The decline
I had trouble sleeping last night. My mind kept turning over the debate – a debate I didn’t watch, but read enough about to know I was right to not watch it. And even unwatched, it disturbed my sleep.
That’s not just because Trump apparently didn’t do well – although I’m not even sure anyone knows how it went over with the voters who still are undecided (if any exist). I’m talking about the whole debate debacle, and more.
By “debacle” I mean the decline in the level of public discourse. And by that, I don’t just mean name-calling or even primarily name-calling (or even things like this from a Stanford law professor). I mean “all of the above” – the extreme bias of the MSM, the lies that are not challenged, the outrages that go unpunished and are even sometimes rewarded (example: Russiagate), and a decline I see in our general culture and society.
Yes, I’m an old curmudgeon. But that’s what I see.
It used to be that presidential candidates had dignified public personae. It was pretty much required. Whatever those people were like in private (and now we know that some were notoriously ill-behaved in private, for example LBJ), they knew that in public they had to meet certain standards or the public would reject them. I put that last bit in italics because I think it’s the most important reason candidates reined themselves in, at least when in the public eye, at least in the historic times of which I was a witness in my youth.
I’m not blaming Trump or Biden for that decline. The decline is in society at large, and I think it started in the late 60s. I was in college then, and I remember it well. It was surprisingly sudden. I started out in a world of rules and curfews and dress and behavior requirements, and then they were almost entirely gone by the time I emerged at the other end. It wasn’t just at school, either. Adults who had never uttered an expletive in public were suddenly eff-this and eff-that.
I’m not going to bother to analyze why it happened, certainly not in this rather brief post. But that, plus the change in the role of the MSM which happened at around the same time, is what I think has led us inexorably to where we are today. I chronicled that media turning point in a 2-part post about Walter Cronkite (see this and this). From that first link:
Previously the top brass at CBS, as well as the reporters there, had understood their function to be reporting “the facts, just the facts.” Editorializing was kept strictly separate; at CBS, it was a function of Eric Sevareid, and clearly labeled as such.
The president of CBS news, Dick Salant, was a man of almost fanatical devotion to the principles of non-editorializing journalism, according to Cronkite’s interview. Cronkite said that, till Tet, he “almost wouldn’t let us put an adjective in a sentence” when reporting, he’d been such a stickler for “just the facts.”
But, according to Cronkite, as the Vietnamese War had worn on, and because of the confusion of the American people about the war, reflected in letters to the station, Salant sent Cronkite on a trip to Vietnam with the idea of doing a piece of opinion journalism when he came back, in order to help the American people “understand” what was going on by explicitly editorializing and advising them.
One can speculate long and hard about why Salant decided it was time to make such a drastic change. From Cronkite’s interview, it appears that the brass at CBS was part of the turmoil of the 60s with its “question authority” ethos.
It’s not just that people with Salant’s original attitude were eventually replaced, although they were. It’s that rather suddenly, people like Salant changed their minds on the function of news. And it’s no accident that it happened during the late 60s, along with the rest of what I’ve described.
Neo says, “It used to be that presidential candidates had dignified public personae.”
The same was true of political ads. Here is the colorized version of the first paid TV political ad, for Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign. Note that it was paid for by “Citizens for Eisenhower,” not “The Republican Party.” The last line of the voiceover is simply “Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the aid of their country”– again, not “the aid of their party.” Even the swipes at “Harry,” “Adlai,” and the other Democrats are good-humored by today’s standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3SOrYf1_ng&ab_channel=Inter-Path%C3%A9History
It is very discouraging. Like Neo, I remember when women who were “ladies” would never have used the kind of language they do now, nor be expected to listen to it.
With respect, Neo, I think you are misdiagnosing the problem.
The public has long had a great tolerance for bad behavior from elites. Go read some of the insults and smears thrown about during the Founding Fathers’ era. Look at how many 60’s radicals have been welcomed back to the mainstream with little or no apology or retraction of their previous extremism.
Elite behavior and attitudes are governed primarily by other elites. That’s where the breakdown occurred and the breaking point happened in 1992. After losing five of six Presidential elections and with the removal of the external threat of communism, the American elite decided to elevate a man caught flagrantly violating one of the most well-established norms in U.S. public life, then stood by that man as he continued to trash one norm after another. And it continues almost 30 years later with this man still being granted a place of honor.
Yet while elites exempted themselves from more and more standards, they expected and even demanded the rest of us still abide by them no matter how much pain and misery that entailed.
The current crisis is that only one side of our country has finally rejected that bad deal. The other side is still clinging to it.
Mike
Who are you talking about, Mike?
Mike is too clever by half, just can’t bring himself to be direct when he can embellish.
For Gerard: Something is wrong with your website; I keep getting an error message that it “refuses to connect.”
I used to be mystified as to how an reputedly civilized and cultured country like Germany in the 1930s could turn to Hitler and to Nazi ideology, or how college students in the “King and Country Debate” at the Oxford Union Society in 1933 could vote 275 to 153 in favor of the proposition that, “This House Will Under No Circumstances Fight for It’s King and Country.”
But now, having lived through the last several decades, I’m starting to realize how such an unlikely and seemingly impossible cultural and political change can take place, and take place rather rapidly.
I think that the way to think about this massive change in much of the public’s mind-set and behavior is to look at it as a “phase change” phenomenon.
One in which various events—major emblematic things like the Vietnam War, Woodstock, say, all the phenomena you could lump together under the rubric of the 60’s–when added to the subversive undermining and replacement successes of Gramsci’s “Long March Through the Institutions/Culture” precipitated, and started a rather sudden change resulting in a new phase of being, which is shocking and bizarre when compared to what had formerly been.
Good debate moderators are hard to find among the corrupt MSM.
Calling Joe Rogan: report for duty, stat.
From my knowledge of History, I can’t help but come circling around to the same thoughts–first, that “civilization” is a fragile and precarious thing.
Next, that the lot of the vast majority of humans–say, 99.9999999% of human beings during the six or so thousand years of recorded history, and for untold hundreds of thousands of the preceding years there were recognizable humans–was one of unending toil, poverty, cold, disease, starvation, domination, plunder, and early death.
That, in contrast–due to the arduous efforts of our forefather’s some four hundred years of sacrifice, work, struggle, ingenuity, and luck–we here in the United States have arrived at the top of the pyramid, are living in the country and at a time that offers the greatest freedom, prosperity, opportunity, health, safety, and material well being ever offered by any system of government in the history of the world.
And, yet, more and more of our citizens–ignorant of, or despising of their supreme good fortune in living in the United States at this particular time in history–are hell bent on trying to bring it all, our Republic, crashing down, thus shoving us all back down into the violence, chaos, muck, and misery that is the usual lot of us human beings throughout history.
“Who are you talking about, Mike?“
Is that a serious question?
Mike
Snow on Pine: For me, it was really revelatory to hear about a headmistress at a girls’ school, talking to her pupils, in 1917: “You must prepare to make your own way in the world. The men you would marry have died in the war.” The headmistress was correct. One in ten of that class of girls married. There was a whole subculture in England of such women.
The effect that had on British culture was enormous. In 1914, the British Empire was at the peak of its power. In Great Britain, industrialization was making everyone wealthier–more wealth had been created in 40 years than in the entire history of the kingdom.
Four years later a generation was dead and the country was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Some of the war debts were not paid until the 21st century. And the Empire was visibly beginning to fall apart.
There were a whole lot of people who thought “King and Country” were a bunch of incompetent fools who sacrificed other people’s sons for stupid reasons. And back in those days, people didn’t have the example of history of socialist failure. Remember, in the early days of the FDR administration, the Brain Trust couldn’t decide who they admired more: Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini. All socialists who took power standing on the bodies of different flavor socialists.
PA cat. My server at the host is not responding well and the Hosting Matters staff has been after it. Nothing I can do on this end.
Yes, Mike, that is a serious question. There’s no “who” in what you wrote.
I.E. ” American elite decided to elevate a man caught flagrantly violating one of the most well-established norms in U.S. public life, then stood by that man as he continued to trash one norm after another. And it continues almost 30 years later with this man still being granted a place of honor.”
Who is “this man”?
Why be civil to people you would rather were dead, assume have no inherent right to life or liberty, and hope to see dead soon?
For Gerard–
Your site seems to be okay now. Thanks for responding so quickly.
Mike just can’t bring himself to be direct when he can embellish or not respond to a serious question from a serious person.
Does “who” have a name?
Gerard vanderleun: My guess is MBunge is talking about Bill Clinton, though I’m not convinced Clinton is anything more than another data point.
My reading is similar to neo’s. Yes, I know the US has a fractious history when it comes to politics — like Rep. Brooks who almost caned Sen. Sumner to death in 1856. However, in our lifetimes, say from 1960 on, we have seen a steady decline of political discourse in candidate debates and in talking-heads shows, which is regrettable.
huxley:
Well that may be who Mike was talking about, but more to the point is why Mike won’t just respect a serious person’s question? Beneath him?
The TDS is worse that Bush Derangement Syndrome, as Chuck Schumer has stated everything is off the table; whatever it takes. Civility is the tool of oppression (don’t look when we clock you with a Louisville Slugger (or the aluminum version)). Because “justice” for whoever.
om: I’ve had my run-ins with MBunge and I have my theories about him (as I assume he of me) and I prefer to refrain from speculation.
Apparently Joe Biden, or his campaign staff, put up a tweet falsely claiming that Trump “failed to condemn white supremacists” last night, accompanied by a photo of Kyle Rittenhouse defending himself in Kenosha. Lin Wood, Rittenhouse’s attorney, has sent the Biden campaign a formal demand to retract the tweet and apologize, or face a lawsuit.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/390571.php
Leftists can say anything they want with impunity, they think.
“Leftists can say anything they want with impunity, they think.” – Kate
That’s what CNN and WaPo thought.
Nick Sandmann begs to differ.
Lin Wood is his lawyer.
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/07/24/nick-sandmann-just-won-another-big-settlement-from-a-news-outlet/
Neo,
I’ve watched debates since the 1980’s and even though there was turmoil from the 1960’s that changed America they were never reflected in the participation of presidential candidates in the debates. Reagan / Mondale, Bush / Dukakis, Bush / Clinton, Clinton / Dole, all the way to Obama / Romney the debates were fairly normal. Even Trump / Clinton was somewhat normal. Last night’s debate was Trump deciding to drop a bomb on the whole process. I guess some people are fine with that but it’s not society or the media’s deciding what is news that made Trump debate this way. He beats his own drum.
Just yesterday I commented on the Stanford professor who inanely tweeted that “Civility is oppression”. So in that sense I would say she is part of the problem you speak of. But Trump is not part of the far left. He is unto himself. I don’t think any other Republican candidate would have acted like he did last night. I’m not saying Biden came out shining either. It was just awful. America deserves better.
To everyone referring to the distant past:
I figured that objection to what I wrote would come up, and so I wrote this in the post (emphasis mine): “I think it’s the most important reason candidates reined themselves in, at least when in the public eye, at least in the historic times of which I was a witness in my youth.” Please note.
I am well aware that in earlier days things were different and sometimes pretty bad – although their verbal insults tended to be a LOT more elegant than present-day ones. For example, I seem to recall that some long ago member of Congress was speaking of another member of Congress, the latter of whom was known to have some damage to his scrotum, and the first one said something like this: “I am grateful that this father of lies can never be a father of liars.”
Montage:
No one in previous presidential debates has ever been subjected to anything like Trump was subjected to in that debate. Biden lied and lied and lied about Trump, about his own positions (when he even deigned to mention them), and Wallace not only did not challenge him (and geared the questions to help Biden), but Wallace stopped Trump when he tried to counter what Biden was saying.
They are despicable.
I am sure that someone on earth could have countered better than Trump. But most people would not have held it together nearly as well. I don’t think I could have stood it – I’m pretty sure I would have started shrieking at them and might have ended up storming off, at best.
Montage:
And as for your statement “America deserves better” – referring, I believe, to both Trump AND Biden – I wish I could say I agree. Maybe you’re right on that, but I think that if America deserved better it would choose better. Politics, public life, culture, and in particular the press have been degenerating for decades now. People (“America”) are involved in that process. The public is involved in that process and part of that process.
Trump was elected in reaction to that process. He is also a highly capable man and has been a good president, in my estimate. His personality is not what I’d wish in a president, but perfection is not all that common. I’d prefer Winston Churchill or Lincoln – two of my favorite politicians ever – but I can’t think of anyone right now who comes up to that standard, and I think it is partly because of the general societal decline of which I write.
“Last night’s debate was Trump deciding to drop a bomb on the whole process. I guess some people are fine with that but it’s not society or the media’s deciding what is news that made Trump debate this way.” Montage
I read that Chris Wallace interrupted President Trump 35 times during the debate whereas he did not interrupt former Vice-President Biden once. The distinct disrespect to the President (office of the President) in this case alone is reprehensible and serves to negate the above-cited opinion of Montage.
Gordon Scott…”There were a whole lot of people who thought “King and Country” were a bunch of incompetent fools who sacrificed other people’s sons for stupid reasons.” Yes–the First World War had an enormous impact on the psychology of European societies…less-so in the US since our casualty levels were so much lower.
In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel ‘The Road Back,’ the returned soldier Ludwig Breyer…a serious and idealistic intellectual in prewar days, a brave and responsible officer at the Front…voices his despair:
“They told us it was for the Fatherland, and they meant the schemes of annexation of a greedy industry.–They told us it was for honour, and meant the quarrels and the will to power of a handful of ambitious diplomats and princes..They stuffed the word Patriotism with all the twaddle of their fine phrases, with their desire for glory, their will to power, their false romanticism…And we thought they were sounding a bugle summoning us to a new, a more strenuous, a larger life. Can’t you see, man? But we were making war against ourselves without knowing it!…The youth of the world rose up in every land believing that it was fighting for freedom! And in every land they were duped and misused; in every land they have been shot down, they have exterminated each other.”
The whole novel, which is sort of a sequel to ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, is a very-well-written portrayal of the impact of the War. Yet…the eventual public response to these events obviously turned in a very different direction in Germany than it did in countries such as Britain and France.
I reviewed the book here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/54294.html
The great increase in politicization and activism in the news media stems largely, I think, from the role of the media in Watergate. Journalists of all sorts began to think: ‘Hey–wouldn’t it be neat of *I* could bring down a President?’ (or even a mayor, or a governor, or a CEO)
I do it the EASY way: I ignore the “mainstream media” It’s polluted.
Chris Wallace was a total disgrace. And what little I watched of the comments on CBS and ABC were bad except for Chris Christie.
Here’s the deal: This is where we are now and we can’t go back. I think Trump was trying to get Biden to meltdown.
For the first time, I’m afraid Trump might lose. But Hispanics liked his performance by 65%. I’m scared to death that the Dems are going to steal the election. This mail-in voting crap is how they are going to do it. That’s why they wanted to keep everything shut down.
I keep hearing about how dangerous it is to vote in person. Ha! People shop for groceries in person.
Fewer than 500 people dead in NE out of a population of 1.8m. And of that, over 50% were over 70.
I will never ever forgive the Dems and the Fake News for this covid nuttiness. Look at Sweden!
Conventional wisdom often blamed Vietnam for the decline in culture. I am not smart enough to know whether that is accurate, or whether Vietnam was simply a catalyst, or more accurately, an excuse.
One thing we do know is that three administrations; i.e. JfK, LBJ, and Nixon, did a terrible job of explaining that fiasco; and the national confusion opened the way for every element hostile to society to come out of the woodwork. I was a career Naval Officer and was never really quite confident that we knew who were the good guys, and who were the bad guys in South Vietnam; much less whether it was worth the effort to save South Vietnam from itself. Academic since we failed.
I also assign some blame to the GI Bill for starting the cultural slide. For the first time ever, great numbers of young people were entering college; which in turn precipitated an attitude that college was necessary for the good life. So, more and more impressionable youth became part of a captive audience for the Leftist faculty. The post WWII period may also have been the dawn of the idea that the national goal was to make life easier for the next generation. Materialism. Hedonism. Excess leisure time. Idle hands (brains) and the Devil’s workshop.
Because most journalists can’t or won’t distinguish between propaganda and reality (or actual history). Because Postmodernism has moved from art and literature into a method of analysis of everything journalists who accept that mode of thought don’t care that there is a difference between propaganda and reality. So journalists became propagandists for the progressives and those worse than progressives.
Whatever it takes.
To Montage, “We deserve better.” Hillary it seems is the source of the Russia collusion resistance/coup fraud and BHO knew about it in the summer of 2016. What part of her is “better.” “Or at this point what difference does it make?”
Alot. (Allie Broosh’s new book it out by the way.)
Didnt watch the debate, dont plan in watching the next one, which Im sure, will just be a repeat of this one. Instead, I watched highlights from Ben Shapiro.
My take away, Yes, Biden and Wallace are awful, but this is one of those times where again, I wish we had somebody more thoughtful and articulate and maybe a little less predictable than Trump.
Over all neo, I agree with you: We’ve collectively sunk to a low point in public discourse, and Im afraid it isnt going to get any better.
…all the way to Obama / Romney the debates were fairly normal.
Montage: Biden was the nastiest I’d ever seen against Paul Ryan in 2012. Condescending, arrogant, and frequently interruptive. Ryan was trying to be respectful and decent, but it cost him against Biden’s attack dog approach.
I don’t recall any Democrats concerned about civility then. That’s how you got Trump in the first place.
This entire year has been the most depressing and disheartening time in my lifetime. I’ve gotten so I try to check out from it all for periods of time because if one wades to deep into it can be a real downer.
Between the election, the riots and most of all the authoritarian government lockdowns it’s very hard to escape though.
Very easy to come to the conclusion that all we are doing is negotiating the end date for our way of life at this point.
Cornhead:
Because I am far more of a pessimist than you, I have been fearful for at least a year (probably more) that Trump will be defeated in November. But I agree with you that if they can’t do it by MSM + Democrat lies and the legal vote, they will do it by fraud.
I continue to hope I am wrong.
I’ve come up with this line of thought. Trump has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his international efforts. People thought he’d start WWIII and continue America’s war involvement. Before the pandemic the US economy was relatively healthy. The Orange Man Bad has only been a politician for approximately four years. He has done all of this with the world’s media mocking and lying about him. He has done this as social media doxxes and silences his supporters or anyone who doesn’t buy a ticket on The Woke Train to Nowhere. What has Biden done as a career politician?
As someone stated in another post, this 2020 election is a national IQ test. You may not like Trump, but given what he has actually accomplished I’d say it warrants a re-election. The whole 200k+ deaths by COVID-19 is a talking point, which is one of the main talking points of The Left, that is as complex as the virus. Blessed Obama would’ve been praised or have been met with less criticism from the MSM and the layman.
With that said, Trump could’ve done much better and, like a good student, should do better in order to keep these “debates” from irking him. The thing is, are these debates a “big” decision or a “small” decision in the grand scheme of things? Trump is relatively good at the “big” decision (e.g. choosing SCOTUS justices), not much the “small” decisions.
Note: I have a bad feeling about the election. My prediction: Biden/Harris win. The nation fails the IQ test.
America deserves better.
Waal, Democratic voters had a choice of two quite accomplished businessmen (one of whom had been Mayor of New York), another businessman who had served a term in Congress, a state governor who has a history in the business sectors, and a state governor with a history of appealing to red state electorates. They took a glance at Michael Bloomberg and ignored the other four. The five they considered were Klobberherworkers, Booty-gag the Resume, Princess Spreading Bull, Red Bernie, and Sundown Joe. They do not value better.
The Republicans in 2016 had a deep bench they largely ignored as well (e.g. Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker). However, Trump is an accomplished man (if vulgar) and raised issues the donor-addled candidates did not.
We are on the verge of losing, if we haven’t already lost, our once-great nation. If it is not already too late, I have some observations about the debate and some solutions to the giant mess in which we find ourselves.
http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2020/09/america-should-be-ashamed.html
Vietnam had a lot to do with the decline. Leftist anti-war students stayed in college with extended deferments and, eventually, a lot of them became the faculty in easy fields like Humanities. Those who were less leftist joined the reserves or went to the military to serve, in VN or elsewhere.
The leftist faculty chose more faculty like themselves and grad students like themselves. And here we are.
While we’re at it, Montage, at least half the public regards with cud-chewing indifference the following:
1. The use of the IRS to harass the political opposition
2. Refusal to enforce the immigration laws
3. Electoral fraud through voting by the ineligible and ‘ballot harvesting’.
4. The disruption of public policy by constant lawfare – and absurd decisions by partisan Democrats in robes.
5. Elements of the security state conspiring against the opposition presidential candidate and the conspiring against his appointees and conspiring against him once he took office.
6. The refusal of mayors in one city after another to maintain public order in the face of violence by their political pets (supplemented with the utterly feckless municipal councils in those cities responding to disorder by reducing police budgets).
7. The continued maintenance of bollocks public health orders for months after we had the data in our possession which told us that what needed to be done was to isolate the elderly and those in late middle age with weight problems
8. The exceptions granted to those public health orders for privileged political interests.
9. The promotion of utter vicious humbug by politicians and the media in re police killings.
10. The abuse of soldiers, civil servants, and corporate employees by race hustlers.
I am not acquainted with a single street-level Democrat who objects to any of this. They pretend it isn’t happening, they make excuses for it. We’re losing the Republic because we live in the company of feckless jerks.
Cornhead, I agree that Trump attempted to short-circuit Biden’s nastiness, and succeeded far better than Ryan did.
I have to agree with the general pessimism expressed above. We are royally screwed. Harris will win and in 2 years we’ll watch as the great American experiment sinks away.
Neo,
Trump lied just as much if not more about Biden’s positions. This is normal at debates. Every politician takes their opponents position, lies about it and then cranks it up to 11. It’s annoying yes but the way any good politician handles it is to clarify their position and maybe use some humor – not disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. Reagan was very good at this. Trump is not.
Trump lied just as much if not more about Biden’s positions.
They’re paying you to be brazen, I see.
The decline started at the top. My sense was that a lot of privileged folks were trying for the “proletarian” look as they imagined it to be, hence the expletives and rough language. It isn’t that rough language didn’t exist before, but it had its place and was kept there.
Montage:
The lie about Charlottesville. The lies about Antifa. The lie about Critical Race Theory. Stoking racial division (Trump is a racist). Montage you are quite the piece of work.
How low will you go in your debasement?
Have you always been at war with Eastasia?
om,
Montage has his routine down pat. First you admit your side isn’t perfect then you say of course nobody I know on the left agrees with any of this stuff so what’s the big deal.
It must make him a valued member of the Troll Farm.
Montage:
What makes you think I’m saying that Biden lied about Trump’s positions, and those are the lies I’m talking about? By the way – no, Trump did not lie as much if not more about Biden’s positions as Biden did about Trump’s. But lying about the other candidate’s positions are far from Biden’s worst lies. He lies about his own history, his own positions, and things like the riots, the plans of the left, his accomplishments, COVID, nearly everything really.
He is a plagiarist, he lied about the driver who killed his wife and child (defaming that person by saying he was a drunk driver, when that was not the case). He is covering up the activities of his abominable son Hunter. He is implicated in the framing known as Spygate. He is one of the most mendacious people in politics, and he lies about important things and not just in the ordinary manner about his opponent’s positions.
What’s more, he has the entire MSM to back up his lies and not challenge him, which makes his lies especially dangerous.
I find him abominable in a way that even few politicians can match.
Live not by lies, Montage.
}}} But that, plus the change in the role of the MSM which happened at around the same time
Somewhat, but it also preceded it. Hearst was known for “yellow journalism”, and there is no question Murrow did a literal hit on McCarthy (Ann Coulter, for her downsides, make a really good case for that) because he was instigating charges (valid ones, in retrospect of the Venona papers) against the liberals.
Truman, as good a man as he was, was getting taken in by Stalin and his stooges.
I am somewhat surprised at the degree of pessimism so many are expressing here. I tend to be a pessimist anyway (especially about politics), so for me to be pessimistic about the election is hardly unusual. But although I agree with the pessimism here, I also know that this is only the day after a bad showing. There’s another month left, with other “debates” and lots of time and events.
Trump only won by a little bit last time, because the electoral votes happened to fall the right way in the right states. Most of us did not expect it to happen. For four years we’ve watched him do mostly good things for the country, and we’ve also watched the left get worse and worse and worse and seemingly more powerful, anarchy begin to get the upper hand in many places, and the MSM become so partisan that it is now a bunch of Democrat/leftist activists. At the same time we’ve experienced the COVID scare and isolation, and seen how many Americans will just follow orders. And then there’s mail-in voting.
On top of all that, the debate was awful in a whole bunch of depressing ways. So of course it feels very gloomy today.
In the past, though, things have changed in short order, and even reversed themselves – at least, in terms of Trump’s support. In other words, he could still win.
But I think the larger pessimism – which I also share – comes from what has been revealed about the US today. It seems as though the lies are winning, racism (the kind I believe Martin Luther King would have hated and fought) is winning, academia is rotten to the core, and that whatever happens in November it will not stop these forces.
I have no answer for that except to say that we cannot see the future and we can’t afford to despair. We certainly can’t afford to give up.
OBloodyHell:
Yes, there were always such instances. But when Cronkite did what he did, it signified (I believe) a shift in the basic attitude of the press from reportage to biased opinion journalism that mixed the two as a matter of course, and tried to hide the fact of the mix for the most part.
Which is where we are now.
}}} MBunge: The public has long had a great tolerance for bad behavior from elites. Go read some of the insults and smears thrown about during the Founding Fathers’ era.
Indeed, some decades ago, I read a blurb about what the Hartford Courant (sp?) had to say about Jefferson if he got elected. Something along the lines of “blood running in the streets, lawlessness, ‘dogs and cats living together, MASS HYSTERIA!!’ :-D”. You think those last two phrases weren’t a part of it? OK, maybe not, but it was DAMN close. The hyperbole was Trump level.
And, as to the events in the senate… well, there’s Charles Sumner:
https://history.house.gov/HouseRecord/Detail/15032436187
The 1850s saw the House bitterly divided over the issue of slavery, which led to one of the more incendiary and violent events in congressional history. On May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina entered the Senate Chamber and repeatedly struck Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts over the head with a cane. The assault was in reaction to a speech in which Sumner criticized slavery and the Senators who supported it, including Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks.
He literally beat the eph out of the guy, gave him permanent issues, and got a slap on the wrist by the Senate.
Haven’t quite seen anything return to that level, but I think it’s because the Left is a bunch of total pansies.
Neo, you and I, we lived at the tail end of a golden age of civility, when the USA had been sufficiently tamed (ca. 1900) that people behaved themselves… and not sufficiently messed up by that process that they had become uncivilized and barbaric again.
I think we just muddle through, as humans always do. Whether this is the end of the USA, I can’t say. It depends entirely on what the 911 generation does. I have hopes. The left is now “The Man”, and thus the one to rebel against, 911ers have seen the results of a lack of vigilance, and now, with CV, they’ve seen the ineptitude of the government.
The lessons are there for them to learn. Will they reject the propaganda and reverse the 60s entirely? Perhaps perhaps perhaps.
neo,
My pessimism is not just about the election but like you said the bigger picture like how so many people (and not just from the left) have willingly given up their rights to tin pot dictator governors and mayors or even worse to unelected health bureaucrats and knowing that now they’ve done it once so it will much easier to do again for some other reason.
I don’t see how our current under 50 citizenry can ever do a collective great and hard thing again.
For someone who hopes to have another 30 plus years on this earth it can be pretty sad where we are heading.
But although I agree with the pessimism here, I also know that this is only the day after a bad showing. There’s another month left, with other “debates” and lots of time and events.
neo: Yes. I am reminded of the exaggerated way the stock market can swing.
Huxley,
Yes, but this entire election has felt rigged for so long. Media malfeasance, voter fraud, fake scandals and on and on. And the fact that it could linger for days, weeks whatever makes it even worse.
Neo writes: “The decline is in society at large, and I think it started in the late 60s. I was in college then, and I remember it well. It was surprisingly sudden.”
Surprisingly sudden. Compare “Meet the Beatles,” released in January 1964, with “Magical Mystery Tour,” released in late 1967. It was the ’64 release that caused the fuss among the adults about their hair and, to a lessor extent, their clothes.
“….he lied about the driver who killed his wife and child (defaming that person by saying he was a drunk driver, when that was not the case)…” Neo
This is my come-back when my fellow Catholics tell me they are voting for Trump because he’s “mean”, or whatever. Tell me something that Trump has done that even compares remotely with this grave sin of false witness.
I wrote most of this before 4 pm and then I went out and knocked on doors for the Republican party. Here is what I think are the drivers of the loss of civility.
The Clinton’s, the Juan and Eva Peron of our politics. We need to excise that cancer as well as the Chicago way brand of politics to be a healthy society.
How did this lack of civility rise? There are myriad strands that reinforced each other. They are:
• The dying of Judeo-Christian beliefs and replaced by pagan Gaia worship called the environmental movement.
o That allows the rise of situational ethics which I was afflicted with in the early 70’s.
• The rise of “credentialism” vs. good common sense. Angelo Codavilla impressive article “America’s Ruling Class” lays this out. It was published by American Spectator in 2008. He recently followed up with an American Mind article “Scamocracy in America”.
• How the political class was told to look more like European political class, especially like France.
o The Clintons are the embodiment of this.
• Technology I – someone bemoaned one time that what destroyed polite society was the invention of email because you no longer had to say something to a person face to face. Flame wars erupted eroding the public space.
o One way to end this is lose anonymous handles. I don’t recommend it at this point until we have protections against the “woke” mob.
• Technology II – the aggregate of the levers of communication has turned into a public threat. I remember when the Bell system was broken up and the chaos afterwards. But we got cell phones, internet so much faster.
How do we change this?
• Well vote for the right person and forget the party label. In fact run for office as that person.
• Have a hard look at section 320 with the big technology companies
• Break up the big technology companies
• We have to take a hard look Sullivan vs. New York Times. We need to move to the British model of libel and slander laws particularly in the on-line world.
• Term Limits for Congress – 18 years maximum period to pry loose more energy and ideas. I claim that Congress is run to the pace of septuagenarians and octogenarians.
o States have implemented term limits and it hasn’t hurt the quality of representation overall. If you had bad representatives before you have them now.
• Unfreeze the number of House of Representatives. The current level of population per representative is 747K. That is too many. I suggest a ceiling of 100K with major cuts in salary and budget. There is no way lobbyists can bribe that many people. The house will then become more representative and closer to the people. More ideas (and conflicts) will come forth. But as Churchill famously said about arguing. “Jaw Jaw is better than War War.”
Ultimately it comes down to each of us to be civil and treating people with respect and start chastising and even start prosecuting vile behavior like profane bumper stickers, shirts and material. Then profane actions like middle finger salute and yelling obscenities’. Yeah it was a bit stifling but at least our kids didn’t have to listen to it.
https://spectator.org/americas-ruling-class/
https://americanmind.org/post/scamocracy-in-america/
https://newrepublic.com/article/147276/death-civility-digital-age
Griffin @ 8:00 – Do not despair but get out and engage in the public square however you can. Know this that the American middle class is engaged and knows what is at stake. There will be a shock of such a magnitude you wouldn’t believe.
I live in an highly educated immigrant heavy district. They see what is happening and they aren’t happy with the party of chaos. They know where they come from and they are here for a reason. One thing that has reassured them is that Trump hasn’t moved against them per se but has focused heavily on ILLEGAL immigrants. They know the difference.
Be of good cheer, get active and vote.
The decline is in society at large, and I think it started in the late 60s. I was in college then, and I remember it well. It was surprisingly sudden. I started out in a world of rules and curfews and dress and behavior requirements, and then they were almost entirely gone by the time I emerged at the other end.
That was feminism putting and end to oppression… duh
Trump’s great weakness is that he is a Narcissist, and therefore it’s not difficult for a good strategist to sketch out a set of prepared buttons to push to distract him and send him off on tangents.
Trump’s great strength is his propensity to throw bombs into the middle of whatever set of polite conventions he finds himself enmeshed in. Face it, Folks: we are in very late stage civilisational decline. At this point in the cycle, all the niceties and conventions of civilised discourse are largely corrupted, perverted, and weaponised against our side. There comes a time when the only thing to do is let loose the bulls and swing the bolo in the China Shop.
It’s very sad that Trump is our best bet just right now. But we work with what we’ve got for as long as we can.
So, O People of Good Will and Hillsdale Alumni and First Things Readers and Sporters of Eclectic Bowties, and even unto Ye who yet do brisk the Babylonian Scribblings of Strauss and yet thinketh he sucketh not… when ye goest into the Public Square be ye of Good Cheer and shouldst ye happen across AntiFa, smacketh ye those fuckers about their foul perverted heads with thy Louisville Sluggers and divers other implements.
PS: And be ye of Good Cheer!
I think what I’m saying is “Be a Happy Warrior”.
On the Polite Right (as in Always Losing with Grace Right) there was much yadda-ing about being “Happy Warriors” back in the day when talk was cheap.
Having lived it first time around as Farce, perhaps it’s time for some cleansing Tragic Catharsis.
🙂
There’s probably a profound Buckleyite way of saying ‘Shit is Becoming Real’, but alas, I didn’t go to Harvard so have probably got it all backwards and am missing some essential point about how we should all surrender and go down to perdition yet again.
By “debacle” I mean the decline in the level of public discourse.” neo
We all know the source of this debacle and its name is the progressive left.
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot…” Robert Anson Heinlein
The vulgarization of the language is an important part of the increasing rage. Previously, one couldn’t curse in public without being shamed. No F**k, C**K, C**t, or even Sh*t.
So one had to be careful, and thus more thoughtful, in what you said.
But, if an occasional [expletive deleted] got said, it wasn’t such a big deal. The speaker was “out of control”, so a bit ashamed. Tho it was a high level of “rage”.
Lenny Bruce helped lead the culture to changing that. Eff-speak became common. Then it became more difficult to show outrage without even more outrageous obscenities.
Nixon’s tapes, with far too many expletives deleted, cleared the path for full social acceptance of previously vulgar words.
I used to use them, myself. A lot.
Now I don’t. And I’m sad the more polite society is gone. But I know I was part of those killing it.
“Don’t it always seem to go?”
A strong and living Polite Culture is one where gentlemen fight duels over matters of personal honour and the Law stands aside whilst they go about it.
Bring that lost world back and there will be politeness aplenty.
Politeness is not a Republican Virtue for more than a generation or three at most. One day you wake up and you’ve got Gracchi in your Gutters, Clodia in your Cloaca, and Sulla on Line 3.
Polite Discourse is going to require some other form of government. Exercise for the Reader.
“whatever happens in November it will not stop these forces.”
Not necessarily, if Barr etc. make heads roll.
@ Sparticus, on “the American middle class is engaged”:
If so, Archdruid J.M. Greer (who called DJT’s victory, in *Jan.* 2016!!) will be vindicated again, because he’s sticking his neck out again, this time on that DJT, get this, will win by 350 or more electoral votes, see
https://forecastingintelligence.org/2020/09/27/herd-immunity-and-the-politics-of-recovery/#more-1380 .
(A reader on this site refers, to Greer’s missed call on the 2018 House races, that based on an astrological chart.)
Trump has blown out to nearly 2.56 on UK Betfair after the debate. So Expected Value isn’t bad, all things considered. I’m going to wager a bit more on him. Not too much this week, as hope that the media fire hose of ordure will drive out his odds further before the election.
Neo, I hope that you get a bit of vacation time soon. Please try to get sleep. You could listen to some nice music or read some old poetry. I think you’re working pretty hard these days and don’t want you to burn out. We’ll still be here with you anyway. I lose winks occasionally over this stuff, too. Am trying to get my sleep schedule back into some kind of shape. I feel a bit of what you’re feeling, I guess.
It was definite that Trump and Biden despise each other. It was too much to put up a facade. Also, from the opening Biden called Trump a liar and that was his new version of Orange Man bad to repeat over and over. Why should Trump try to play nice to that?
I truly believe Trump also despises Joe for what he intends to do to America. Trump cannot act like Mitt and be polite with so much at risk.
I would much rather prefered a Joe Rogan podcast. I think it would have gone better. Mike Wallace was horrible.
A day later, Trump’s debate performance looks better, much better.
A week from now, will it be generally agreed that PDJT won? I would not be surprised
Mike @ 5:58,
Re:
“Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye on practically nothing except getting reelected. They are happy to gratuitously pour gasoline on the fire if it will serve their interests.”
That’s certainly true of the democrats. Examples please of when republicans have done so since Trump was elected.
“If you are Republican, watch the MSM from time to time.”
To what purpose? What is to be gained by watching the incessant litany of lies?
Nixon’s tapes, with far too many expletives deleted, cleared the path for full social acceptance of previously vulgar words.
Nixon uttered these in private conversation in settings which were generally stag. Also, Rosemary Woods when she prepared the transcripts redacted mild expletives that would have been outre among Mr. Nixon’s Quaker relatives but not among the general population. “I don’t give a [expletive] about the Lira” was probably “I don’t give a damn about the Lira”, something my mother (born in 1930) might have uttered (though her mother, born in 1895 would not have).
In my memory, it wasn’t until about 1974 that you saw scatalogical or sexual terms uttered in feature films not rated R or X. IIRC, they were rare or non-
“Decline”?
Well…no thanks.
(That is, some might prefer to look at it as a long-needed “shake-out”…or “correction”, if you will.)
But if it’s any solace, you are definitely not alone…
Kunstler:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/civil-war-20-country-now-out-its-mind
I fully agree Neo. From our peaceful island in the middle of the Aegean it is very disheartening to see the chaos and raised tensions evident now in the USA. My colleagues thought there was something wrong with us when Mrs X and I decided to move abroad. Now, with every passing years I am more convinced we made the right decision. Greek politics are often wild and chaotic – but nothing comparatible to what I see in the USA.
I also agree with your position on the debates. A benefit of living in Greece is that when the debates are raging – I am comfortably sleeping 🙂 I read the comments to your postings to be updated. If that is not enough, I will listen to Hugh Hewitt for his take – which I usually agree with.
Perhaps one of your viewers can explain what happened to Drudge? I checked in with him once a day – but now it is too painful as he is vitriolically anti-Trump. What happened?
“Yes, Mike, that is a serious question. There’s no “who” in what you wrote.“
I mentioned 1992. I mentioned the Democrats losing 5 of 6 Presidential elections. If you can’t figure out who I mean from that, I’m not going to apologize for not writing down to the level of a slow-witted 10-year-old.
I’m sorry if people find that rude but when I was 20something I, and I’m sure most other people my age, could get references to LBJ, JFK, Eisenhower, Truman, and FDR. All of those guys were President before I was born and some of them were dead before I was born but if, for example, someone had referenced Korea or the military industrial complex or Camelot or civil rights, I would have instantly known who they were talking about and I think most who were young with me would as well.
Has public ignorance gotten so bad that I can make a clear reference to a former two-term U.S. President who has, I believe, been a noted speaker at every Democratic National Convention for the last 32 years and supposedly educated people don’t get it? This isn’t a fashion blog. We’re talking politics here.
Mike
Rumors last year were that Matt Drudge sold his site, or a large stake in it, but a quick search doesn’t turn up any solid confirmation.
FWIW –
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/07/25/tucker-guest-exposes-what-made-matt-drudge-now-firmly-a-man-of-the-left-turn-so-drastically-951347
Also FWIW – apparently Fox Inc. believes that their properties will benefit more by a Democrat regime than by re-electing President Trump (and other Republicans).
If that’s true, considering the policies and principles of their new BFFs, both organizations are taking a very narrow view of “self interest.”
JimNorCal on October 1, 2020 at 2:29 am said:
A day later, Trump’s debate performance looks better, much better.
A week from now, will it be generally agreed that PDJT won? I would not be surprised.
* * *
Trump has taken the Power Points of the debate onto the rally stage.
The Democrat-Media Complex won’t report on it, but the base will get educated (impossible in 90 minutes of the three-way cat-fighting) and maybe some of the undecideds and LIVs will start to notice.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-biden-antifa-ideas-dont-burn-down-buildings
Mr Bunge is oh so clever. He gets paid by the word it appears. Was it Colonel Mustard on kink-airlines, a man who loves cigars? Who knows what Mike won’t say. Who ever it is, that man of mystery, Mr. Who who must not be named, wasn’t hiding behind a bush, shelling peanuts, co-starring with a primate, or born in Kenya. But who could it be? Such a profound argument hanging on so deep a mystery. Well I guess we will never know.
MBunge:
Maybe people just wanted to make sure their supposition was correct, and wanted you to corroborate it, in order to make sure they understand exactly what you were saying.
The Nixon tapes had virtually no effect on people’s cussing, IMHO. Very few people thought of him as someone to emulate. And the decline in discourse among regular people (not movies or politicians) happened before Watergate. It was in the late 60s that I recall it.
neo (1:01 pm) said, “maybe people just wanted to make sure their supposition was correct, and wanted you to corroborate it, . . . .”
Thank you, neo.
I was moved to write something to the effect, “c’mon, good people, I know we-all can do better than this cat-n-mouse stuff” . . . but I declined, very largely because the whole tempest-in-a-teapot had gotten so insignificant.
We-all *can* do better, and we-all *do* do better, 99.99 percent of the time: “we-all” are a leading reason I frequent neo’s blog, and have done so for at least ten years now.
Carry on, good people . . .
“I can make a clear reference to a former two-term U.S. President who has, I believe, been a noted speaker at every Democratic National Convention for the last 32 years and supposedly educated people don’t get it? This isn’t a fashion blog. We’re talking politics here.”
SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!
SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME!
SAY HIS NAME, MIKE! SAY HIS NAME! OR KISS THE GLOVE!
THIS ISN’T BEAN BAG!!!
THIS
IS
SPARTA!!!!!
Well, as I recall, that guy got kicked in the chest and fell into a deep, deep hole.
–“300” (2006) – This Is Sparta!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyIhxxvvy1Y
Comment lost? Too late now.
1960 Lady Chatterley’s Lover – art not porn.
Culture is upstream of politics, and laws are usually further downstream.
Thanks Aesop Fan, for your response – very well done! I also suspected that the change could be due to improving the bottom line. With half the country in the bag – why not go for the other half? My other suspicion was that he was being blackmailed – perhaps in the same vein as SCJ Roberts apparent about face on Obamacare. I hope the financial angle is closer to the truth.
Drudge is a Prancing South Beach Homo. His sort may LARP (Google it, Boomers) at Right Wing Politics or get about in Lumberjack Gear from time to time when the mood takes them… but like dogs, they will always return to the Purple Bronies and Progressive Vomit.
Salant, Cronkeit, Wallace, Jennings, et. al. agreed telling the truth was good when the truth about Nazism, but telling the truth about Communism, liberals (=slow communists) would undermine their goals and dreams.
Of course they changed their minds about the value of truthiness.
The Nixon tapes had virtually no effect on people’s cussing, IMHO. Very few people thought of him as someone to emulate. And the decline in discourse among regular people (not movies or politicians) happened before Watergate. It was in the late 60s that I recall i
I believe some psychologists claim (Margaret Singer was one) that people’s speech patterns congeal fairly early in life. If that’s true you were looking at cohort effects. My parents did not curse around the house. My mother’s peers did not speak that way in any setting and my father’s peers did so in stag settings only. My adolescent sister introduced that sort of talk into our house ca. 1971. (I think most people teach themselves to dial it back when they have children hearing them).
Lenny Bruce was offended by segregation, and other social ills. Such a “clean” stand up routine in 1959 on Steve Allen show (not funny guy Steve Martin).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QgxmiBfNY
“You might be interested in how…I became offensive”
Not obscene – not allowed then. Steve Allen took a risk with Lenny then. But later, with anti-Vietnam War protests thru the 60s, obscenity was very allowed.
George Carlin’s main humor was obscenity and the 7 dirty words:
The seven dirty words are seven English-language words that American comedian George Carlin first listed in 1972 in his monologue “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”. The words are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. — wiki
Interesting that Pussy Cat theaters were around then, and pussy was not one of these 7.
I recall being a High School Boy Scout and a bit repelled at Nixon’s uses of [expletive deleted] words in the parts of his taped transcripts that I read, while Watergate was going on. My Nixon-loving grandparents were also not happy, but didn’t really talk about it. Nor use vulgar words. My sisters used them, seemingly to be cool. Me, not so much, except shit, which I still use (too much?).
Part of the Nixon tape issue was also the silliness in censoring a few words, while accepting so many other things.
My kids are learning to curse only thru friends and internet, and movies and music, not in our house.
It’s likely that young adults use a lot more vulgar words when they are single and childless – and many more of the college’ed folk, women especially, are not married.