President Obama has made a welcome contribution to the US Presidential Primaries campaign, calling on everyone to help to reverse the cycle of vulgar and divisive rhetoric, attempts to shut down public debate, and actual violence.
In what could almost be a satirical response to the President’s message, The Young Turks media outlet, which could well rename itself The Yelling Turks, then misrepresented Obama, and repeatedly yelled at him while misrepresenting him further.
I would rather see either Democratic candidate win the Presidency. I would rather see Trump win than his Republican rivals, because Trump is more liberal and less idealogical than the alternatives, despite his harmful campaign tactics.
But whatever the ideology of the candidates, I want to see positive and constructive politics, based on the fundamental ethical values of reason, empathy, compassion, cooperation, reciprocity, fairness and justice.
And I want to see pundits who share those values, including broadly liberal media outlets such as The Young Turks, to reflect those values in their commentary instead of intensifying the corrosive and vicious atmosphere that others have generated.
What President Obama said
Here’s what President Obama said this week, at a Saint Patrick’s Day celebration event. I haven’t found a full transcript, so some of the transcript below is pieced together from various media sources. But the main points are directly quoted from the above video extract.
“In my State of the Union address, I remarked that many of you have told me that you would like to see more cooperation and more a elevated debate in Washington, but everyone feels sometimes trapped by their politics.
I understand that feeling. I have served with many of you in Congress, and so I know that I’m not the only one in this room who may be more than a little dismayed about what’s happening on the campaign trail lately.
We have heard vulgar and divisive rhetoric aimed at women and minorities, at Americans who don’t look like us or pray like us or vote like we do. We’ve seen misguided attempts to shut down that speech. However offensive it may be, we live in a country where free speech is one of the most important rights that we hold. In response to those attempts, we’ve seen actual violence. And we’ve heard silence from too many of our leaders.
Speaker Ryan, I appreciate the words on this topic that you shared with us this morning, but too often, we’ve accepted this as somehow the new normal. And it’s worth asking ourselves what each of us may have done to contribute to this kind of vicious atmosphere in our politics. I suspect all of can recall some intemperate words that we regret. Certainly, I can.
And while some may be more to blame than others for the current climate, all of us are responsible for reversing it. For it is a cycle that is not an accurate reflection of America. And it has to stop. And I say that, not because it’s a matter of political correctness, it’s about the way the corrosive behaviour can undermine our democracy and our society and even our economy.
In America, there aren’t laws that say that we have to be nice to each other or courteous or treat each other with respect. But there are norms. There are customs. There are values that our parents taught us and that we try to teach to our children: to try to treat others the way that we want to be treated. The notion that kindness breeds kindness.
Allowing the darker side of politics to continue creates a permission structure that allows the animosity in one corner of our politics to infect our broader society. Parents should not be afraid to take their children to political rallies or to watch political debates on television.
When we leave this lunch I think we have a choice. We can condone this race to the bottom or accept it as the way things are and sink further — or we can roundly reject this kind of behaviour, whether we see it in the other party or more importantly, when we see it in our own party, and set a better example for our children and the rest of the country to follow.
I reject any effort to spread fear or encourage violence or to shut people down when they’re trying to speak. Or turn Americans against one another. And I think as a citizen, I will not support somebody who supports that kind of politics.
Speaker Ryan, you and I don’t agree on a lot of policy, but I know you are a great father and a great husband and I know you want what’s best for America. The point is, we can have political debates without turning on one another, we can disagree without assuming that it’s motivated by malice.”
How The Young Turks misrepresented Obama
The Young Turks then misrepresented Obama’s speech by claiming that he had blamed everybody equally for these developments. After analysing some partisan and misleading commentary by Fox News, the relevant extracts about Obama start at 1 minute 8 seconds.
TYT:
“Okay, so look, Fox News is insane, you know that, so I’m not surprised when they say that our Republican nominee, or presumptive nominee at this point, inciting people to riot, which he did recently, saying hey there’ll be riots at the convention if I don’t win, that’s Obama’s fault. Okay, that’s not surprising. What’s maddening is Obama’s reaction to this, right, so not this particular clip but to the overall situation. Donald Trump’s having his supporters thump people, drag people around, knock them down, do all these things. And who is President Obama going to blame? He’s actually going to split it down the middle. Don’t do that! Watch, watch…”
Obama clip:
“We have heard vulgar and divisive rhetoric aimed at women and minorities, at Americans who don’t look like us or pray like us or vote like we do. We’ve seen misguided attempts to shut down that speech. However offensive it may be, we live in a country where free speech is one of the most important rights that we hold. In response to those attempts, we’ve seen actual violence.”
TYT:
“This is not the time to call it even. I’m with you, don’t overshout people so that they can’t speak, I’ve said that a thousand times. Don’t do anything physical. Those things are obvious. But THAT’S NOT WHAT’S HAPPENING!! You might find one isolated incident, like the protester who bum rushed the stage at a Trump rally, that’s totally unacceptable, I get it, but IT’S NOT 50/50! THE OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF CASES IS WHEN TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE ASSAULTING THE PROTESTERS! It’s not helpful when the Democratic President says, well, it’s a little bit of Trump, and a little bit of the progressives who don’t like hum. He does it again in this clip. Just watch…
Obama clip:
“Too often, we’ve accepted this as somehow the new normal. And it’s worth asking ourselves what each of us may have done to contribute to the vicious atmosphere in our politics. I suspect all of can recall some intemperate words we regret. Certainly, I can. And while some may be more to blame than others for the current climate, all of us are responsible for reversing it.”
TYT:
No, no, wait a minute, I’m not responsible for Trump’s fascism! I didn’t do that! The protesters didn’t do that! And President Obama, YOU DIDN’T DO THAT!!! You didn’t do any of that! And when Fox News blames you for it, and then you turn around and go well, I guess there’s violence, I guess we’re all equally culpable, well, YOU’RE HELPING THEM WITH THEIR INSANE TALKING POINT!!!!!! TRUMP IS THE ONE SAYING THUMP THEM IN THE FACE!!! I’LL PAY THEIR LEGAL BILLS!!! WE’RE GOING TO RIOT IF THEY DON’T GIVE ME THE NOMINATION!!! IT’S NOT 50/50!!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!!!! And then the media looks at that and goes, oh, Obama called it 50/50, so Obama and the Democrats must be responsible for Trump’s fascism!!! UUUHHHH!!!!!! (thumps desk in anger.)
Let’s park for a moment that The Young Turks are also misrepresenting Donald Trump, who is not a fascist and who did not say ‘we’re going to riot if they don’t give me the nomination.’ It would take another article to properly analyse Trump’s harmful campaign tactics and the counterproductive responses to them.
But there is no excuse for the Young Turks to misrepresent what Obama said. It was clear to any reasonable listener, even given the restraints on a sitting President analysing a Presidential election campaign in partisan detail.
Firstly, Obama did not suggest that the violence was 50/50.
He specifically said it was a response to the attempts to shut down the hostile rhetoric. The people who are attempting to shut down hostile rhetoric are mostly the protesters at Trump rallies. So Obama was saying that the actual violence was a response to the protesters, not a behaviour of the protesters.
Secondly, Obama did not suggest that everybody was equally responsible for the current climate.
He specifically said that some may be more to blame than others for the current climate, but that all of us are responsible for reversing it. That is undeniably true. And a good start to helping to reverse the climate would be for liberal media outlets to be more rational and less shouty.
Thirdly, and most significantly, Obama is not ‘the Democratic President’.
He is the President of the United States. He is a President for all of the people, regardless of their political affiliations. And he is acting here in that capacity, responsibly and appropriately.
I gave up on TYT a long long time ago. Their output verges at times on the hysterical.
I might share some – if not most – of their ideologies, but how they express them puts me right off them.
TYT take the ideas of Reza Aslan, the Muslim apologist, seriously, even when he misrepresents the arguments of people like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins as “having no evidence but the TV”.
The Young Turks is now held up as a classic example of the Regressive Left, a label they kick and scream about because they know we have NAILED them on it.
Cenk is someone who engages in the denial of the Armenian genocide (exposed by Lalo Degach), and consistently attacks and misrepresents progressive liberals and atheists. He is from the same school (and is matey) with the likes of CJ Werleman (yes, THAT CJ Werleman, the one exposed as an anti-Muslim bigot, now moved on to other forms of bigotry) and Nathan Lean. I wouldn’t put it past Cenk for him to consider Mo Ansar as a credible voice of moderation! It seems a pathological hatred of Sam Harris and other pesky “new atheists” has resulted in Cenk succumbing to blind hatred of progressives in general. Also, as mentioned by Kibmarc, they take Reza Aslan seriously, and in fact, Cenk is very much has a bromance going on with the guy. They are BFF. The other regular presenter, Kasparian, also seems to have developed a nasty attitude towards progressives, liberals, and atheists.
Cenk and TYT are enemies, not allies. We all thought they were great when attacking the Republicans and those silly creationists (i.e. the low hanging fruit), but now we see them for what they are – regressive left anti-intellectuals who reject facts when they don’t suit them. Just like the Republicans and Creationists they used to attack most often.
Trump hasn’t really said anything bad about women.
He just talks about women he dislikes the same way he talks about men he dislikes.
I realize most people don’t do that but he isn’t actually doing anything more than treating them equally. He’s just a massive dick to people he dislikes.
They started out ok, but they have been increasingly moving toward the hysterical and SJW left. In many respects they remind me of a more polished less out-right abusive PZ Myers.
Like Myers, TYT got a lot of positive accolades when they were brow-beating ideological enemies. With Myers it was Creationists and Religious Extremists. With TYT, it was the Neocons and Tea Party Republicans.
Like Myers they turned into moral scolds and gave up facts, evidence and decency in the process. To the point the were repeating slanders made against people like Sam Harris as well as group-labeling people who did not agree with their positions as morally defective individuals.
Michael, did you just endorse Trump for the United States presidency? I’m going to have to report you to the social justice police, you realize. :p
We could all be as polite and nice as we could possibly be, and Trump would still be a bully who will do anything (with the possible exception of breaking the law) to get what he wants. IMO, you can’t take the high ground with a bully. You have to fight him.