Nothing matters more than the destruction of the information environment — the relentless pollution of knowledge and understanding that currently passes for political journalism.
Never heard of this guy, Matt Bai, probably because I don’t read the Washington Compost (or any major newspaper), but he seems to typify the journos of today: smug, glib, and vacuous. I read Bai’s piece that Chris attached, and it’s a worthless piece of garbage, venomous propaganda pretending to be clever commentary. Even without Chris’ careful dissection of this hit piece, it’s fairly obvious that Bai is making shit up and trying to slide it past the reader with his lame carnival barker routine.
Chris, keep exposing these frauds for the joke they are.
Your comment went over my head. Help me with this, what has changed in the last two decades that is a bad indicator? Addressing an ex president as president has been customary for my entire adult life.
I will admit I don't read much of it either, except by happenstance while "skimming" news. I don't know if that is wise, or informed, but it is sanity-preserving.
Chris is doing the hard work, subjecting himself to drivel blasts to the face, for the benefit of all.
I haven’t thought about a VP preference. To me, the most important aspect is who is best able (if called upon) to continue the Trump platform of freeing the economy, restricting government, no wars, confronting enemies, backing up “red” lines.
That narrows the field substantially. Who does the Deep State fear the most after DJT? It must be a strong populist, which also gives DJT an insurance that he won’t be JFKed. A strong VP does that and hopefully becomes the follow on… Let’s just hope Trump is smart enough to stay away from the likes of #NeverScott!
I agree on the “narrowing.” But it requires evaluating not just core beliefs, but also political skills to cajole Republican Congressional unity, e.g., I think Ramaswamy scores high on beliefs, but is an unknown on “cajoling.” Just my 2¢.
I’m not sure much cajoling is going to occur or is even beneficial. In the past, yes; now, I don’t think so. Case in point, look at Mike Johnson as Speaker. He was allowed to take the role because the Left knew he could be cajoled into being “fair” and listening to both sides. So he’s been railroaded into supporting harmful policies (more $ to Ukraine, etc). The time for that is passed if there’s any hope of salvaging what few rights we have left. Still, I pray you’re right, and I’m just being an alarmist!
The good news is that it is less effective, they have cried wolf too many times (in Aesops fable it took only 2 times before the villagers wised up, but our village people are special, it has taken over 2000 times).
Hopefully this means that this type of journalism will die very soon and something much better will grow in its place.
But it won't bounce back too fast because at journalism schools across the country, the teacher is holding Bais article and saying, "This is how it is done, people!"
Blood-red tie? Well, that's enough to hang him, right? We all know who had blood-red ties historically.
This is embarassing - the US media (and by extension western media) seem to be behaving like a boxer with major brain damage, going on and on about "I useda be champ, yanno?! I useda be champ! Imma gonna comeback ya see!", while unable to even walk.
But where the boxer is simply tragic, the media is unprintable.
This is what should happen: the Trump Look -- baggy black overcoat, overly lengthy red tie, baggy black suit -- needs to become a thing on the streets. A parody/homage that says "I am Trump and Trump is us." Like a red MAGA hat, but more stylish and subtle. Some famous rapper could make this happen. Can you imagine Mike Tyson dressed so?
The red tie thing is a throwback to corporate business here, therefore ev-er-ee-bod-ee does it. The lack of imagination gets on my last nerve. I don't know about men's neckwear in corporations overseas. I hope they have faired better.
Chris, thank you for such a graphic and cogent example of the garbage that tries to pass itself off as journalism in so-called "mainstream media" outlets like the WaPo. Matt Bai is the kind of writer who believes he has the right answers for anyone seeking to understand our political environment. Yet his unwillingness to cite examples to support his attacks on anything to the right of his far left biases demonstrate the emptiness of his rhetorical bullshit. He and so many like him are a huge problem for anyone wishing to gain an objective perspective on this world.
“Matt Bai…believes he has the right answers for anyone seeking to understand…”
I don’t see Bai’s writing as “answers” anymore than I did Hitler/Goebbels propaganda in the 20’s & 30’s. When a family complains about lack of food, and the “thought leaders” respond “It’s the Jews,” that’s no more an “answer” than is “blood red tie.”
Bai is not mistaken or misguided. You can’t omit all facts leaving only venom and it not be a conscious propaganda effort.
John, I like your comment, and I have a feeling you might be right and me: wrong, but I've met a few people in very high places - which would necessarily mean way above Bai - who often surprised me with some gold star venom, but without intentionally omitted facts, just omitted. I figured they were just aping the Bais types, but without knowing the Bais type's MO of omissions, or maybe just too pressed for time to dig up any actual facts to omit, but after a while I realized these friends and co-workers were vacuous boobs who just wanted to sound, or better yet be, world weary sophisticates and drink gin and tonics, and eventually that venom gets easier to find, facts be damned, when the bitterness sets in.
I agree completely. I see a difference between liberals who go about their workaday lives with a twisted, “feelings” based outlook, and culture warriors like Bai who go out of their way to formulate factless agitprop. The former are intellectually lazy or maybe stupid, but the latter are evil.
John, I agree 100%. Some of the latter are big time evil, and I am not a tough guy but I've butted heads with some after seeing them take advantage of somebody with no recourse - and again, I'm no tough guy but I was seeing red, so I stepped real close and talked real quiet, and (so far) I've been very surprised to find out what cowards they are.
A sad but accurate example of the drivel that passes for "journalism" today. Perhaps we should insert scare quotes around "journalism", as so many already choose to do with the term "expert".
re: "amygdala-hammering trigger words"-- yep, that's the thing. MSM always had its biases but it's really drowning in the toilet these days.
PS I fail to see how how a beard is necessarily a "woodman's" and also "ultra-trendy." That's just, whuuuut? Maybe a bald pate is "an astrophysicist's" and also "vintage," I dunno. What world are we in this week?
Propaganda used to just be about facts (omitting truth or inventing lies), but now it’s about telling us how to “feel.” But that’s to be expected from a group that sees life through “feelings” and “my truth.”
I have had enough of this deranged thinking during covid, I thought it was bad before but it reached a new peak, the hysterical sound bites of the media leave me cold. You can just imagine him mining his brain and his thesaurus for the most inflammatory words he can think of and then trying to fit them into his hysterical sounding hit piece.
Bai’s piece was hard to read. The contemptuous snarkyness was dripping from each sentence and running down the page and pooling up at my feet. It was a nasty experience. What did Vance and Trump do to him? Why the loathing? Did one of them question his core values?
Well, I don't doubt that Bai's readers lap it up, and he wants the clicks and views.
My pre-covid social circles included a lot of people whom I would now call Kool-Aid drinkers, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were reading Bai. They seem normal when you talk to them about their vacation, say, but then all of a sudden they start spewing some very weird nonsensical stuff, and they all say the same things, as if they've been programmed. It's quite eerie.
Talk about wanting to be Tik Tok famous....https://www.mattbai.com/. This dude is thirsty for his fifteen seconds of fame to never end. It is amazing the kind of garbage published by major news outlets today. Just awful.
It's hard to get past the article when it says: I didn't read his book like 90% of the people I know, but trust me, it's horrible and it's more proof he's a monster.
Chris, propaganda, disguised as a news organization, is horrible, but it is not the worst thing. the worst thing is the growth of government now infecting more and more of our life. most "journalists" are mere propaganda arms of our government. Government undermines the authority of parents, mutilates our children, funds never ending wars, enables millions of people to cross our borders illegally, taxes the least of us by printing money, increasing the cost of necessary items like food, housing, and gas. They have turned our courts to weapons against their political opposition, they have outsourced a massive bureaucracy to most large companies who are the enforcement arm of the government. and don't get me started on the government and ourmmedical industry.
Lol I’m glad you bring these things up and explain.
I took an English class 20 years ago and our teacher gave us an assignment: Pull out the paper we just wrote and circle the statements and arguments, and then underline the facts and reasoning. An adequate paper is evenly balanced. A good paper has 2 or more underlines for each circle.
When we were all finished, you could see for yourself how well you did. You couldn’t hide it with fancy words and bullshit. A good argument has to have enough reasons to support the statements and conclusions, before you can even start to judge the quality of either one.
It’s been helpful over years when reading articles like this. Like you said, this one would have lots of circles but few underlines. He should have gone to a basic rural junior college like me, he could have learned a thing or two.
Never heard of this guy, Matt Bai, probably because I don’t read the Washington Compost (or any major newspaper), but he seems to typify the journos of today: smug, glib, and vacuous. I read Bai’s piece that Chris attached, and it’s a worthless piece of garbage, venomous propaganda pretending to be clever commentary. Even without Chris’ careful dissection of this hit piece, it’s fairly obvious that Bai is making shit up and trying to slide it past the reader with his lame carnival barker routine.
Chris, keep exposing these frauds for the joke they are.
Bai also clearly has beard envy.
Your comment went over my head. Help me with this, what has changed in the last two decades that is a bad indicator? Addressing an ex president as president has been customary for my entire adult life.
I will admit I don't read much of it either, except by happenstance while "skimming" news. I don't know if that is wise, or informed, but it is sanity-preserving.
Chris is doing the hard work, subjecting himself to drivel blasts to the face, for the benefit of all.
in fact, I should have put news in quotes, not skimming!
I like “Washington Compost”. How about “New York Birdcage Liner”?
New York Whines.
All of which indicates how worried they are that populist Vance will be chosen as VP! (He sure gets my vote #VPVance!)
It's clearly about that exact thing -- information ops to get ahead of the next news cycle. Ditto the shit about Alito.
I haven’t thought about a VP preference. To me, the most important aspect is who is best able (if called upon) to continue the Trump platform of freeing the economy, restricting government, no wars, confronting enemies, backing up “red” lines.
That narrows the field substantially. Who does the Deep State fear the most after DJT? It must be a strong populist, which also gives DJT an insurance that he won’t be JFKed. A strong VP does that and hopefully becomes the follow on… Let’s just hope Trump is smart enough to stay away from the likes of #NeverScott!
I agree on the “narrowing.” But it requires evaluating not just core beliefs, but also political skills to cajole Republican Congressional unity, e.g., I think Ramaswamy scores high on beliefs, but is an unknown on “cajoling.” Just my 2¢.
I’m not sure much cajoling is going to occur or is even beneficial. In the past, yes; now, I don’t think so. Case in point, look at Mike Johnson as Speaker. He was allowed to take the role because the Left knew he could be cajoled into being “fair” and listening to both sides. So he’s been railroaded into supporting harmful policies (more $ to Ukraine, etc). The time for that is passed if there’s any hope of salvaging what few rights we have left. Still, I pray you’re right, and I’m just being an alarmist!
Byron Donalds out of FL could be a good pick. Though I’ve read the VP must be from a different state.
He would be better than a lot of the others. State residence is easily changed.
For example Cheney changed his residence from Texas to Wyoming so he could run with Bush.
I've generally liked Bai's Yahoo and NYT Mag articles but he's textbook for "4 fingers pointing back at you"
The good news is that it is less effective, they have cried wolf too many times (in Aesops fable it took only 2 times before the villagers wised up, but our village people are special, it has taken over 2000 times).
Hopefully this means that this type of journalism will die very soon and something much better will grow in its place.
But it won't bounce back too fast because at journalism schools across the country, the teacher is holding Bais article and saying, "This is how it is done, people!"
Ask a journalism student what the 4 W's are:
"whatev, whatev, whatev, whatev"
Wacist! Wacist! Wacist! Waaaah!!!!
I like your w better (I even broke out the thesaurus to see if I could find something better than Whatev,) You win.
Switch the vowels, you got what he actually is: Bias. He can't escape his name showing what he is.
Brilliant! Great catch!
To be fair, it *is* an opinion piece.
Accuse your enemy of what you are doing. ( Or who you really are). They do it constantly.
Projection.
Blood-red tie? Well, that's enough to hang him, right? We all know who had blood-red ties historically.
This is embarassing - the US media (and by extension western media) seem to be behaving like a boxer with major brain damage, going on and on about "I useda be champ, yanno?! I useda be champ! Imma gonna comeback ya see!", while unable to even walk.
But where the boxer is simply tragic, the media is unprintable.
The BLOOD RED tie line was agit-prop at its most banal. LCD mindwash.
Sadder, it works. O my God people his belt is black he's GOT A GUN.
Plus, like Biden, the media has lost control of it bowels.
It's amazing how much time the media spent talking about the red ties on Trump's supporters at the trial.
It proves how little the press knows about corporate business.
But, look how much they know about wardrobe
This is what should happen: the Trump Look -- baggy black overcoat, overly lengthy red tie, baggy black suit -- needs to become a thing on the streets. A parody/homage that says "I am Trump and Trump is us." Like a red MAGA hat, but more stylish and subtle. Some famous rapper could make this happen. Can you imagine Mike Tyson dressed so?
The red tie thing is a throwback to corporate business here, therefore ev-er-ee-bod-ee does it. The lack of imagination gets on my last nerve. I don't know about men's neckwear in corporations overseas. I hope they have faired better.
Chris, thank you for such a graphic and cogent example of the garbage that tries to pass itself off as journalism in so-called "mainstream media" outlets like the WaPo. Matt Bai is the kind of writer who believes he has the right answers for anyone seeking to understand our political environment. Yet his unwillingness to cite examples to support his attacks on anything to the right of his far left biases demonstrate the emptiness of his rhetorical bullshit. He and so many like him are a huge problem for anyone wishing to gain an objective perspective on this world.
“Matt Bai…believes he has the right answers for anyone seeking to understand…”
I don’t see Bai’s writing as “answers” anymore than I did Hitler/Goebbels propaganda in the 20’s & 30’s. When a family complains about lack of food, and the “thought leaders” respond “It’s the Jews,” that’s no more an “answer” than is “blood red tie.”
Bai is not mistaken or misguided. You can’t omit all facts leaving only venom and it not be a conscious propaganda effort.
John, I like your comment, and I have a feeling you might be right and me: wrong, but I've met a few people in very high places - which would necessarily mean way above Bai - who often surprised me with some gold star venom, but without intentionally omitted facts, just omitted. I figured they were just aping the Bais types, but without knowing the Bais type's MO of omissions, or maybe just too pressed for time to dig up any actual facts to omit, but after a while I realized these friends and co-workers were vacuous boobs who just wanted to sound, or better yet be, world weary sophisticates and drink gin and tonics, and eventually that venom gets easier to find, facts be damned, when the bitterness sets in.
I agree completely. I see a difference between liberals who go about their workaday lives with a twisted, “feelings” based outlook, and culture warriors like Bai who go out of their way to formulate factless agitprop. The former are intellectually lazy or maybe stupid, but the latter are evil.
John, I agree 100%. Some of the latter are big time evil, and I am not a tough guy but I've butted heads with some after seeing them take advantage of somebody with no recourse - and again, I'm no tough guy but I was seeing red, so I stepped real close and talked real quiet, and (so far) I've been very surprised to find out what cowards they are.
Utter cowards – 🎯 Apparently “feelings” can activate the mouth, but not the cojones…
Your response contradicts itself John.
Please enlighten me.
A sad but accurate example of the drivel that passes for "journalism" today. Perhaps we should insert scare quotes around "journalism", as so many already choose to do with the term "expert".
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_serving.htm
I haven't heard that in sooo long! Thank-you for that quote!
re: "amygdala-hammering trigger words"-- yep, that's the thing. MSM always had its biases but it's really drowning in the toilet these days.
PS I fail to see how how a beard is necessarily a "woodman's" and also "ultra-trendy." That's just, whuuuut? Maybe a bald pate is "an astrophysicist's" and also "vintage," I dunno. What world are we in this week?
Propaganda used to just be about facts (omitting truth or inventing lies), but now it’s about telling us how to “feel.” But that’s to be expected from a group that sees life through “feelings” and “my truth.”
I have had enough of this deranged thinking during covid, I thought it was bad before but it reached a new peak, the hysterical sound bites of the media leave me cold. You can just imagine him mining his brain and his thesaurus for the most inflammatory words he can think of and then trying to fit them into his hysterical sounding hit piece.
Covid and especially the Covid jabs can have neurological effects, but I suspect Bai's impairment was pre-existing.
And we have 5-1/2 months to go. Double check your seatbelts… And when Trump wins, Katy bar the door.
I agree about "bar the door," but they're not going to let that happen. That's why they're registering all the illegals to vote.
Bai’s piece was hard to read. The contemptuous snarkyness was dripping from each sentence and running down the page and pooling up at my feet. It was a nasty experience. What did Vance and Trump do to him? Why the loathing? Did one of them question his core values?
Well, I don't doubt that Bai's readers lap it up, and he wants the clicks and views.
My pre-covid social circles included a lot of people whom I would now call Kool-Aid drinkers, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were reading Bai. They seem normal when you talk to them about their vacation, say, but then all of a sudden they start spewing some very weird nonsensical stuff, and they all say the same things, as if they've been programmed. It's quite eerie.
Programmed indeed.
Self assembling hydrogels?
Soulless POS 💩
Completely.
Not to mention that Mikey has admitted embezzling a cool $30K from the Trump organization.
Talk about wanting to be Tik Tok famous....https://www.mattbai.com/. This dude is thirsty for his fifteen seconds of fame to never end. It is amazing the kind of garbage published by major news outlets today. Just awful.
What struck me in Bai's column: "Our media is too damaged and fragmented to make anyone accountable for their lies."
How did that happen, Mr. Bai?
It's hard to get past the article when it says: I didn't read his book like 90% of the people I know, but trust me, it's horrible and it's more proof he's a monster.
Yes. His book is VERY VERY BAD, and also, I didn't read it.
I read Hillbilly Elegy & liked it. Touching & inspiring. Also saw & recommend the movie.
Chris, propaganda, disguised as a news organization, is horrible, but it is not the worst thing. the worst thing is the growth of government now infecting more and more of our life. most "journalists" are mere propaganda arms of our government. Government undermines the authority of parents, mutilates our children, funds never ending wars, enables millions of people to cross our borders illegally, taxes the least of us by printing money, increasing the cost of necessary items like food, housing, and gas. They have turned our courts to weapons against their political opposition, they have outsourced a massive bureaucracy to most large companies who are the enforcement arm of the government. and don't get me started on the government and ourmmedical industry.
It's really hard to watch in super slow-mo knowing exactly how it ends with the Left.
This why they are trying to rewrite history so they can try doing the same thing in the past that didn't work.
Unfortunately the end stage of Leftist parties ends with violence.
Lol I’m glad you bring these things up and explain.
I took an English class 20 years ago and our teacher gave us an assignment: Pull out the paper we just wrote and circle the statements and arguments, and then underline the facts and reasoning. An adequate paper is evenly balanced. A good paper has 2 or more underlines for each circle.
When we were all finished, you could see for yourself how well you did. You couldn’t hide it with fancy words and bullshit. A good argument has to have enough reasons to support the statements and conclusions, before you can even start to judge the quality of either one.
It’s been helpful over years when reading articles like this. Like you said, this one would have lots of circles but few underlines. He should have gone to a basic rural junior college like me, he could have learned a thing or two.
There's a lot of actual teaching going on in basic rural junior colleges.