A Potemkin Culture of Word-Shaped Noises

Read this, with an eye toward the use of evidence. It’s not challenging, is how I’ll put this, polite person that I am. It’ll take you less than a minute to zip through it.

In the New York Times, alleged to be the nation’s newspaper of record, the retired US Army General Stanley McChrystal says that Kamala Harris has the character to serve as President of the United States, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the character to serve as President of the United States. This is very important, see, because a very senior military officer is writing in a very important newspaper about a consequential national choice. Draw near, America, as the wisdom of the elders lights our path.

So, then: What examples did he give to reveal his view of either person’s character? What story did he tell? What evidence did he use?

Let’s unpack a couple of paragraphs:

As a citizen, veteran and voter, I was not comfortable with many of the policy recommendations that Democrats offered at their convention in Chicago or those Republicans articulated in Milwaukee. My views tend more toward the center of the political spectrum. And although I have opinions on high-profile issues, like abortion, gun safety and immigration, that’s not why I made my decision.

Political narratives and policies matter, but they didn’t govern my choice. I find it easy to be attracted to, or repelled by, proposals on taxes, education and countless other issues. But I believe that events and geopolitical and economic forces will, like strong tides, move policymakers where they ultimately must go. In practice, few administrations travel the course they campaigned on. Circumstances change. Our president, therefore, must be more than a policymaker or a malleable reflection of the public’s passions. She or he must lead — and that takes character.

The first paragraph says that McChrystal has views. He has many of them. He lists some of the topics upon which he has views, but then he doesn’t say what any of those views are. Then he says that the views he has just not described — the things he mentioned but took a full paragraph not saying anything about them — don’t have anything to do with the decision he says he’s announcing. What is the purpose of this paragraph? What does it tell you?

With those questions in mind, look again at the second paragraph. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?

I used to grade undergraduate essays, an experience that caused lasting harm to my liver and probably my marriage. This is the writing style of the student who shows up to class for the first time on the day of the midterm, facing an empty page that must be filled with words. In the nineteenth century, in the United States, many events occurred. The events were of great importance. For example, some of the events were political events, and some of the events were cultural or economic events. The events occurred at various times and in many locations, such as in Congress and on battlefields, and involved a diverse array of people, including political leaders, native peoples, military leaders, and ordinary people. A lot of things that happened were very racist. These events reverberate still today.

This is the news. I read “news” all day, every day, except when I can’t take it anymore and I flee to the mountains. Or, to say it like an undergraduate, until I flea to the mountains. I constantly find myself thinking that I just spent hours and hours reading nothing.

Billionaire doesn’t have sex with politician, updates to follow. “Local Substack writer denies long weekend in Vegas hotel with Sydney Sweeney,” by the way.

McChrystal, building to his big finish:

Ms. Harris has the strength, the temperament and, importantly, the values to serve as commander in chief. When she sits down with world leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, representing the United States on the global stage, I have no doubt that she is working in our national interest, not her own.

He hasn’t described her strength, he hasn’t described her temperament, and he hasn’t described her values. He hasn’t described the national interest. He hasn’t described anything. He hasn’t said anything. No, but literally: nothing.

The purpose of a political op-ed from a former military leader — and the purpose of the New York Times — is to create a series of impressions, cognitive trail markers that point you this way or that way because a headline has given you a nudge. They could fill the page under the headline with random syllables or pictures of kittens. It wouldn’t matter. The purpose is a headline shaped like an arrow: GO THAT WAY. And so they’ve published an essay from a military leader, a category of honor and strength, while excluding from the frame the reality that the military leader in question was fired for behavior that the person at the top of his chain of command regarded as dishonorable.

Character matters, says leader relieved of command and forced into retirement.

But anyway, details unimportant. Former general says to vote for Kamala Harris, nudge nudge.

Empty. Meaningless.