You didn’t answer my question (why not?), but I’ll answer yours: no, I’m saying that they can and should report on really awful things that prominent people say, but they shouldn’t accept garbage from prominent people to publish. If you can’t see this difference, then our understanding of how the world works is so far apart, at least on this issue, that there’s no possibility of understanding here.
It seems to me that most of us agree that Duke and Cotton deserve to have their ideologies exposed for all to see. Your objection is, if I understand it, is in what section of the paper that ideology is expressed.
My objection is under what banner that ideology is expressed. “We’re publishing this garbage writing” is very different from “we’re reporting on this garbage this guy said”.
Yes, and I agreed with you. Weird world isn’t it?
Not a joke. Before I answer any of your loaded questions, you need to answer mine first.
The first two paragraphs of your post were well thought out analysis. I responded to that with agreement and encouragement.
The rest was a bunch of partisan drivel. I dismissed that flippantly.
You’ve shown that you can take such discussions seriously, without bad faith implications. Why not just do that with your whole post next time?
I don’t know that I can agree with your conclusion here. If this had been an article meant only for republican consumption, if it had been published on Brietbart or Fox, should the NYT’s have not reported on it?
Cotton handed the NYT a look inside the head of a racist authoritarian. I for one, found the article to do more good by exposing these thought processes than the damage done by the possibility that someone will be swayed to have these opinions because the NYT validated them by publishing them.
Of course they should – I thought my language on that was clear. I think they should report on the awful things prominent people say. I don’t think they should publish garbage, no matter who writes it. But reporting on the garbage someone says is different than publishing garbage written by that person.
Well, not a great joke. And what question? I thought I answered them all. If you have a question, just ask the question. “Cute” doesn’t become you.
You dismissed my partisan drivel? Flippantly?
I feel for you, k9. Imagine being as liberal as you are with an inner monologue narrated by George Will.
The thing is, though, that these two situations aren’t the same thing. Senator Cotton, whatever you might think of him, is not fringe. David Duke most certainly is. Cotton is mainstream, and so are the opinions he is putting forth here. They might be wrong, but these are certainly arguments that can be debated in good faith–unlike those of David Duke.
Again, it came down to a legitimate editorial decision, and if those editors are now backpedaling under pressure from their subscribers, their original decision still stands. And again, I really do support their original decision.
Okay, that’s a real difference. I think it’s okay they reached out to Cotton – but what he wrote was garbage on the facts, and the NYT should have higher standards. They shouldn’t accept writing that’s garbage on the facts, no matter who writes it.
You’ve made some excellent points. I certainly don’t agree with what Cotton has written.
Sigh . . . look at it this way: This is exactly the kind of thing we’re going to be facing and hearing from now until November. If we take what Senator Cotton has written along with everything else in the Republican playbook and come up with some sort of battle plan, we might have a real shot at beating Trump this time. It’s going to be a very hard fight, but Cotton might have done us the favor of the year.
What you persistently fail to appreciate is that 58% of registered voters agree with Tom Cotton’s opinion! There’s no danger of his opinion being “normalized” or whatever. It’s already normal. If anything, you’re in the minority.
If any of Alex Jones’s batshit opinions were shared by 58% of the country, then fuck yes I’d want the Times to give him an Op-Ed. Why? Because I’d want to see the arguments for that opinion presented in their strongest possible terms by their most ardent defender. Why? Because that’s the best way to understand an opinion well enough to argue against it.
I don’t want Tom Cotton’s opinion to be brushed under the carpet like it doesn’t exist. For one thing, that gives the impression it’s a fringe opinion that’s only held by a handful of nutcases. That impression is false. Tom Cotton’s opinion is a popular opinion held by tens of millions of people, and everyone in America deserves to know that. Now they do.
I also don’t want some New York Times journalist to report on Tom Cotton’s opinion. I don’t want them building articles round his tweets or snippets of his speeches or whatever. I want him to express it himself, in his own words, using whatever evidence he finds most persuasive. Why? Two reasons. Firstly, I don’t trust the Times not to fuck it up. Secondly, because it leaves Cotton and his supporters with no wriggle room. Because the Times let Cotton express his opinion in his own words, when I argue against it, no-one can accuse me of strawmanning him, or twisting his words, or any other form of misrepresentation. That’s valuable. That’s something I couldn’t get if the Times just ran some article about Cotton’s opinion.
I see this as a reasonable disagreement in opinion. I don’t love that they published his piece, but I do consider it newsworthy, and I do not think that they left it unchallenged.
I did get around to reading the rebuttal editorial (my last free article for the month), and I found it quite enlightening and entertaining. It is not an article that could have been written without the context of Cotton’s piece.
The rebuttal alone was worth publishing Cotton’s manifesto, IMHO.
You asked “stay in the echo chamber. Beats thinking, right?” a loaded question. Those paragraphs were you just asserting things to be true and making aspersions as to the motivations and inteltectual capabilities of your interlocutors.
To which, I ask, why do you hate manson1972’s liver? As it is as fair an evaluation of your positions, and as fair a question as those you pose.
All Liver’s Matter!
And I can imagine being as conservative as you, pretending to be a liberal and just making sure that you are policing our language enough that we will not offend someone and make them vote for Trump.
They are, as some have said, opinions that are shared with a number of Americans. Most of those Americans have not really thought through their opinions, and exposing the though process that is behind them may help some Americans re-evaluate their positions.
No one will be converted to Cotton’s side by the piece. Some few people may be converted to ours.
I agree. I don’t think that it was the editorial board that second guessed the inclusion of Cotton’s piece, but the PR branch of the NYT.
A distinction without a difference, IMO, unless and until NYT endorses their opinion.
Answering the question I believe you wanted me to answer earlier:
I believe that if David Duke had anything worthwhile (new?) to say or was saying it as a candidate running for public office, then I would not object to the NYT printing his Op-Ed.
Given there was non-stop coverage of any act of looting or violence even vaguely associated with the protests, the numbers were understandable. As things have calmed down, the same pollster, Morning Consult, repolled the question on Friday, and the numbers are now 42% in favor, 48% opposed. Doesn’t look like Sen. Cotton’s view is the majority opinion any longer.
And no, in my opinion we don’t need op-eds from wannabe fascists even if they are U.S. Senators.
Because that’s how it has always worked, and that’s the entire point of doing so. And it’s worked very effectively to drag the nation rightwards.
The problem with the argument that “They can publish what the right wing extremists say and then the rightists will be discredited when everyone takes it apart” is the second half* doesn’t happen.*
So it’s no longer a majority opinion. If 42% (or 22%) of the public believes a given opinion about a major issue, there ought to be at least one NYT op-ed expressing that opinion IMO. No matter how benighted that opinion may be.
Sick burn!
Yes, this is exactly what’s happening. They believe the NYT and other mainstream outlets should operate like The Nation or Slate: featuring only progressive op-eds. That’s not the way traditional mainstream newspapers have operated, even if they obviously tilt left; and I would consider it a real shame if that changed.
ETA: What happened at Vox?
Right, because when I think of fascist right-wing dictatorships, I think of the free exchange and discussion of ideas. We all know how the Nazis and Mussolini’s fascisti suppressed dissent by . . . free debate, I guess.
Jesus, Trihs, it happens all the time! It’s happened throughout history. Let’s just take the US as an example. I mean, how far back do you want to go? Are you telling me Thomas Paine’s writing didn’t have an influence on the Revolution? What about the writings of abolitionists? The other day, I heard a black writer referred to as a “Tom,” so I guess Harriet Beecher Stowe’s writing made a difference, didn’t she? People don’t agree or disagree with what they read and form intellectual and political opinions? Really?
Susan B. Anthony’s writings didn’t make a difference? Do you know nothing about the intellectual revolution of the 1920s? Whittaker Chambers? Shit, let’s just skip the writings of the civil rights movement and talk about today. I don’t know how much you read, Trihs, but you should check out modern African-American literature. These works are on the cusp, the very forefront, of modern intellectual debate, and people are discussing them, dissecting them, and forming viewpoints of them as we speak! Well . . . maybe not “as we speak.” It’s kind of early in the morning, but still . . .
You have been posting this shit since you signed on 15 years ago. You “know” that right-wingers are never discredited by having their voices heard in the same way that you “know” that most religious people want to kill you for being an atheist. You “know” that posting a conservative viewpoint in a major news outlet will lead to right-wing extremism in the same way that an 80-year-old grandmother “knows” that the teenager who smokes a joint in his bedroom is totally going to snap and rage-murder his whole family with a chainsaw. The things you know just aren’t true. As in, they’re demonstrably not true.
You need to change the record in your head.
What’s that line of Sartre’s? “If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Is it the position of fellow progressives participating in or following this conversation that it is not enough to oppose “garbage” ideology with robust debate using well reasoned liberal/progressive arguments, but that news outlets that ostensibly promote liberal values of free press, must act to suppress views/opinions that don’t align with progressive values?
This liberal doesn’t think so. The Times was right to print that garbage of a piece, and shouldn’t have apologized for doing so. Unlike, say, a monthly magazine, they can print a rebuttal piece the next day — in the online version, just minutes later!
For another example, see today’s Bret Stephens op-Ed, which starts out fine but then posits that Hillary would have screwed up the coronavirus response just as badly.
In sum, the “newspaper of record” should include documentation of wrongheaded opinions that reflect a segment of US society that must be dealt with, whether we like it or not.
I’m wondering, what is the source/cause of this newly emerging progressive protectionism, particularly from what appear to be relatively younger (Gen X & Y) progressives.
Note: this is not meant as gratuitous slam against Gen-X/Y populations. Anecdotally, that is not reflected in the views of my own kids and their friends. So, if my generational generalization is too broad, I’m happy to retract it and focus on the observed phenomenon itself.