There is a huge gap between “demonizing the media” and sanctifying it, idolizing it.
While Trump may be “demonizing” his targets in his hilarious recent confrontations, Kasparov is definitely giving our current major media outlets too much credit by having them stand for “the free press.”
Where does he go wrong? Where to start? Well, here: Kasparov’s statement that a free press “can never be the enemy of a free people” is absurd. Any person or any institution can turn to work against the public interest. We all know this.
Except, apparently, for partisans . . . when criticizing those they disagree with.
While I heartily agree that we, the American people, need a free press more than we need a childish autocrat, I wonder where Kasparov stands on Thomas Jefferson’s famous statement to the effect that “a government without newspapers” would be worse than “newspapers without government.” He said this while being no friend of the dominant press of his day.
Remember, Jefferson criticized “the media” of his time, and for good reason — the Federalist papers in 1800 even went so far as to declare him the Antichrist, as someone who would confiscate all Bibles. But that did not mean that he also attacked the free press . . . instead, he defended it, and not just now-and-then, but constitutionally.
And remember, Jefferson did squeak in to turn the tide against his predecessors’ policies. In this one way, 2016-2017 looks more than a little like 1800-1801.
Regardless, let us settle this definitively: why does criticizing the media not amount to opposing a free press?
Answer: Because criticizing “the media” is just short-hand for criticizing some media outlets — some journalists and their organizations. Perhaps what is usually meant is the dominant media. Usually what is under attack is just the partisan media — of the other party.
This is all so obvious that one wonders how Kasparov and the many people who repeat the same argumentative gambit can carry their heads with anything other than shame. Your guys are not the whole of the free press. To attack the one is not to attack the other.
What he has done is lump together disparate things, and then condemn his enemy for doing something that his enemy did not do. Trump did not say, nor have I ever heard him say (I am willing to accept any factual evidence to the contrary that you provide), anything against the institution of a free press. What he has argued against is the reportage, bias, and excessively partisan commentary of major media outlets*, CNN most especially.
And, having watched CNN recently, I think Trump has been entirely within the realm of propriety to attack this “Clinton News Network.” CNN’s coverage of politics is so prejudiced and partisan that not only has it supplied its side with debate questions in advance, it regularly prevaricates. The method it does so is as Clintonian as its loyalties.
If Kasparov thinks it “despotic” for a President to castigate and ignore a media outlet, what did he think of President Obama’s constant harping on Fox News, and the way he treated its correspondents in press conferences?
While folks like Trump who decry “the major media” or the “MSM” or just “the media” obviously intend to be engaging in synecdoche, and everyone with half a brain knows that this usage is innocent of logical fallacy, the anti-Trumpers who pretend that this be not synecdoche but, instead, a dangerous, broad-brush equation of part and whole prove themselves either base rhetoricians or witless buffoons in the game of debate.
Who makes up the Stupid Party now?
For the record, I do not know how dangerous Trump is. Right now, he seems more entertaining than any previous president, more active and efficient than recent ones, and more intent on following through on political promises than any politician I can remember.
This does not mean I agree with what he is doing. Far from it. I did not like even half his promises. I did not vote for Trump. I did not support him, except in one way: to note, over and over, how much worse Hillary Clinton was than he seemed. Hillary was the worst Secretary of State in recent memory, a warmonger and a center-left power-luster with a sense of entitlement at least as large as Trump’s own narcissistic ego. And, now that Hillary Clinton is out of the way, I am more than willing to oppose Trump, especially regarding his insane protectionism.
But I hope I can do so honestly.
Much of the hysterical opposition to Trump seems to focus on the man’s style. He seems to lie in new ways, brushing off falsifications with greater ease than any past pol. He speaks in remarkably simple ways without reminding us of the Bushisms of the two previous Republican presidents. And he is surely the opposite of the abstruse and periphrastic John Kerry.
We do have something of a new creature on our hand — at least the latest hopeful monster in a strange course of evolution. And he is changing in front of our eyes, in part because of how the Left has opposed him, with all rhetorical guns a-blazing. He is a person moved mightily (perhaps most) by issues of loyalty and betrayal. So he is moving further away from his Democratic Party roots under the onslaught of current Democratic outrage.
And Kasparov has jumped in line with the outrage brigade. It is sad to see someone lose grip on the nature of noble rhetoric and argumentation.
When you stoop to using logical fallacies to make your point, you have lost.
At least, in the eyes of those of us sporting a more philosophical bent.
Hint: you cannot promote “accountability & the truth” while simultaneously slinging fallacy and engaging in base rhetoric.
And remember: the great and noble thing about a free press is not that it is “press” but that it is “free.” We here on our blogs and social media are part of the solution. We are the freer press.
But even that does not make us right. We must still mount attacks upon behavior and policies by recourse to facts and logic.
twv
N.B. I chose Kasparov’s tweet at random. There are many similar, almost identical tweets, memes, what-have-you. It is almost as if a memo went out, saying: HERE IS WHAT TO SAY. (Perhaps I need to read those Move-On emails I get every day.) So, Kasparov serves as a symbol. He stands in for many another egregious anti-Trump paranoiac. It is too rare to see honest criticism — which I would (and do) welcome. Kasparov’s tweets neatly serve to represent all the similar nonsense one hears on the talking head “newscasts,” on the comedy put-down shows, on social media, and out of the mouths of protestors who know only a lockstep uniform ideological response. In all other matters, Peace be unto him.
* Actually, Donald Trump has complained that the press has been “unfair.” That is an inelegant and whiny way to complain about the lying press, the fake media. But I never said that Trump was an elegant or philosophically astute man of letters. Far from it.
Wirkman Comment 