“I am not a real doctor, but I play one on T.V.”
“I am not a real doctor, but I play one on T.V.”
November 13, 2024
Before sliding back into the news today—which takes us to new levels of absurdity—let’s address the media environment that is beating us down while missing the moment and normalizing the threat of the next administration.
The media is exaggerating the scale of last Tuesday’s loss while ignoring the threat of the incoming administration.
Making it through last Tuesday’s electoral losses has been hard enough without the sanctimonious lectures from major media commentators who paved Trump's way back to the presidency by normalizing him while applying a double standard of hyper-scrutiny to Joe Biden. The authors of those opinion pieces seem to be caught in a feedback loop in which they attempt to outdo one another in piling on the Democratic Party while issuing final judgments on “what went wrong” before the final votes have been counted. Talk about hubris!
We are stuck in a period of hyperbolic criticism that will continue until the next shiny distraction strikes the fancy of the commentariat. The wave of media criticism is an artifact of the clickbait revenue model that has replaced journalism in America.
It is not real. It is an “inside the beltway ‘inside baseball’ for insiders” phenomenon that washes over us like a tsunami—and inevitably affects the mood of Democrats already reeling from the losses. Worse, in their bid to outshine their competing peddlers of doom, members of the commentariat are exaggerating the scale and depth of the losses suffered last Tuesday.
I highly recommend Josh Marshall’s criticism of the hyperbolic media environment and the failure of Democrats and their allies to “call bullsh*t” on the media for its doom-casting. See Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, The Aftermath of Competitive Hyperbole.
Josh Marshall writes,
I really have no choice but to say that all of this [doomsaying by the media] is immense and innumerate bullsh*t. This isn’t even a subjective point. What we have is a bout of escalating competitive hyperbole in which the wild overstatement keeps getting ramped up because no one is willing to step up and state the obvious for fear of being shouted down as being in denial . . . .
Without anyone willing to push back, the chorus just keeps moving to more and more over-the-top claims. A party with a bit more self-respect and spine would be less bowled over by claims from the opposition and a press in the habit of portraying Democrats in the most negative terms. But here we are.
Marshall then goes on to explain that an election that was consistently described as “close” (and in which Kamala Harris described herself as the “underdog”) turned out to be close. Very.
As Josh Marshall describes, the election was one of the closest in modern presidential history. Yet, the commentariat describes it as a landslide that has destroyed the Democratic Party. To borrow Josh Marshall’s appropriate phrase in responding to such hyperbolic claims, “Bullsh*t.”
We need to rise above the inane chatter of self-deluding, self-promoting, complicit members of the legacy media and focus on the iceberg slicing through the water toward the Titanic: Trump's impending presidency. As Marshall writes,
The numbers speak for themselves. But why is this such an important point when the real issue is the vast threat of four years of Donald Trump’s presidency?
It is not merely that the commentary by the legacy media pundits is wrong. It is dangerous because it continues the normalization and sane washing of a situation that can only be described as a national emergency.
Ignore the noise and focus on the stakes. You will feel better, and you will help prepare yourself for the battle to come.
Trump begins a bizarre process of naming cabinet and senior officer nominees
As we move into the third day of Trump floating names for cabinet secretaries and senior officer positions, he has returned to his selection method of finding people who have the “looks” to play a cabinet secretary on a television melodrama. Remember his prior picks for initial appointments in 2017? Ryan Zinke (Interior); Rex Tillerson (State); Rick Perry (Energy); Mike Pompeo (CIA); and Betsy DeVos (Education), and “all my generals.” Apart from the generals (who were highly qualified), the Trump cabinet picks who were selected on the basis of their “looks” were unmitigated disasters.
Trump is reportedly choosing cabinet officials by reviewing videos of them during appearances in which they shill for Trump.
Trump has learned nothing from his first term.
Trump nominates Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense
At least in 2017 Trump did not stoop to nominating entertainers from morning shows on Fox News. On Tuesday, Trump broke through absurdity barrier by nominating Fox TV personality Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. See HuffPo, Trump Taps Fox News Host Pete Hegseth To Be Next Secretary Of Defense.
The nomination of Hegseth is a joke and an insult to the millions of Americans who serve in the armed forces and the Department of Defense. And to all Americans.
The Department of Defense runs the world’s largest military by a factor of 10. It is the single largest department of the United States government, with over 700,000 employees (not including active duty military personnel, which totals 2.8 million worldwide.) Defense spending accounts of 13% of the US budget.
Hegseth’s primary qualification is that “he looks the part” and plays a doctor, er, newscaster, er, entertainer, er, military veteran on television. He has served in the National Guard on active duty, rising to the rank of a captain in charge of platoon. While that service is laudable, it does not qualify him to lead the world’s largest military. Nor does his service as executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, a lobbying group funded by the Koch brothers.
Hegseth urged Trump to take controversial positions in the prior administration, including pardoning three US soldiers charged with war crimes.
It is doubtful that Hegseth could survive the confirmation process in the Senate. Which is why Trump wants the Senate to go into recess, which would allow Trump to make recess appointments (which do not require Senate confirmation hearings).
Trump nominates South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to head Department of Homeland Security
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has no experience that qualifies her to head the Department of Homeland Security. But as with Pete Hegseth, that is not stopping Trump. He has nominated Noem to lead the department charged with domestic security because she has vowed to help Trump implement his mass deportation policy.
Noem famously sent South Dakota national guard to the Texas border with Mexico to engage in pretend enforcement of US immigration laws—which are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. See AP News, 5 things to know about Kristi Noem, Trump's pick for Homeland Security secretary.
Trump says he will name Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to fictional Department of Government Efficiency
During his campaign, Trump floated the idea of placing Elon Musk in charge of a fictional “department of government efficiency.” Today, his campaign announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would head the yet-to-be-created Department of Government Efficiency, which will make recommendations to cut the budget. The timeframe for the report from the fictional department to complete its work is 18 months.
The entire exercise is a publicity stunt that will fail, spectacularly. The recommendations will land with a thud as campaigning for the 2026 midterms is getting underway. Every recommended cut will threaten a constituency within the voting population or within the GOP dark money ecosphere.
The yet-to-be-created department will have no role in the budgeting process, which is controlled by the Constitution, Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and hundreds of federal laws and regulations. In the end, any “recommendations” from the committee will require congressional approval.
So, it is the worst of all worlds for Musk and Ramaswamy. They will make controversial, unpopular recommendations that will likely never make it out of committee in the House. Sadly, major media is reporting on the committee as if it is meaningful. It is not. The most that the timid NY Times could muster was to say that the proposal “is uncertain in seriousness.” It is beyond uncertain. It is a publicity stunt and a joke.
Trump may sign an executive order creating commission to force senior generals to retire
The president, as commander in chief, has the authority to dismiss generals in his discretion. But exercise of that power is rare and is exercised by the president in his capacity as commander in chief.
Per reports, Trump's transition team is preparing an executive order to create a “board” of retired military personnel to “review” senior generals and make recommendations for forced retirements. Per the Wall Street Journal, a general identified by the board must retire in thirty days. See WSJ, Trump Draft Executive Order Would Create Board to Purge Generals.
The executive order would be a significant shift in how the president manages the senior officers in the military. It is not clear whether Trump will sign the executive order but it seems likely—given that his team has leaked it to the media.
The board will be a negative development but likely ineffective. It will be difficult to affect short-term change in military leadership. There are currently 653 generals in the military, with 44 four-star generals. The senior military leadership is professional and loyal to the Constitution. Trump may be able change the personnel at the top (to a degree), but he will not be able to change the loyalty of the military to the Constitution.
Concluding Thoughts
I am hearing from readers worried about the future leadership of the Democratic Party. That fear seems to be driven from the spate of articles that predict the demise of the Democratic Party because it lost a presidential election by about one percentage point (on average, nationally). We can’t allow the media to undermine our confidence. And declaring a leadership crisis in the Democratic Party less than a week after the party lost a presidential election is clickbait journalism.
Any objective evaluation of the leadership in the Democratic Party would conclude that it is filled with promising leaders for a generation or more. I won’t go through the exercise of naming the dozen who come to mind—because I will receive emails correcting me for omitting other promising leaders. But think of rising stars among governors, in the Senate, in the House, in Biden’s cabinet, and in state legislatures.
Here's the good news: Not one of the rising stars would surrender their principles and morals to an aspiring dictator as have hundreds of Republicans in Congress and state government.
In 2026 and 2028, our problem will be choosing among talented, principled men and women who are qualified to lead our nation forward.
So, let me return to where I began: Don’t let the doom-casting of the commentariat get you down. Yes, the Democratic Party has issues to address, but the last people to advise the Democratic Party are the opinion writers and journalists in the legacy media who normalized Trump during the campaign and are normalizing the threat of his incoming administration.
We have a lot of work to do. Rejoin your grassroots groups in community and solidarity as soon as you can. While the members of Trump's new administration struggle with security clearances, worry about computer access and passwords, and try to figure out where the restrooms are, we should already be working on 2026.
That’s it for the evening! Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
I was sorting astronomy photos today to upload them to a website accessible to all readers. I kept looking for an image of the Eastern Veil Nebula, which I have a firm (but erroneous) recollection of capturing. I have published the Western Veil Nebula on several occasions. Since I could not find the Eastern Veil Nebula, I captured an image of that nebula on Tuesday evening. It is shown below.
The Eastern and Western Veil nebulae are partial remnants of a supernova explosion between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Together with other nebulae, they form the Cygnus Loop, the collective remains of the supernova. The Cygnus Loop is about six times our moon's (apparent) diameter and approximately 2,400 light years from Earth.
Enjoy!
Awesome Robert. I cannot express in words how grateful I am for your posts. They are oxygen when I am gasping for breath. Thank you for all you give to us and the nation each day. Thank you.
Robert, you correctly identified the media's continuing epic failure of imagination. What used to be a functional Fourth Estate that looked at everything with a jaundiced journalistic eye is reduced to formulaic "reporting" that squashes trump et al into a pre-ordained Federal Government box. This is the uncritical normalization (aka sane washing) to which you refer. This generation of low-information and low-training reporters/editors cannot figure out our dystopian situation at all. So, they revert to ridiculous platitudes.
To me, this election was quite simple, which is what makes it so devastating for us whole-hearted Democrats. Too many American Democrats -- to the tune of approx. 13 million -- had the following reaction to voting for the respective candidate slates:
Republican Criminal -- Couldn't (too much to list)
Democratic Woman -- Wouldn't (racism/sexism)
When they found themselves in this emotional quagmire, they perceived the only solution was abstinence. I call that abdication of their civic duty, but that doesn't change the ugly facts of racism and sexism clearly being the deciding factors in this election.
The pundit-class "economy" voting lectures are bogus red herrings. They serve as socially acceptable voter "reasons" for rejecting one of the most accomplished and prepared candidates for the US Presidency in my lifetime just because she is a Black woman. I pray we can come together as Democrats and start to walk the walk for 2026, not just talk the talk. I yield my time.