Simon Rosenberg/”Hopium Chronicles” on substack:
There’s an election on Tuesday and we now have a number of work to do
Some early ideas on the New York Occasions polls
We’ve got a very vital election on Tuesday and we have to keep targeted – 2023 has been an excellent yr for Democrats, and we have to shut it out sturdy. No matter you do to assist us win on Tuesday, perhaps do some extra. We do not have the luxurious of wallowing in fear proper now: we now have to go to work. So make your calls, do your canvassing, give just a little extra and in case you’re on the lookout for one thing to do, assist me out. the Hopium marketing campaign to assist us win Virginia.
In fact, we now have to consider November 2024, however first issues first.
If you cannot assist your self, this is a trio of November 2024 items to ponder forward of the extremely controversial New York Occasions/Siena ballot under:
- John Della Volpe/New York Occasions: Joe Biden is in hassle
- David French/New York Occasions: Joe Biden is aware of what he is doing
- Josephine Harvey/HuffPost: A seasoned political scientist predicts the end result of the Trump-Biden vote
There you may have it, Punditry 101. Select your journey.
Nate Cohn/New York Occasions:
Why Biden is lagging and the way he might come again
The polling deficit towards Trump in six key states is primarily amongst youthful, non-white and fewer engaged voters. Kamala Harris fares barely higher.
But when the ballot signifies that it I mustn’t If it’s so troublesome to beat Mr. Trump, that additionally signifies that it’d nonetheless be very troublesome for Mr. Biden to take action. Total, 49 p.c of registered voters say there may be “no likelihood” they are going to help him, together with many citizens who seem more likely to be out there to Democrats.
Even Kamala-not-Joe voters are beginning the marketing campaign expressing deep skepticism. Greater than half of those voters say they help Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden; almost 43% say there may be “no likelihood” they are going to help Mr. Biden.
It is unclear whether or not respondents needs to be taken at their phrase on a difficulty like this – neither with a yr to go, nor earlier than the marketing campaign begins. However taken severely, Mr. Biden’s path to re-election could be fairly troublesome. His capacity to win them again might rely on the precise supply of his problem, the extent to which he can do something about it, and the flexibility of his marketing campaign to refocus the voters’s consideration on Mr. Trump and on different extra favorable questions.
Thomas Zimmer/“American Democracy” on Substack:
“Religion and household” versus democracy
On the normalization of Mike Johnson, the media’s tendency to accommodate energy, and the perpetuation of ‘true American extremism’
On Sunday, one of many nation’s main newspapers printed a dispatch from Shreveport, Louisiana, headlined: “Home Speaker Mike Johnson’s hometown of Louisiana, guided by religion and household.” That is apparently an investigation into Johnson’s roots, written by a Job journalist whose beat is described as “Pink States.” But the top product is indistinguishable from a political advert marketing campaign for the politician on the middle of the “report” – or a sympathetic household story for a actuality TV candidate. It is a quite weird sort of political journalism: it is “reporting” within the sense {that a} journalist goes to a location and collects impressions and interviews. However the result’s a tendentious collage that totally obscures what it’s supposed to light up.
The rationale to dwell on this piece will not be that it’s significantly horrible, or that the writer is singularly incompetent and/or dishonest. If solely! Quite the opposite, these experiences are indicative of pathologies that characterize an excessive amount of conventional political journalism and political discourse usually: an inclination to whitewash and normalize extremism for a wider viewers, an impulse to accommodate and naturalize energy, little irrespective of the place he resides. – and an inclination to perpetuate the concepts that type the premise of the ethno-religious nationalism that galvanized behind Trump.
And extra on media pathology Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:
Information organizations use unfastened phrases to explain killings overseas and fascism at dwelling, downplaying the hazard to democracy.
There was a stunning occasion and extremely vital story on the entrance web page of the New York Occasions final week. As a workforce of journalists together with two Pulitzer Prize winners reported, the Occasions warned readers that Donald Trump — if he returns to the White Home in 2025 — is making ready a brand new workforce of extremist authorities legal professionals who could be extra loyal to their expensive nation. Chief just for the rule of regulation, and will assist Trump set up a model of American fascism.
Are you saying you have not heard something about this? It is not stunning. The Occasions editors took care to current this main report within the within the gentlest and most innocent means attainable — staying true to the mantra of the nation’s most influential newsroom that the 2024 election needs to be lined no otherwise, even when American democracy is at stake.
“Trump allies need new type of lawyer if he returns to energy” was the article’s unique on-line headline, as if maybe they had been speaking about colourful, drawling southerners in seersucker fits , quite than mad canine ideologues who would do the soiled work. work to overturn an election that authorities legal professionals make a profession of refused to do earlier than January 6, 2021.
How President Mike Johnson’s plans for a Christian regulation faculty collapsed
Johnson vouched for the college — and agreed to be its dean — with out consulting a key feasibility examine, he ultimately admitted.
For greater than a yr, Johnson — the dean of the yet-to-be-opened regulation faculty — had informed donors and the general public that the establishment, which might give attention to coaching Christian legal professionals within the northwest Louisiana, was not solely possible, however inevitable.
“From a pure feasibility standpoint,” Johnson, then 38, informed native newspaper City Discuss in 2010 after turning into dean, “I do not know the way it can fail as a result of … it appears just like the storm good for our regulation faculty.
However he nonetheless hadn’t seen a feasibility examine commissioned by the dad or mum faculty, Louisiana School, a personal Southern Baptist faculty in Pineville, Louisiana, now often called Louisiana Christian College.
The assistant quickly returned with disturbing information: the examine had been buried in a submitting cupboard. And it was virtually ineffective.
Six months later, in August 2012, Johnson resigned as dean of the brand new faculty, which by no means opened, though the school spent $5 million to buy and renovate a headquarters in Shreveport , amongst different bills detailed in native media.
A reminder:
Around the globe, the left is torn aside over Israel
The battle between Gaza and Israel has shaken up left-wing politics far past the Center East. Because the election approaches, the worth may very well be excessive.
When Hamas attackers killed 1,400 civilians in a collection of horrific raids on October 7, Western politicians expressed shock and pledged help for Israel.
However because the battle in Gaza has grown, and Israeli forces have killed 1000’s of Palestinians, this political consensus has damaged down. And in every single place within the West, it’s left-wing politicians who’re in most issue.
In the USA, Joe Biden is beneath stress from Muslim voters who view his unwavering help for Israel as a betrayal. Within the UK, Keir Starmer – who is about to change into the subsequent Labor prime minister – faces his most critical check but, amid bitter conflicts inside his social gathering.
Ian Dunt/Substack:
A bulletin of despair
It’s so simple to present in to hatred and tribalism, nevertheless it won’t save a single life.
When the going will get robust, different individuals flip to the Bible, or to Marxist evaluation, or to an indignant conspiracy idea messiah on YouTube. I flip to the Jewish thinker Isaiah Berlin.
Nobody ever actually talks about him. They by no means will. His opinions are too troublesome to just accept emotionally. However he has the benefit of telling the reality.
Berlin believed that the world was made up of competing values: hedonism, custom, freedom, management, equality, hierarchy, and so on. They exist in cultures that prioritize sure values over others. They exist in individuals who do the identical. And so they exist within the beating coronary heart of each particular person.
All of us need issues that may’t be put collectively. Perhaps we like household, however we fell in love with somebody they disapprove of. Perhaps we’re Ukrainians who wish to struggle for our nation however whose father is sick at dwelling with nobody else to take care of him. Berlin warns you towards those that declare there’s a proper reply to those questions. He warns you towards those that say that there’s a future utopia the place these difficulties can have been overcome.
They can’t be conquered. Life is made up of inevitable tragedies: the tragedy of competing values. There’ll by no means be a contented ending. This downside won’t ever be solved, as a result of humanity can’t be solved.
From Matt Robison:
