And we have people living in Europe, where in country after country, the far right is making gains at the ballot box and anti-immigrant sentiment is becoming mainstream. Every country is different in the details but there’s definitely a common theme. Maybe it hasn’t affected NZ (yet), but in neighbouring Australia they’ve been locking up would-be asylum seekers on isolated islands for years.
As for Brexit, it’s an extreme example of what can happen when people are unable to reconcile their differences or find a compromise. The infighting in the UK’s two major parties is a more common occurrence, and shows disagreement is not always healthy and harmless. Of course one twitter fight is not going to cause a split in the Democratic party, it’s when it becomes a general thing and people form into factions. I suppose I should answer your questions on the twitter spat, now…
None of that was in your original statement, and it completely changes the meaning. Taking some time to explain would’ve been very helpful.
Sometimes that’s the result of losing the fight. The party splits or members quit. I’ve seen posters here say they left the Republican party not because their own views changed, but because the party moved so far away from them. Now they may vote Democrat as the lesser evil but they don’t really support ‘the left’.
I didn’t say it was. You asked me what I meant by ‘infighting’. This is an example and even if you discount the two MPs defecting, it’s real and it’s been going on for several years with no resolution in sight.
I also think they were wrong to back down. And Asians in the UK are not a leftist group; they’re often extremely socially conservative. But they’re a large group who do tend to vote left. As, perhaps, are Latinos in the US. You told HMHW that there are more people on the left than the right (presumably in America, cos it sure ain’t true in the UK), but how many of those Democratic voters really have a ‘leftist ideology’ and how many are just looking out for their own interests?
So and how exactly is ‘saying things I don’t really mean’ different from lying?
That’s not a glass house you ought to throw around stones in.
This might explain part of it in the US, but the problem isn’t confined to the US.
You’ve claimed there is significant disunity on the right, which is contradicted by the fact that Republicans won’t defect, and the certainty with which Trump can predict that nothing of what he does will alienate his base.
That from one who’s spent half this thread complaining about the lack of objective evidence.
Your stance is that there’s no problem to be addressed. That there is infighting, that this is hurtful to the left, but that it’s even more hurtful to the right, and hence, nothing needs to be done. That’s all I’ve said.
Of course I can. Because that shared perception is something that demands an explanation, and, in the absence of any reason to believe otherwise, the simplest explanation for a shared perception is that it’s accurate. You claim it isn’t—that’s fine, but then you need to come up with something that more plausible explains its existence.
Did you completely miss where I said that ‘I could make something up, like so, but that wouldn’t prove anything either way’?
Ah, you didn’t, you just didn’t understand it. I was making a point, not conceding one, the point being that it’s asinine to try to argue trends based on individual incidents.
Starting to sound like a broken record there. Yes, all I have is perception, because that perception is itself the problem.
Reality does change when people act on their perception. Like, for instance, vote.
There it is, again. But no, I’m not just gonna shut up. And the conspiracy theory is what comes in when you say that for some reason all of the perceptions I’ve been pointing to are just misguided, or dishonest, because—why, exactly? You’re not telling.
You don’t have to read what I write, you know, if it aggravates you so much.
Yes, but it does mean that it’s something that needs to be investigated—and was—and was found to be false. You, however, just want to dismiss this perception out of hand, giving no reason whatsoever.
And all I have is your word for that. And well, that’s just not good enough.
You’re not getting the point. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight white supremacists. I didn’t say Parker Malloy has to shut up in the name of the greater good. I’m saying that measures ought to be taken that lessen the impact of infighting, such as, again, promoting cross-cutting cleavages. That doesn’t do anything to heal the rift between Malloy and Yglesias; nor should it. But it does mean fostering the recognition that, despite this division, there are also unifying factors.
If there were nothing to this thread, then you’d think it just would’ve failed to find any audience, and sunk off the page by now. But evidently, people thought there is something to debate here. If you don’t think so, then you’re free to, well, not.
Yes. Posting something inflammatory with no explanation is, as you say, trollish. If he had gone somewhere without a 140 character limit and explained what he really meant, that would be different. It would have allowed for a constructive discussion.
Was Molloy wrong to respond in the way that she did?
I think your reply would’ve been better (“I don’t think that compromise will help in any way at the next election…” etc.) But it’s too long for Twitter. Or pointing out that it’s all well and good to offer concessions when they don’t affect you, and others aren’t so lucky. But again, Twitter is not a good forum for a constructive discussion.
Do you agree or disagree with the strategy proposed by Yglesias?
I disagree in general. If he’d explained what kind of concessions he meant, there’s a small possibility there’d be something I wouldn’t object to.
4, 5, 6)
I think it’s damaging in a minor way, and the problem isn’t people disagreeing as such but the way it’s handled with soundbites and insults, instead of listening to each other (with emphasis on the ‘each other’). If it happens enough you get factions and/or people giving up and leaving because they feel they have no influence.
If you do think it hurts the cause, can you explain “what you think the cause is” here, and how exactly that cause is hurt? Is there one cause here, or two, or many?
What are the over-riding goals of the left? Greater equality and egalitarianism, ending injustice, increased freedom and opportunity? That’s what’s supposed to tie together the various ‘causes’, not just picking up enough special interest groups to form a majority. I have my own theory of what the major problem is, but it would be off topic here.
…this has nothing at all to do with your contention, which was the more you go “online and see people talking about cutting off their relatives and saying their friends are their real family.”
Living in the region I am more than well aware of Australia’s disgusting treatment of both asylum seekers and their own indigenous people. But neither has anything to do with “people cutting off their relatives.”
I think its an extreme example of what happens when corruption, propaganda and bad actors get put together. What happened wasn’t an accident IMHO. The chaos, disruption, its exactly the kind that certain people want to actually create. It makes them money.
It wasn’t in my original statement because you wanted me to clarify, and this was my clarification.
They split and have told their supporters to vote for Boris Johnson. They could have stayed independent. Or gotten behind the Lib Dems. That they’ve decided to go with Johnson suggests to me something else is going on here.
“Moving so far away from them” isn’t infighting. They didn’t move because of a fight. But because of an ideological shift.
…because “saying things you don’t really mean” is not the same thing as “lying.”
I’m glad I could clear that up for you.
Won’t they? Cite?
Trump is certain of almost everything he says that doesn’t mean anything.
And “his base” and “Republicans” are two different things.
I literally just conceded I had no objective evidence. I’m being consistent.
My stance is considerably more nuanced than that. My stance is that “infighting” can mean many different things, and that we need to examine each individual case of infighting in its own context to evaluate its effect.
This is not my stance.
Demanding an explanation of a perception is not proof of the existence of a trend.
No it is not. There are countless real-world examples of why it isn’t. Pizzagate. Truthers. Goobergate.
No I don’t. I acknowledge that your have your perceptions. I even acknowledge the existence of the things that have helped to form those perceptions. I’m asking for evidence that your perceptions are reality.
Of course I didn’t.
In the process of “making your point” you conceded that point. Concession accepted.
And how do you think you determine a trend if not by analysing individual incidents?
No. The perception isn’t the problem. It would be a problem if your perception were reality.
Yes: but that requires you to **act **on that perception. That process of taking action is what “changes reality”, not the act of perception in itself.
You can do whatever you like. But if people “perceive the left to be an ineffectual, fragmented mess incapable of concerted action” just remember they think things like this exactly because of the types of things you have said in this thread.
Of course I’m telling. I’ve told you over and over and over and over again. I acknowledge the perception exists. In science, they have this thing called “the scientific method.” It involves the "systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses." You’ve presented a hypotheses. You’ve provided your personal observation (which isn’t the same as systematic observation). I’m asking for the rest. I’m asking you to go through the standard rigorous method that we always use when testing ideas. But you are contempt to go straight from “observation” to “conclusion” without doing the rest of the work required.
The request wasn’t about me.
Incorrect. I’m asking for you to investigate your perceptions. I haven’t dismissed your perceptions out of hand. I’m asking for evidence that your perceptions have some basis in reality.
And your elephant analogy is based on completely imaginary events. And that isn’t good enough evidence to defend your thesis.
There are always unifying factors. But sometimes unity shouldn’t be the goal.
There are only really three people who have actively contributed to this thread. That isn’t an audience of note. If both you and I stopped posting it would have sunk off the page by now. The people who think there is something to debate here are essentially me and you. That says a lot of thing about me and you: but it says nothing at all about this particular topic.
I’m trying to say that although each country is different, there are cultural changes common to many of them. The people cutting off their relatives is one example of something I’ve observed, but at the moment it’s just an impression.
Oh sure, some people wanted it, but a lot of others were working to prevent it. And the fuel was already there, waiting to be set alight.
You knew what you meant, but it gave me a very misleading impression of your views. You might want to avoid that in future.
The cabinet members who quit did not have something else going on. The Labour party has been divided ever since Corbyn took over.
One generally leads to the other; there are always people who do not embrace the new ideology. I’m not really arguing for HMHW’s theory, but I do believe there are real divisions and it’s worth looking at why, and how to heal them.
is one of those commonalities. Just because “there are cultural changes common to many of them” doesn’t mean that this one you’ve observed is one of them. What you’ve observed might not even be common outside of the circles you happen to keep.
Sometimes you just can’t stop the revolution. The UK is doing its best to tear itself apart. The divide between left and right to a degree becomes meaningless. It isn’t infighting any more, its just fighting.
If you have a misleading impression of my views I will do my best to clarify them, which was what I did here. Its what I’ve always done, and its what I’ll do in the future.
Its not as if they decided to stay home and watch a movie instead of going out for dinner at a restaurant. They have literally flipped their political positions, telling their voters to vote for the tories instead of somebody else on the left.
They were divided before he took over. Those divisions have simply gotten worse.
Sometimes you can’t. I don’t blame anyone for walking away from Corbyn. But walking away from Corbyn **and **throwing in your support for Boris Johnson is not a thing that someone opposed to austerity, chronic underfunding of healthcare, the police and the education system would do.
I finally had time to do a little research, and as I feared all I could find directly on the subject were opinion pieces complaining about infighting on the left. However, I did find an article that seems relevant:
As a bonus, this one speaks to my own idea of what the problem is, which is basically that recent parties/leaders have moved into the lower right corner of the diagram, and voters are unhappy they are not addressing the ‘exploitation’ part of the agenda, but due to conflating the axes pundits are incorrectly claiming the problem is their focus on ‘oppression’.
People didn’t start out so polarised. But the whys and wherefores of Brexit are off topic here.
Which is a very bad thing for those of us who want a viable alternative to the Tories. That’s my point, that division is real and can be a problem.
If that’s really your opinion then you can’t have much more to say on the subject?
OK, it seems like you’ve resigned to merely restating your points, instead of trying to support them with arguments. Since this isn’t really any kind of form of ‘debate’, I probably shouldn’t waste my time rebutting them again, and accept that you’ve just hermetically closed of your position against revision, but then again, I never fail to be flabbergasted by people’s confidence in the face of conflicting points.
I mean, take the above. Do you really believe it would be a good defense if, say, in court somebody where to claim, ‘I didn’t lie when I said x, I just didn’t really mean it’? A lie can be defined as ‘an assertion that is believed to be false’. If I say, I believe/think x, but don’t, then I am making an assertion I believe to be false. This is pretty clear cut.
Fine. ‘You’ve claimed there is significant disunity on the right, which is contradicted by your belief that the Republicans won’t defect.’
Consistent with yourself, maybe, but inconsistent with your demand for objective evidence of me, if you hold that ‘there are no objective measures here’, ‘here’ being the issue of infighting and whom it’s hurting how.
Let’s review. I characterized your stance as follows:
The first three bits are direct paraphrases from here:
So I’m guessing (guessing because, again, you just offered a blanket dismissal instead of actually bothering to point out where you think I mischaracterized your position) you object to the last bit. But if you then actually think, now, that yes, something ought to be done against the infighting on the left, then why did you spent this whole thread arguing against that? If you think nothing ought to be done, but don’t think so because there’s more infighting on the right, why did you bring that up at all?
This seems confused. I don’t aim to prove the existence of a trend, I claim that the presence of wide-spread perception of this trend is, absent other factors (which, again, you refuse to provide), most simply explained by the existence of this trend. If lots of people tell you the same story, the reasonable reaction isn’t to reject that story out of hand, no matter how much you insist it is.
Sure, but you’re still missing the point that individual instances don’t rebut overall trends. If you throw a (fair) coin, and it lands up heads four times in a row, that doesn’t invalidate the fact that overall, it’ll come up heads half the time. In case GIGObuster is still reading and wants to add a new arrow to his quiver, the proper name for this is a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid—expecting that a generalization is valid in every individual case.
So the fact that there are cases in which perceptions, even wide-spread ones, didn’t turn out to be accurate does in no way invalidate the principle that generally, wide-spread perceptions, absent invalidating factors (which I’ve repeatedly asked you to provide, should you have any remaining interest in actually making this a ‘debate’ again), are most plausibly explained by their accuracy.
I’m curious. What form do you expect this evidence to take? Say I claim I see an elephant in this room. I tell you so, but you refuse to believe me—I have, after all, just a perception of that elephant. So I say, well, I can also hear it trumpet. But again, you’re having none of it—trumpeting, after all, is just a perception! So I acknowledge that, well, I might be hallucinating, and go on to ask Alice, who confirms that yes, she also sees an elephant in this room. But again, that doesn’t fly with you—it’s just more perception! More opinion!
Or take another case. I occasionally find myself debating the merits of certain movies online. So I saw a movie, and thought it wasn’t terribly great. I share that opinion in a thread on that movie. In comes another poster, claiming that no, I was mistaken, it’s actually a great movie! He doesn’t really tell me what makes it so great, mind—just refuses my perception of it as being not all that. So I look around for a bit, and find that lots of others online, some of them critics, agree that the movie isn’t exactly a masterpiece. Some point out weak plot points, flaws in characterization, etc. But again, my imaginary interloper isn’t having any of it—all of that, he claims, is just perception. I need to prove objectively that this is, in fact, a bad movie. Yet still, he’s not giving any indication of why he thinks so—he seems to believe that my lack of proving objectively that the movie is bad invalidates this sort of discussion.
All of which is not to say, of course, that there is no objective fact of the matter. And on that, I may well be wrong. I’m not even saying there’s no way to prove this. You could presumably do elaborate studies aimed at evaluating the matter. Some studies, which studied related matters—such as the one by Lilliana Mason DemonTree has also pointed to—were discussed in some of my cites.
But I’m not aware of any research settling the matter one way or the other (if you are, please share). And it’s simply fallacious on your part to then, in the absence of such research, declare all debate null and void. The simple fact is, there is evidence in favor of infighting hurting the left—the perception of a diverse set of people that’s been shared here—and none against it that I’ve seen so far. No, that doesn’t settle the issue once and for all. But it does mean that there’s a reasonable grounds for debate.
No. My point was that isolated incidents don’t decide the existence of a trend. I pointed to how if I were to appeal to an isolated incident, that wouldn’t support my contention of there being a trend. So that’s just wrong.
You analyze them in aggregate, which is the opposite of what you’re doing, namely, pointing towards single incidents as refuting a trend—i. e. pointing towards it being unseasonably cold in march as refuting Climate Change.
These are in direct contradiction. If people, in fact, act on perceptions (which they do), then perceptions causing undesirable actions are themselves problematic.
And do you think people thinking that is a problem? If not, why do you want me to stop? If you do, what are you arguing against?
However, you contend that the perception is wrong. A claim for which you haven’t, so far, provided a shred of evidence, or argument; hence, for which you haven’t given any reason to disbelieve it.
In science, we have the principle of parsimony: given a set of explanatory hypotheses equally well explaining the evidence, the simplest of these ought to be preferred. So, we have two possible cases:
[ol]
[li]A shared perception exists because the thing perceived actually is there[/li][li]A shared perception exists, but the thing perceived isn’t actually there, but rather, each perception is faulty in some way[/li][/ol]
Of these, the first is clearly the simpler one; moreover, without any support, the second also fails to be specific enough to actually be considered a proper hypothesis—it’s essentially just ‘something unknown is doing we don’t know what’
Moreover, such an appeal to science is itself fallacious here. The scientific method, in this sense, is appropriate to inductive means of knowledge acquisition—roughly, finding general principles based on individual observations.
But that’s not the only valid way of acquiring knowledge, notwithstanding modern-day scientism. Knowledge can also be generated deductively, via argument and debate. I don’t need to go out and measure the ratio of circumferences of real-world circles to their diameter in order to know that it’ll always come out about 3.14. My claim of such is not sensibly attacked by asking me to provide evidence for it.
It still is a strange one. After all, you’re contending that the perception of there being infighting on the left isn’t a problem at all, so it shouldn’t be a problem if I were to add to that perception; yet, you still, as you have from the beginning, try to get me to shut up. Well I guess, at least that’s one point you’ve been consistent on.
And that evidence is given by other people sharing that perception.
The analogy isn’t meant to be evidence (that would just be a confusion of terms), it’s meant to illustrate the fallacious logic you’re applying—namely, that shared perception isn’t evidence for the thing perceived actually existing. It is; it’s not proof, of course, but it also can’t just be dismissed without any salient reason to do so.
And I’m not saying that it should. I’m saying that the existence of division, even of unbridgeable gaps, and their perception, may not be as hurtful to a cause if the existence of unifying factors is also acknowledged. That’s why I keep mentioning cross-cutting cleavages: they can help foster tolerance or prevent conflict. If we’re only attuned to what separates us, each dividing line becomes a schism; if we’re aware that there’s much that unites us, any given division doesn’t partition the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’—without thereby revoking that division, or diminishing its importance.
Maybe. But there were a couple of different posters that posted before reading each reply here has become almost a full-time job, so perhaps it’s just that not too many have the patience, stamina, or general disregard for their own mental well-being to keep up.
Not a bad article, the “oppression” x “exploitation” gloss does give some useful insights to the fault lines in the current left, but it seems to me to have two major weaknesses.
The first, from my POV, is that the current form of concern with “oppression” is not necessarily compatible with a concern with “exploitation”. It is often largely a form of “gentrification” of the left, and is actually used to drive out the “exploited” classes. There’s a strange kind of nexus of holier than thou moralism, class contempt and bullying built around increasingly rarefied and abstract constructions of identity, and the necessary vocabulary and manners to show that you’re keeping up. Almost as if the wealthier left are so far from the economic realities of the majority, that they think that struggle for economic opportunity and even access to legal justice are a settled matter.
The other weakness I see in the “oppression” x “exploitation” gloss is that the role and even the value of labor has substantially changed over the last couple of generations. Technology and globalisation have weakened labor’s social position, and it may no longer be a question of “exploitation”, but more a question of simply discarding a substantial portion of the population.
This discarded segment of the populace apparently aren’t considered to belong to one of the “official” oppressed groups, and obviously don’t have the right sociology degrees, the right manners and vocabulary to fit in with the new left, are no longer valuable economic actors…
So I guess I’d go a little beyond the notion of infighting. My take is that the mainstream left of the last 50 years or so was generally a loose coalition of labor, social democrats, humanists - as exemplified by the Democrats (ics ?) in the US, Blair’s Labour in the UK, les Socialistes in France etc. and this coalition has broken down. The “unwashed masses” have jumped ship / been driven out of these mainstream left wing parties.
The consequences of this breakdown have been particularly remarkable in France. Throughout my lifetime, the Socialistes (center left) have been either the ruling or close second party in an essentially first past the post 2 party system. Since the last national elections, the Socialistes are down to 30 seats out of 577.
Looking at the last link from DemonTree it shows the lack of perspective that I noticed, stronger than the OP. Perhaps it is due to the differences between the left in America and the left in Europe. I still think that until it is noticed that looking at an Anarchist site about the Workers Solidarity Movement for perspective about what is the left in America is not very useful when it is coming from a fringe of a fringe. Hard IMHO to be useful about the in-fighting of the “left”. And once again, there is a lot, coming from the right wing media and the extreme left too, that tries to make that fringe of the fringe to be “the left” or an important part of the left in the USA.
IMHO the discussion going in the I am a proud middle of the roader and damn proud of it thread in Elections shows what is missing here, many of the ones that one would call from “the left” do consider themselves to be moderate middle of the road ones, disliking a lot of the purity tests that are out there. Of course, as many noted there, many of sources from the right and the extreme left have convinced many of their readers or viewers about how those moderates are “the left”.
I don’t know who you mean by leftists but it used to work pretty reliably with liberals as well and it is not nearly as effective as it used to be. It’s a combination of hyperbolic statements, “boy who cried wolf” and just getting sick of being called racist all the time.
I thought that was pretty emblematic of this generation’s melodramatic, self centered aggrandizement.
Global warming is an issue but it doesn’t have the urgency of thermo-nuclear war. It’s not the end of the world.
My generation will not be leaving the next generation a perfect world free from worry but when I was a kid:
We had a fairly credible threat of nuclear armageddon,
We had a river catch fire in ohio in my lifetime. it’s clean now.
The east river was so dirty that if you fell into the river, they took you to the hospital.
The air was so dirty you couldn’t see the top of the tallest skyscrapers in NYC and Los Angeles,
We had a hole in the ozone layer.
You didn’t have to engage in much mind-reading to find the racists and sexists, bigotry was MUCH more tangible and apparent than it is today,
Crime was much higher with murder rates twice where they are today and gun violence much much higher than today,
Homelessness was rampant,
South africa was practicing apartheid
These things are no longer the case due, in large part, to the efforts of previous generations.
I’m not sure I really want to drag this topic up again, but I’m interested in the opinion of in particular those who argued (for various reasons) that there’s no significant problem of infighting on the left that needs to be addressed about the ‘Letter on Justice and Open Debate’ simultaneously published in Harper’s Magazine, Le Monde, La Repubblica and Die Zeit. Its signatories affirm that:
While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. […] This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time.
This is close to the point I wanted to raise in the OP. Is the point raised in the letter valid, or is there in fact no such censoriousness? Or is there, but that’s a good thing?
Most criticism against the letter that I’ve been able to find (in my admittedly short bouts of googling during my lunch break) seems to be directed against the list of signatories—which spans the admittedly rather impressive gamut from Francis Fukuyama to J K Rowling to Noam Chomsky. This strikes me as a little ironic—would those complaining have agreed with the substance of the letter, had the pedigree of its endorsers been different?—but for the moment, I’d like to just leave out the discussion of whether its sources are appropriate, and rather concentrate on its content.
As one point, the letter comes on the heels of the call to the Linguistic Society of America to remove Steven Pinker (one of the signatories) from its list of distinguished academic fellows and media experts. I don’t know whether it should be seen as a direct reaction, but I think this demand is a good example of what I find problematic: it’s one thing to disagree with Pinker’s stances on whatever topics—and I have to say, I’ve found him problematic on occasion. But this sort of thing is not a constructive criticism of any kind; it’s a demand to remove what seems like a tainted connection.
Is this really a good sort of reaction to internal disagreement? Should we try to address this? Or is it, while maybe regrettable, perhaps inevitable, in order to set things right?
I think this illustrates a very valid critique of the left, especially the left-most among us. The intolerance of dissent and the dismissal of nuance. It’s less and less about having a conversation, and more about which view is most left-leaning that is assumed to be the most correct.
That letter is a giant (if long overdue–but better late than never) breath of fresh air. I hope it’s the beginning of a sustained effort to push back against the mobs of woke scolds and their “cancel culture”. Even if it is ultimately unsuccessful, at least a large group of prominent public intellectuals is actually trying to do something collectively, rather than just gently going into that good night, without so much as a whimper.
You have greater faith in the lunatic radicals than you should. I wouldn’t be surprised if several of the signers are going to be canceled, cancel each other, or walk back their support of freedom of speech since individual liberty is white supremacy.
There is some of that going on, but you’re in no position to act superior given that IIRC you support Trump and he just last week retweeted a video of someone shouting WHITE POWER.
Yeah, I’d vote for Trump over the crazies in the Democratic Party. Trump isn’t actually actively and literally looting and burning the cities. Again, freedom of expression is critical to a functioning democracy and the illiberal and violent left are doing their best to destroy that concept.
No, he’s just selling out our security to Putin, refusing to face the reality of the coronavirus, costing tens of thousands of lives, undermining essential governmental checks and balances, engaging in rampant corruption, trashing military heroes when “his Vietnam was VD”, peddling insane conspiracy theories, and just generally making a mockery of the presidency, which was formerly an august institution. Admittedly, Dubya chipped away a bit at the credibility of the office, but he looks like freaking Lincoln compared to the potty-mouthed toddler who (sometimes, when he’s not taking “executive time” watching Fox News and eating KFC) currently sits behind the Resolute Desk.
