Rational reasons for distrust: The redacted Epstein files

By now, nearly everyone who is paying attention and not trapped in the Trump/MAGA cult/tribe/demagoguery understands that they are routinely being lied to, slandered, insulted, emotionally manipulated and so forth. Years ago, the situation progressed far beyond the point of there being good rational arguments that Trump or MAGA elites could be trusted.

Nonetheless, tens of millions of adult Americans still trust Trump and MAGA demagoguery at least enough to continue to support them. That constitutes an ongoing, major threat to US democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

Various news sources are reporting about the Epstein files that were released yesterday by the DOJ. Trump's personal law firm. What MAGA elites released is what reasonable people can now expect, nothingburgers that protect MAGA and Trump, with their deep corruption, moral sleaze and blatant authoritarianism. One report indicates that out of several thousand pages of documents that the MAGA DOJ released, at least 550 pages were completely redacted or blacked out. 

One can be confident that anything bad or criminal in the documents related to Trump and his key allies was redacted to protect them. That just what a personal law firm does for its clients.

It is possible that at least some of the redactions were for legitimate purposes, e.g., to protect innocent victims' identity. But one can still be confident that redactions to protect Trump and his allies are also present and probably dominant.

That distrust is just a rational result after years and thousands of lies and betrayals by Trump and MAGA elites. What is remarkable is the tens of millions who actually still believe him and MAGA elites.

Professional journalism as critical democratic infrastructure

By now it is clear that professional journalism (PJ) and the MSM (mainstream media) generally are failing and collapsing. Under MAGA authoritarianism and corruption, PJ is inherently and unavoidably inimical to and incompatible with unregulated capitalism. Even NPR and PBS have capitulated to threats by Trump and elite MAGA authoritarians. Nearly all current MSM reporting about Trump and MAGA authoritarianism and corruption is shallow and timid. MSM reporting focuses mostly on procedural trivia. That avoids even mentioning the ghastly adverse impacts on democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and profound corruption that now runs rampant in the federal government and commerce. 

The MSM makes itself look like its doing serious reporting by deflecting to trivia. But to a large extent, the MSM is not what it tries to make itself look like. American PJ is now a lot more mirage than reality.

The main culprit driving the collapse of the MSM is corporate and investor ownership spurred on by the routinely ruthless, cruel and immoral profit motive. Money and power talks while everything else walks, including pluralistic morality and honesty. 

Capitalism has its own set of moral vales. They are called the profit motive.

What about democracy and the rule of law?

It is definitely time to see PJ for what it can be, and arguably what it is supposed to be but isn't. It is critical democracy infrastructure.[1] It cannot fulfil its function if it is trapped and subdued by the profit motive. Many times here, I've asserted that facts, true truth and sound reasoning are almost always inherently and intractably incompatible with unregulated capitalism. The moral logic is simple.

When a society is deceived or kept ignorant of the information and reasoning they need to be aware of for self-governance, their power to decide their own fate on the basis of facts, true truths and sound reasoning has been taken from them by those to deceive and hide information that is inconvenient to themselves. That is the epitome of authoritarianism. It is anti-democratic behavior, pure and simple.

That is why tyrants, demagogues, theocrats, oligarchs, dictators, and kleptocrats all hate PJ. They hate it. They all want to neuter PJ and make it shut up. That is historical and current fact, not opinion.  

If one accepts that analysis as basically true, then it it easy to see the argument that PJ is critical infrastructure democracy needs to fend off authoritarianism. This is not remotely close to rocket science. It is simple, rational thinking based on a few key facts. Middle school-level stuff, unless one is deceived and manipulated. For the deceived and manipulated, it is rocket science.

What, if anything, can be done?

Right now with MAGA authoritarianism and demagoguery in power and control, nothing can be done to protect PJ. Complicit and/or supportive corporate ownership will made damned sure that the MSM will continue to weaken and fade as a pro-democracy institution. In time MAGA and authoritarianism will convert what is left of PJ and the MSM into pro-authoritarian, pro-corruption demagoguery sources just like Fox News has been for years.

In a hypothetical better world, most Americans could come to see that PJ and themselves being less deceived and manipulated are critically necessary for defense of democracy. People acting on their own cannot gather the information they need to self-govern. They must rely on trustworthy PJ. Right now, that is politically impossible for too many people. MAGA demagoguery and irrational emotional manipulation had captured and hold the minds of tens of millions of Americans. Those minds have empowered the rise of deeply corrupt American authoritarianism.

As long as the price of groceries and rent stay low enough, Americans probably will choose to keep deeply corrupt American authoritarianism in power. In politics, people vote what they perceives as their interests, even if what they perceive is a demagogic mirage. Many simply don't vote on the basis of abstractions like democracy, the rule of law or civil liberties.

In the hypothetical better world, our government would support and protect PJ and its defense of facts, true truths and sound reasoning, which amounts to a defense of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. Sadly, in our actual real world our government is now a bitter enemy of PJ. A hypothetical moral government would treat PJ as critical infrastructure for democracy. At the moment, our government is an opposite immoral beast.

A hypothetical better world where government treats journalism as infrastructure does exist. Sweden and other Nordic countries fund public media through dedicated taxes handled separately from annual budgets. There are arms-length buffers protecting editorial PJ independence from political pressure, unlike what has happened in the US. Research shows publicly funded journalism sometimes is more aggressive (and this) in covering government than commercial counterparts. It is also more accountable to communities than to shareholders.

 

Footnote:

1. Research solidly supports the assertion (and this) that professional journalism is critical democratic infrastructure. The relationship between journalism and democratic health is now one of the most empirically robust findings in media studies: local newspaper closures correlate with lower voter turnout, reduced civic engagement, higher municipal borrowing costs (indicating less accountability), and increased political polarization. Scholars explicitly frame PJ as essential democratic infrastructure that cannot function properly under pure market logic, i.e., the profit motive.

Claims that tyrants, oligarchs, theocrats, and authoritarians generally target PJ is historical and current fact (and this). The authoritarian playbook across Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, Philippines, and the US follows a consistent pattern. They buy up independent media through allies, redirect state advertising to compliant outlets, and use libel laws and licensing threats to silence critics, imprison journalists, and create legal frameworks that criminalize dissent.

Regarding Trump's speech last night and MSM complicity

Yesterday, I wrote to PBS and NPR asking them to not broadcast Trump's speech. That is because one could reasonably expect his speech to be mostly anti-democratic, authoritarian demagoguery heavily larded with lies, slanders, crackpot reasoning and deranged blither. Why bother broadcasting malicious evil? After all, PBS and NPR could easily just summarize the speech after it was over instead of giving Trump and his evil millions of dollars worth of free advertising.

When I checked this morning, both apparently broadcast it live. No surprise there. Willing or not, PBS and NPR are complicit in MAGA demagoguery, authoritarianism and corruption. Those two sources betrayed us and our democracy. Along with the rest of the MSM (mainstream media), they get a well-deserved grade of F-.

What was the speech?

One can ask, was the speech mostly authoritarian demagoguery, mostly democratic honest speech, or mostly something else? Was it larded with lies, slanders and crackpot reasoning as usual? The answers are no surprise. It was mostly authoritarian demagoguery and larded with lies, slanders and crackpot reasoning.

PolitiFact pointed out numerous lies and misleading assertions. Some of the lies, e.g., drug prices have dropped by 100% or more, are not just blatant lies, but insulting lies. Trump claimed
he worked to "slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600%". However, none of that sleaze fazes most Trump supporters. They rationalize Trump's lies into nothingburgers like this:

Trump repeated a series of debunked lies and introduced new whoppers. His lies included fibs about inflation, gas prices, job growth, investment totals and the trajectory of the cost of living. Independent data sharply contradicted some of his claims, such as an 18 trillion dollar investment and his assertion of broad “price drops”. He exaggerated reality by large margins.

Why did everyone broadcast it?

Given that everyone knew in advance that Trump would spew toxic lies, slanders and crackpottery, why broadcast it? Why did the MSM broadcast Trump's filth, insults and lies? Was it a mostly matter of complicity due to sympathetic corporate and investor ownership? Was it mostly due to incompetence and/or stupidity? Something else?

Available evidence leads to a reasonable belief that the MSM's decision to broadcast Trump's malicious speech reflects primarily corporate profit-seeking combined with intimidation. It was not primarily a matter of good-faith news judgment or shocking incompetence/stupidity. Everyone knew in advance exactly what Trump would deliver. He delivered as expected.

Networks deliberately broke precedent by airing this overtly partisan address. Now, contrast that with how the MSM treated Biden. In 2022, the major broadcast networks refused Biden primetime access for a democracy speech, dismissing it as too political. Instead they aired reruns of Law & Order and Young Sheldon. But those same networks preempted season finales of major shows, e.g., Survivor on CBS and The Floor on Fox, to carry Trump's transparently partisan attack speech that the White House itself billed as touting "historic accomplishments" rather than announcing policy or addressing any crisis.

Does anyone see any hypocrisy here?

What about PBS and NPR?: PBS and NPR probably broadcast the speech primarily out of fear of Trump's threats, not profit motive. They don't operate on an advertising-based profit model like commercial networks. PBS and NPR were still fighting lawsuits against Trump's defunding order as of yesterday. They very likely calculated that refusing to air a presidential address, despite it being pure propaganda, would​provide evidence supporting Trump's "biased media" claims in pending court cases. In turn, that would give him additional justification for further attacks and revocation of their broadcast licenses. In essence, Trump now has the power to coerce collaboration by institutions Trump is in the process of actively destroying.

We're screwed. So is our democracy, rule of law, civil liberties, and transparency and honesty in government. 

From the dark free speech files: The rising scourge of the vaccine denial religion

Hand-to-hand combat

with crackpots

For better or worse, inventing and spewing anti-vaccine lies and crackpottery is protected free speech. Actually, it is for the worse for public health, democracy, respect for experts and empirical facts. Arguably devastating. Yes, vaccine denial is inherently anti-democratic at least in terms of state of mind. When the denial mindset manifests in politics, it is in fact anti-democracy.

A NYT opinion (not paywalled) discusses the ongoing rise and toxic influence of vaccine denialism. Innocent people will be needlessly and avoidably killed. But, a pile of corpses doesn't faze vaccine crackpots and deniers. Vaccine denial is and probably always has been, more or less, a faith-based religion, not science. Anti-vaccine religion, like all or nearly all others, cannot be rationally engaged with.

What is troubling about this opinion by a non-expert is their observation that even trying to calmly and respectfully engage with vaccine deniers may be more damaging than beneficial. That is something I do not recall having heard before, but maybe my memory is faulty on this point.

The NYT opinionator, Jessica Grose, is not a vaccine expert. She is an opinion person. She describes a YouTube program where a vaccine science believer, Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, a New Jersey-based family medicine physician. He is also a medical social media influencer better known as Dr. Mike. On the show, he tussled with vaccine science deniers for a few hours and they bickered about how good or bad a job RFK Jr. is doing with public health and public health matters. 

Gorse believes that Kennedy’s supporters do not have a reasonable grasp of the science they argue. I agree with that. Despite truth in some of the facts they recite, the facts are usually grossly distorted, or cherry picked and taken out of context. Their arguments fail on fundamental principles of fact, reason, science and last but maybe equally important, the Principle of Charity. 

Gorse commented that she wrote a column suggesting that public debates like this one with Dr. Mike would be a useful way to rebuild Americans' trust in vaccines. She believed in the sunshine effect of publicly airing anti-vaccine arguments and debunking them with evidence and reason. Apparently, the Dr. Mike episode and other things changed her mind about that. She lost faith that debating staunch advocates of Kennedy's crackpot public health agenda can build public trust back. 

Her core conclusion is that in a format where someone with real scientific expertise is put on the same level as an passionate layperson, is not going to work as long as Kennedy is in office. She wrote:

As of Dec. 12, there were 126 confirmed cases of measles in an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina, and 119 of those cases were among unvaccinated people. Almost all of the people affected were under 18. The United States is on track to lose its measles elimination status. While a vast majority of parents are still giving their children basic childhood inoculations, anti-vaccine influencers continue to chip away at the public’s trust.

I could probably be construed as a public health influencer, and I will continue to write about these issues, even though I worry that it is increasingly futile. I just think they are wasting their time debating MAHA types on social media or podcasts.

I agree in part with her analysis and conclusion. But the problem is broader, deeper and more threatening than just Kennedy's seriously threatening public health crackpottery. The big problem is decades of bigoted, corrupt, authoritarian demagoguery by MAGA propagandists and their recent predecessors like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. This is not a problem confined to public health disasters like Trump putting the crackpot Kennedy in power. This same problem now pervades and poisons most or all of government and most or all pro-democracy, pro-public interest government functions. The American public has been taught and learned to (i) trust demagoguery, crackpots and intolerant authoritarianism, and (ii) distrust actual experts and tolerant democracy.

Our situation cannot be undone just by making Kennedy go away. It very likely cannot be undone even by making Trump go away. MAGA has sunk deep roots into (1) the minds of tens of millions of Americans, and (2) pro-democracy and pro-public interest federal functions. That did not happen overnight or in a year. It took decades and tens of billions of dollars to poison, persuade and trap those minds. It was a massive, prolonged war for minds. MAGA authoritarianism won. That war and trapped enough minds so that MAGA authoritarianism is in power.

The thing is though, Gorse and others have not figured out an effective way to combat pro-authoritarian MAGA demagoguery. Unfortunately, there probably is no effective way to do that. That belief is based on the usual culprits, human cognitive biology and social behavior. The ineffective sunshine method to kill nonsense that Gorse still engages with despite her lost faith, is probably the best non-violent weapon that pro-democracy, pro-truth people have to fight with. 

Although fighting dark free speech and demagoguery with honest speech isn't fully effective, maybe it will be just barely effective enough to save our democracy and rule of law. However, if anyone has a better weapon or tactic to suggest, it would be great to hear about it.