called Neutrality and Media Carping About the Democrats
There is a sweet hereafter where people who go out of their way to pretend that Republicans are normal and that "Democrats lie, too" will live in glory, luxuriating in a well-earned eternity of admiration and respect. At least, that is what self-styled centrists seem to believe. This is the slightly updated version of Bill Clinton's infamous habit of negotiating against himself and then wondering why other people thought that he could be played for a sucker, except that now it is not only self-styled New Democrats who are doing it. The same press environment that created a generation of bothsidesist instincts is now acting as if it is still 1992.
This is virtue signaling par excellence. Reporters, headline writers, pundits, and far too many politicians want to be able to strut about and say that they are "fair," except that their definition of fairness involves treating unlikes alike. And are they rewarded for refusing to admit that one party has gone off the deep end? Of course not. They are constantly scrambling to respond to every little Trumpist gibe and taunt against the "enemy of the people." When the 2024-25 coup happens, and the Trump people finally "open up the libel laws," will these years of virtuously pretending that there is nothing unusual happening save the people's enemies from civil and even criminal retribution? No? I thought not.
There is a common insult that the people who view themselves as hardheaded realists hurl at people on the left, an insult that is part of the standard package of hippie-punching from sources like The New York Times and The Washington Post. They say that progressives are naive idealists, those silly utopians who are unaware of the hard truths of the world. When Senator Elizabeth Warren was running for President in 2020, one insistently "realistic" centrist referred to Warren's policy proposals as a "pipe dream." That such a claim becomes self-fulfilling -- and is almost certainly designed to do so -- is infuriating, but at least it forces us to ask just how much of a pipe dream it is for the sober-minded realists to think that they are on their way to political and personal fulfillment and bipartisan respect.
That pipe dream is unrealistic on two grounds. First, as I noted above, the people to the right of the centrists will never give them credit for being supposedly reasonable, instead taking their pliability as proof that they are chumps and easy marks. Second, the American public is broadly liberal on issue after issue, and the people (such as 2020 Candidate Biden) who rejected or pared back popular proposals like student debt relief disappointed real people/voters -- while, again, getting nothing but blowback from the right and the "neutral" press.
I have had some fun lately -- angry fun, but fun nonetheless -- writing about some elements of this larger story. Earlier this month, in "When Does Honest Self-Examination Become Destructive Self-Sabotage? 'That Guy' and Liberals," and again in "Politicians and Pundits Being Obviously and Gratuitously Wrong (with a mild defense of Hillary Clinton)," I discussed the tendency of those who view themselves as left of center to self-sabotage and worse. But the habits of mind are much more mundane than all of that real damage might imply. Simply looking at the last week or so of coverage from sources who surely view themselves as non-Republican and non-conservative turns up small but juicy morsels of the kind of reflexively meaningless skepticism that continues to do harm to the US's ability to deal with an existential threat.
Consider first that the mainstream press has glommed onto the "but Harris hasn't answered our questions at news conferences" trope, which would be much easier to take seriously if those same reporters and editors did not treat Donald Trump's time standing in front of reporters as actual press conferences -- even though there are almost no followup questions and Trump does not come close to answering the questions that are shouted at him. "Well, at least he took our questions" is not only a surprisingly low bar, but it is not even a little bit true. Paid journalists shouted questions at him, and he stood and talked about whatever he wanted.
Similarly, even some left-leaning commentators have griped that Harris has not been sufficiently detailed in her policy proposals. To be clear, I am a to-the-bone policy guy, but are you serious? In an atmosphere like the US's in 2024, the following platform is more than good enough: "Not Project 2025." Or, in what is already a passe framing: "We won't be weird." I could have an honest discussion with someone about, say, whether servers' tips should be tax-exempt (short answer: they already mostly are), but holy guacamole does that miss the point.
To be clear, Harris has made at least one major economic policy speech (as well as a fact sheet that expanded on the speech), so I do not need to say that it would be acceptable for her campaign to say nothing. I am not sure that I would not say that, however, given the gravity of the threat from Trumpists, but it is not even necessary to speculate. The "Harris hasn't been specific enough for our tastes" is exactly the kind of "See how tough we can be?" preening by journalists and commentators that I was describing above. It makes them feel good about themselves, but it is ultimately noise that inaccurately describes the world and undercuts Harris in pursuit of proving the critics' virtue.
The Post's editorial board (always a font of wisdom and evenhanded insights) snarked: "The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks." Do the times truly demand serious economic ideas? The economy is doing great, and Harris already has a good set of policies to run on. Again, as an economist, I do care about how policy will be designed by the next President and Administration. Even so, I see no reason why everyone should get worked up about Harris not being enough of an econ geek. Is there any doubt about the contours of the policies that she and potential Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress would pursue -- or that those policies would be redirected by the person who emerges as the next Joe Manchin?
The Post's board made it even worse by adding this subheadline and associated drivel in the body of their editorial: "Harris’s most outlandish plan is her proposal to ban ‘price gouging,’ but that’s just one of many misguided ideas." I will get back to that in a moment, but the columnist at The Post who is most infatuated with using neoliberalism to bash the left did the board one better with this: "When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?" The subheadline: "It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is."
So, yeah, she called Harris a commie -- or, to satisfy the fact-checkers out there (see below), she did not call Harris a communist; she merely said that what Harris has proposed is evidence for claims by others that she is a communist. Much better.
But here is some unsolicited advice: When you accuse someone of proposing commie-like price controls, maybe be damn sure that you're right. Red-baiting scolds like the idea of saying that liberals are far-left nutcases, but this is different in being an active misrepresentation of what Harris said. That is, it is not a matter of calling all proposals for progressive taxation "socialism" or saying that "progressive prosecutors" are pro-crime, because Harris did not in fact propose price controls. At all. She simply did not do that.
I will give the floor to Paul Krugman, who was appropriately annoyed in "Kamalanomics, Revealed: A Solid Center-Left Agenda," with the subheadline: "And no, she hasn't called for price controls."
Even some middle-of-the-road economic commentators have been hyperventilating, saying that she’s essentially calling for price controls, which is odd, because she didn’t say anything like that. ...
I’ve been amazed at how many credulous commentators, and not just on the right, have asserted that Harris is calling for price controls, making her out to be the second coming of Richard Nixon if not the next Nicolas Maduro.
What she has actually called for is legislation banning price gouging on groceries. Obviously, this is a populist political gesture — a way to offer something to voters upset about high food prices. But just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea.
We don’t have a detailed Harris price-gouging plan, but it’s unlikely to be more aggressive than a bill introduced this year by Senator Elizabeth Warren. And that bill is surprisingly mild — not all that different from the anti-gouging laws already on the books in many states. For example, Texas (yes, Texas) prohibits many businesses from “demanding an exorbitant or excessive price” on things including food and fuel during disasters.
So Texas is communist, right? Sheesh. But Krugman has been a relatively lone voice in the top-tier media sphere, whereas the people who do not in fact know much about economics or law were all but salivating about the idea of accusing Harris of favoring something damaging and un-American.
One corner of the media sphere that has always been infected by false balance is populated by the fact-checkers who publish in the major media sources. Alexandra Petri, the satirist at The Post who makes me feel that it is not entirely a waste of time to read her employers' newspaper, wrote a very satisfying column this week lampooning the precious scrupulousness of the standard fact-checking column. One example:
"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." — William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold speech.
Check: Nobody is trying to do this. Where would you get a crown big enough, let alone a cross?
Petri's colleague Glenn Kessler provides real-time proof of her critique. His Day One coverage of the Democratic Convention include the usual nonsense, none more egregious than his response to President Biden's statement that Trump had said that there were "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville. Kessler's top line: "Trump's meaning is in dispute." Right, and that is a "fact" check? The subheadline of his Day Two coverage was: "A few claims to check as speakers hew closer to the truth." How kind of him.
But I cannot allow the moment to pass without noting Kessler's own repeated "misstatement" in his search for the truth. Day One's coverage noted Biden's statement: "We have a thousand billionaires in America. You know what is their average tax rate they pay? 8.2 percent." Kessler's assessment: "Biden is comparing apples and oranges, adding:
The “lower tax rate” refers to a 2021 White House study concluding that the 400 wealthiest taxpayers paid an effective tax rate of 8 percent. But that estimate included unrealized gains in the income calculation. That’s not how the tax laws work. People are taxed on capital gains when they sell their stocks or other assets. So this is only a figure for a hypothetical tax system.
Kessler refers to his own fact-check about that claim earlier this year, and his analysis was so bad that I wrote a column debunking it at the time. The two key problems here are that Biden is not talking about a "hypothetical tax system," and he is not comparing apples to oranges. The fact is that if you take people's income -- not the income that the tax system does or does not require you to declare, but all of your income as a matter of fact -- and then you divide into that number the amount that people pay in taxes, you get the number that Biden cites.
It is not even necessary to point out that of course politicians talk about hypothetical tax systems all the time, because they are talking about changing policy to make it better. Again, that is not necessary. Biden is not saying, "In my preferred alternative tax system, the tax rate on the rich would be measured differently." He is saying that the current taxes paid -- again, a fact -- are a certain percent of current incomes earned. How difficult is that?
And the apples-to-oranges thing is especially silly. The study that Biden is citing in fact forces an apples-to-apples comparison: What is person A's average tax rate when all income is included versus person B's when all income is included? The current tax system allows some people (rich people with unrealized income) to ignore some of their income, whereas other people must take account of all of their income.
When Kessler concludes says that "[t]he top 1 percent of taxpayers (income of at least $548,000) paid nearly 26 percent" in 2020, he is acting as if the current system is the correct standard for measuring income. It is not. The current system has been designed by Congresses spanning decades to allow some lucky people to pretend that they do not have income, even when they do. Whatever one thinks about that as a matter of policy -- and I think it stinks -- that is not an apples-to-apples comparison between the wealthy and the rest of us.
Again, however, this is all about certain people displaying their virtue by proving their independence. And how does one do that? Claim that, say, Trump did not quite say verbatim that "people should inject bleach into their bodies." Or even better, defend the currently tilted tax system by accusing Biden of doing exactly what that system does: allow only some taxpayers to live in a fantasy world when paying their income taxes.
I have no idea whether or not this knee-jerk carping against Harris and the Democrats, along with the too-clever-by-half exonerations of the people who would shut down the free press in a nanosecond, will change the outcome of the 2024 campaign. I do know that, when the Democrats finally got their collective act together this summer, the virtue signalers were there to insist that the Democrats are bad, too. May those commentators get the final reward that they deserve.