This is getting ridiculous!

September 25, 2023

          Geez! This is getting ridiculous! Trump calls for the execution of the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and the Washington Post performs a botched poll that is so bad the Post acknowledges it is “an outlier.” Guess which one leads the news on Sunday? Hint: It is not the story that calls for the killing of a perceived political opponent by the leading candidate for the GOP 2024 nomination.

          Let’s get the WaPo/ABC poll out of the way, first. The results were simply implausible. They were so bad that Post included this disclaimer:

[A]lthough the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.

          If you were alarmed by the headlines about the WaPo/ABC poll, the most important thing you can do is read Simon Rosenberg’s post in Hopium Chronicles, The WaPo-ABC Poll Is A Clear Outlier. Dems Are Having A Very Good 2023. As Simon explains, the results are so wacky (my word, not his), the Post should have tossed the poll. But the Post spent the money on the poll, so it published a poll it did not believe. That makes perfect sense because . . . .?

          It doesn’t make sense. If there is anything good to come out of the WaPo/ABC poll, it seals the case that presidential “horse-race” polling is irretrievably broken, counterproductive, and misleading. And yet in the dozen articles I read about the poll on Sunday, all of them treated the poll as a legitimate exercise in polling. It is not. Indeed, the notion that multiple news organizations are conducting presidential horse-race polls more than a year before the election is a sign that they view politics as entertainment—just like sports scores, the daily horoscope, and advice columns. Pathetic.

          Folks, they are trying to mess with our heads. Don’t let them. Reject their infotaintmentization of politics. Ignore the polls. If you can’t ignore the polls, tell irresponsible media outlets what you think by posting comments on offending articles, write letters to the editor, and send emails to the journalists. Ignoring the polls is a reasonable approach to preserving your sanity. But ignoring the polls may give outlets a “free pass” on their irresponsible journalism. The Post’s poll is going to be added to Five-Thirty-Eight.com’s aggregation of polls and will affect the narrative of Biden’s prospects for winning. That is why it is irresponsible and dangerous for news outlets to conduct meaningless and misleading polls.

          The 2024 presidential election features two candidates who are surrogates for different visions of America: Democracy versus autocracy; liberty versus tyranny; dignity versus bigotry; science versus disinformation; personal autonomy versus subservience to Christian nationalism; sustainability versus ecological disaster; safety versus gun violence; global stability versus confrontational isolationism. All of that—and much more—is on the ballot in 2024. The WaPo/ABC “horse-race” poll captures none of that.

          Turning to the real story that should be the only thing any media outlet is discussing is Trump's not-so-veiled threat to execute General Mark Milley. As usual, Trump made the threat on his vanity social media platform and used oblique references to provide deniability that he made the threat. Trump's use of Mafia-style threats is so common that the comparison is becoming stale, but it is the equivalent of mobsters telling a small business owner, “Nice place you got here; it would be a shame if it burned down.”

          In the waning days of the Trump administration, the US intercepted intelligence indicating that the Chinese government believed the US might attack China. In military-to-military talks that are commonplace to avoid accidental conflicts, General Milley assured his counterpart in the Chinese military that the US was not planning to attack China.

Per the book Peril by Bob Woodward and Bob Costa, Milley said the following during the call with his counterpart:

General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable, and everything is going to be okay. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you. General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise . . . If there was a war or some kind of kinetic action between the United States and China, there’s going to be a buildup, just like there has been always in history.

          That call was approved in advance by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Trump now claims that effort at “deconfliction amounted to treason. Trump wrote:

This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!

See The Independent, Trump suggests Mark Milley should be executed in possible breach of pre-trial release conditions.

          There are two problems with Trump's statement: It is a veiled threat on the life of General Milley and it violates his pretrial release in the two felony prosecutions in DC and Florida.

          For those who believe I am engaging in hyperbole regarding Trump's threat against the life of General Milley, recall what happened in response to this Tweet:

Big protest in D.C. on January 6th!  Be there, will be wild!

          Trump has a feral instinct for urging his followers to action without directly telling them to do so. As his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress,

[H]e doesn’t give you orders. He speaks in a code.

          The response of the media—thus far—has been a collective yawn. Their listless response is due in part to Trump's exhaustive, daily threats against foes (real and imagined) that normalize his incendiary rhetoric to the point of background noise. It is not—as his January 6 incitement reminds us. The political press should be talking of nothing else until Republicans condemn and disavow the first major party presidential candidate to threaten a senior military officer with death.

          Recognizing that the media would rather cover a botched poll than a death threat, another avenue of accountability is for either Judge Chutkan or Cannon to revoke Trump's pretrial release or impose a gag order on him. Yes, a gag order. Trump is already the subject of a motion by the prosecution in the January 6 prosecution to refrain from intimidating witnesses. As the government said in its brief:

“The defendant continues these attacks on individuals precisely because he knows that in doing so, he is able to roil the public and marshal and prompt his supporters.”

          Trump obviously doesn’t care; he never has. He has crossed a line—another one. It is time for federal judges charged with the responsibility of protecting witnesses and jurors to act. Before it is too late.

Opportunities for Reader Engagement

I will be joining two grassroots groups this week. Please join me if you can:

          Tuesday, September 26, at 7:00 PM Pacific, I will be joining the Consolidated Oregon Indivisible Network (COIN). COIN is made up of Indivisible groups from across Oregon that collaborate to protect democracy and implement progressive values through voter outreach and education, campaigns and elections, holding elected leaders accountable, and advocating for legislation that best reflects our values.

On Wednesday, September 27, at 7:00 PM Eastern, I will join Simon Rosenberg (of Hopium Chronicles) at an event for BigTentUSA. Big Tent describes itself as “a moderate, inclusive and collaborative community empowering women and men to take action” with “a focus on states” to preserve democracy, empower women, and protect our children.

            Simon Rosenberg and I will have a conversation about the state of our democracy and the growth of the pro-democracy Coalition that must be ready for 2024. Click here for details: Spotlight Speaker Series: Simon Rosenberg and Robert Hubbell - BigTent USA.

Concluding Thoughts.

My wife and I are in the Sierras closing our cabin for the winter. I have limited access to narrow bandwidth (which mysteriously seems to decrease as the sun sets and then shuts off at 8:00 PM). I will resume the audio version on Wednesday.

Over the weekend, I heard from many readers today who were—in a word—disgusted. The combined coverage in the “Sunday shows” and major media was a feeding frenzy of ageism, false equivalencies, and mindless repetition of topline results from polls that demand analysis and comprehension. We have to stop hoping that the press will reform its ways to save us. It won’t.

That’s okay. The very fact that you are reading a newsletter on Substack shows that there are ways to circumvent the press. Tens of millions of Americans follow political news on Substack, podcasts, social media platforms, and independent blogs by respected journalists who have fled the corporate media paradigm that demands headline driven soundbite journalism

And millions of Americans have joined grassroots organizations that meet regularly (via Zoom). They provide an opportunity for their members to hear directly from politicians, community leaders, authors, and newsmakers. The “Big Tent” speaker series that Simon Rosenberg and I are speaking at on Wednesday will feature Suzanne Nossel (10/4), Heather Cox Richardson (10/25), and Neal Katyal (11/1). It doesn’t get much better than that!

Another organization with a terrific speaker series is Jews United for Democracy and Justice (JUDJ) which co-produces the Podcast – America at a Crossroads. Nancy Pelosi will be the guest on October 11. JUDJ and the podcast are both wonderful organzations that will help you maintain your sanity as the press tries to convince you that the sky is falling.

Making it through this election cycle will require mental toughness and realistic optimism. Objectively, we have every reason to be hopeful. Joe Biden has been the most successful presiden in decades while Trump is the most corrupt, compromised candidate ever to seek the presidency. While America is an evenly divided electorate, there millons of Americas “at the margins” who will decide the election. They are open to persuasion and have demonstrated in special elections over the last year that the Republican message of division and hate is not working among persuadable independents.

The sun is setting, so I will need to sign off. For those readers observing Yom Kippur, I hope that the holiday is a meaningful period of reflection, renewal, and community.

Talk to you tomorrow!

PS: Yes, I made up the word “infotaintmentization.” Please, no corrections. It was tongue in cheek—unless the word is ultimately accepted by the OED, in which case it was a stroke of genius!