@hightor,
I agree with much of what Bruni has written here as I have done with several of his columns in the past, and I agree with snood that he is a very good writer, but Bruni is using his skills to subtly throw several punches at the right while, by the look of it, presenting an argument for less aggressively hostile rhetoric. Either that or he has inadvertently fallen into a trap created by tribalistic politics, however I think that Bruni is too good a writer for this to be the case.
Quote:That’s true whether those words are spoken from the right or from the left, and the monetization of partisan combat spans the ideological spectrum. I’m not in any way equating Alex Jones and Bill Maher — the former traffics in contemptible lies meant to whip the agitated into a full-blown frenzy — but both turn politics into spectacle, the better to keep watchers and listeners tuned in.
As hard as this for some to believe, I'm really not familiar with Alex Jones. I've never listened to his radio show (it may not air here), read anything written by him and I had no interested in viewing his interview by Megyn Kelly. Based on his profile in Wikipedia, which I just read about 10 minutes ago, he seems to be a conspiracy theory nut (including 9/11 and the US Moon Landing) and that's all I need to know, to be glad I've not run across him other than through references, made by liberals, to his being a despicable creature.
I don't know about Bruni, but I think it's
contemptible to make a "joke" about the President of the United State and his daughter engaged in incestuous fellatio. I can't, for the life of me, understand how anyone might think this is even funny, let alone not outrageously inappropriate and ugly. I'm not familiar with Jones, but I am familiar with Maher and if the two are not, as Bruni was so quick to vehemently point out, in anyway equivalent, then Jones must be a truly disgusting and vicious individual, because Maher certainly is.
I realize Bruni's point is that both sides are guilty and in the case of Maher and Jones, both are guilty of using ginned turmoil to profit, and while I appreciate that he is willing to accept that the left is, along with the right, to blame,
he just couldn't resist using these two men as examples that (at least in his mind) suggest that the right is worse than the left. It's possible that he included a disclaimer on equivalency as preemptive response to the blow back he knew he would get from liberal readers who writing him to insist he's losing his courage, if not his mind because the right
is primarily at fault and much worse than the left. If so, I don't find that any more acceptable because it would be capitulation to an argument he doesn't support, but in either case if he is sincerely attempting to assist in bridging the divide it would be best if he first stops helping to widen it.
Folks on the left would understandably question the fullness of sincerity in a conservative pundit who argued
"Yeah both sides have contributed to the toxic political environment in this nation, but the worst of it comes from the left. They started it and they are the ones most in need of redemption." It would puzzle me why these same people find it disingenuous when their counterparts on the right express such doubt in a liberal pundit who makes a similar statement, if I didn't understand that it is merely another symptom (and cause) of a tribal divide that even when something of an olive branch is extended it comes with a jab in the eye, or a poke in the nose.
As with far worse sins of rhetoric, this one isn't a
liberal thing. I've read a couple of columns written by conservative pundits who, like Bruni, couldn't resist throwing in a punch or two while calling for less heat, more civility and for people to keep in mind the old standby,
"There is more that unites us as Americans than there is that divides us."
Disclaiming equivalency between Maher and Jones wasn't Bruni's only jab. Examine the various examples he uses in this piece to illustrate his points. Even when they suggest an individual liberal has crossed the line, Bruni provides a mitigating circumstance or implied excuse:
Quote:Anderson Cooper, flustered by Jeffrey Lord’s blind worship of Trump, describes a vulgar scenario to ridicule it.
In other words,
"Yes, Anderson employed vulgarity and ridicule, and as I've been saying all along, he really shouldn't have, but c'mon, he was flustered by Lord's blind worship of Trump. Tough for a sensible and tolerant guy like Cooper to avoid, but we liberals have make the effort, go the extra mile." I very much doubt Jeffrey Lord believes he
blindly worships Donald Trump and he most likely viewed this as insulting when he read it, just as Bruni would have denied and found insulting any suggestion that he
blindly worshiped Obama, Clinton or any other powerful political figure.
Quote:Madonna fantasizes about blowing up the White House. Kathy Griffin displays a likeness of Trump’s severed head. Stephen Colbert uses a crude term to describe Trump as Putin’s sexual boy toy. Maher suggests that Trump and his daughter Ivanka have engaged in incest. I don’t question the earnestness of these entertainers’ objections to Trump, which are wholly warranted. I ask whether they’re converting even one person with a contrary point of view.
None of these are examples of trivial gaffes let slip during a moment of passion. Each of them were deliberate and intended and all were prepared before they were delivered. They were premeditated acts. Why does Bruni find it necessary to offer the offenders the cover of their
unquestionably earnest "objections" that are wholly warranted? And is Bruni's argument to these entertainers really just the absence of any effectiveness as conversion tools? How about asking them if they understand that these comments are disgusting and hateful?
And of course throughout the entire piece, Bruni repeatedly points to the cause of all of this coarser and more dangerous rhetoric: Donald J Trump. The man who drives otherwise earnest and compassionate entertainers to spew obscene, hateful and violent comments. Of whom blind worship drives otherwise temperate men to resort to vulgar ridicule. Why if he ran into Jesus Christ on the street tomorrow, the Son of God himself would be hard pressed not to cold cock him. Bruni would have us believe that prior to Trump's entrance into the GOP Primaries, political discourse was reasonably genteel...
at least the part of it that was coming from the left. Only Trump and the wholly warranted objections to him are responsible for the left crossing the line on rhetoric. It couldn't possibly be anything inherent in the modern progressive movement or, Heaven forbid, the lack of character of those making the comments.
One reaction to this response might be something to the effect of: "What did you expect? The guy is a liberal pundit writing primarily for a liberal audience."
The answer to such a question lies with Bruni's intent in writing this column. If his intent was to help bridge the divide or to slow or reverse the escalation of hateful rhetoric, I would have expected something much different.
To the extent that Bruni contemplated even a small conservative readership (which it appears likely he did not or he chose not to acknowledge it in his writing) I would have expected that he not trot out the often offered liberal theme of
"The Right is Much Worse & They Started It" which is always a non-starter for serious discussions about the state of political rhetoric in this country. It's also doesn't demonstrate good faith in an effort to bring Americans of different political viewpoints closer together; using serious but respectful language to communicate and jointly solve the nation's problems.
His liberal readership may have appreciated that he managed to get in obligatory shots at the right and Donald Trump, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if this wasn't the case across the board. When Chuck Shumer offered the GOP his
deal on the confirmation of Gorsuch and a possible additional nomination by Trump some time during his term, it was, of course, a transparent con that only a party leadership made up of
gullible fools would accept. As you would expect, it got the attention of writers for the Washington Post. In an online version of one story it was made clear that it was a pretty obvious ruse and that the GOP was well aware it was. In the Comments forum following the article, quite a large number of contributors who, it was pretty clear, were Democrat, liberal or at least GOP haters,
all wrote that they wanted Shumer to withdraw the offer. Their reasoning was not based on a misunderstanding of the terms offered, and it certainly wasn't based on their desire to see the Senate Minority leader not embarrass himself and his party with such a transparent and bad faith ploy. It was because they were all adamant that
there should be absolutely no dealing with the Republicans. Even a deal that advanced the Democrat agenda and snookered the GOP was unacceptable because it was
a deal, and they insisted there be none of that. Thus, I would not be surprised if some of his readers took the position that despite the criticism presented and implied, Bruni was being way to conciliatory towards the enemy, and what's more, his admission that any liberals have crossed the line with political rhetoric amounted to back stabbing lies. I'm confident that the majority of conservatives who read the piece closely didn't walk away feeling all warm and fuzzy about Bruni, so if he got any sizable blow back from the left, the piece wasn't very effective as a bridge builder.
If his intent was to convince a doubting liberal readership that the left has also ventured into a toxic region of rhetoric, I would have expected him to concentrate on examples of hateful rhetoric that potentially might incite violence flowing from the left, not the right. His liberal readership already has no doubt that the right engages in such rhetoric and is probably well aware of all of the many examples, real or imagined. What they require evidence of is examples of their own side fanning fires with word and deed.
If his intent included convincing his liberal readership that the left needs to withdraw from the toxic region of rhetoric, then there was no real value in recounting several of the GOP's own sojourns into this dangerous zone, and certainly none in offering excuses and mitigating factors in regards to liberals venturing there.
If his intent was to write a piece that portrayed him as a pundit who dislikes coarse and intemperate rhetoric and condemns violence as a political response, but would also like to point out that the right started the whole mess and dragged the left into the mud with them where they are more unclean of the two sides, then he succeeded very well.
I've never met Frank Bruni nor even heard him speak in public or on TV or radio, but I subscribe to the Sunday NY Times and so am able to regularly read his columns. As I noted before, I agree that he writes well and I do not find that I disagree with everything he has written. It's tough to know the character of a pundit based solely upon reading their weekly opinion columns, but based on what and how he writes, I don't have the impression that he is a cynic or a panderer, so I don't think this column was an obligatory attempt to avoid being seen as a partisan hothead who might ever be accused of inciting violence, while still taking obligatory shots at Trump and conservatives.
I'm not sure why he felt the need to include the points I've addressed in my post. I've suggested one possibility but it could be any other. It's impossible to know without asking him.
I'll give him credit for writing the column and making the effort, but I am as disappointed with his piece as I have been with similar efforts by conservative pundits. There is no chance at all of slowing or reversing the rising tide of hateful and dangerous rhetoric if either side is going to insist on maintaining what they believe is a morally superior perch from which to preach, and to the extent spokespersons from either side speak about this problem they need to speak to their side and not the other.
It doesn't matter which side started it or whether or not one side has some marginal edge over the other in terms of frequency and severity. Columns written by conservatives condemning what they perceive to be dangerous speech by liberals are not going to change that speech any more that reversed circumstances will. The people who are inclined to travel close to the borders of the toxic region of rhetoric will most certainly not be constrained from crossing those borders because of anything said or written by someone who is perceived to be a member of the other side. Such columns are written for the consumption and benefit of fellow travelers and are just as likely to prod these folks closer to the borders than to lead them away.
This is a classic situation where everyone abhors the same thing, but thinks only the other guy is guilty of it. Bruni's column won't significantly help change that.
