March 28: We Had to Hide the Truth in Order to Save It
RFK downsizes HHS; Communist nabbed in Tesla bombing; Time to move to Mississippi?
The Big Story
During the Biden administration—and especially prior to June 2024, when Biden’s cognitive difficulties became undeniable even for the most committed partisans—it was common for allies of the White House to liken the president to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the greatest liberal president of the 20th century.
For most liberal pundits, the defining question of the Biden years was why the American people refused to recognize Biden’s obvious greatness. The president had done so much good: expanding access to rural broadband, revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure, fueling a historic economic recovery, vanquishing the COVID-19 pandemic, and securing the border. That the American people were nonetheless unhappy with Biden was evidence, perhaps, of their ignorance or susceptibility to right-wing disinformation, but not of any real problem with the administration. Sure, you could read plenty of insane conspiracy theories in the conservative media: There was a “crisis” at the border; the reason voters didn’t care about infrastructure was that none of it had been built; and that much of what had been billed as green infrastructure funding was, in reality, taxpayer-funded patronage for professional activists. But this was, fundamentally, a comms problem.
That was before the election.
Now, with their party in the wilderness, Democratic heavy hitters are stepping up to admit that, well, the fake news was real. Here’s The New York Times’ Ezra Klein, in a widely shared recent appearance on Jon Stewart’s podcast, discussing the Kafkaesque regulatory structures that prevented Biden’s rural broadband legislation from ever being translated into reality:
And here’s Klein—currently touring to promote his book Abundance—in an interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, admitting that none of the major investment initiatives from Obama’s stimulus package turned into anything:
Meanwhile, Klein’s Vox cofounder, fellow “abundance” Democrat and author of One Billion Americans, Matthew Yglesias, wrote earlier this week that “Democrats can’t hide from immigration forever.” The headline is obviously true, but the article contained a fairly interesting passage about how the rhetorical sausage gets made in the upper reaches of Democratic politics and punditry. Yglesias quotes a 2021 article from Klein noting that in 2012, the Obama campaign realized that merely talking about the issue of immigration pushed voters to the right. Rather than come up with more popular immigration policies, the campaign staff concluded, it was better to simply duck the issue altogether while making up a fake story that immigration had hurt the GOP and selling that to their friends in the media. Yglesias writes:
It’s… important to remember what happened after Obama successfully ran this “don’t talk about immigration” reelection campaign—his team went out and told reporters that Democrats had won thanks to Hispanic backlash against Romney’s self-deportation rhetoric. The RNC then did an “autopsy” report on the election that concluded that Republicans needed to move to the center on immigration. And an immigration reform bill including a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented residents passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Which is just to say that as far as I can tell, the Obama team fibbed about the role that immigration played in the 2012 campaign as part of a strategy to psyche Republicans into agreeing to an immigration deal—and it almost worked!
The problem with this comms strategy—creating a rhetorical hall of mirrors that not only bamboozles the electorate but baits the opposing party into acting against its own interests based on an entirely false premise—is that by “lying in politics,” you “trick your own supporters.” In this case, the Obama White House and allied pundits, in trying to trick voters, accidentally tricked the Democrats into thinking that immigration wasn’t something to worry about—a defensible “fib,” in Yglesias’ view, but one that now needs to be addressed for tactical reasons.
We’re glad Yglesias has at least discovered a utilitarian case against lying, since he doesn’t believe in the principled one:
It’s not even that Klein’s and Yglesias’ points are wrong. It’s just, well, a bit rich coming from them. As critics on the left have been noting since the election, the two men are perhaps the two biggest liberal media celebrities of the entire Obama-Biden era, and they have been incredibly influential in shaping and in selling to the public the policies they are now washing their hands of. A 2023 profile of Yglesias noted that his Substack was “tied for the most-followed newsletter by members of the Biden transition team,” and that his policy posts “circulated among White House staff.” A 2013 profile of Klein in The New Republic, meanwhile, quoted a “White House official” who said of the then 28-year-old,: “His voice matters a lot. The president talks to Ezra.” Since then, Klein has interviewed Obama on at least three occasions.
For those of us who understand that the Democrats will eventually come back to power, it’s nice, in a sense, to see efforts to return the party to political sanity. What’s less nice is watching the two princelings of the party’s period of maximum derangement turn to the camera and ask, in seemingly all earnestness, “Well, how did I get here?”
—Park MacDougald
The Rest
→Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Thursday morning that HHS will be cutting 10,000 jobs, or 20% of its workforce, according to CNBC. The cuts are part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to cut federal spending and facilitate a leaner, more effective government. The Food and Drug Administration will let go of 3,500 employees, though Kennedy said the cuts would not affect inspectors looking at drugs, medical devices, and food. The National Institutes of Health will lose 1,200 workers, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 300, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2,400, according to The Daily Wire. Of the 28 divisions beneath HHS’ purview, 13 will be cut. A new division, the Administration for a Healthy America, will be created to consolidate some of those divisions, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The centralization will “improve the coordination of health resources for low-income Americans and will focus on areas including primary care, maternal and child health, mental health, environmental health, HIV/AIDS, and workforce development,” according to HHS. Kennedy defended the cuts yesterday in an interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo, saying that front-line workers will not be cut; only administrators will. “We’re consolidating the agency to make it more efficient,” he said.
→President Trump had a “productive phone call” today with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney today, one day after Carney said that “the relationship Canada had with the United States is over,” according to The Hill. Carney vowed in a press conference in Ottawa Thursday that the countries’ trade agreement was due for a broad renegotiation, according to the Financial Times, adding that President Trump’s auto tariffs will force Canada to “rethink” its economy and seek “reliable” trade partners. Trump said he plans to meet Carney right after the Canadian elections to work on “business, politics, and other factors.”
→President Trump issued an executive order Thursday promising to eliminate “divisive narratives” from the Smithsonian Institution’s museums and to restore monuments, memorials, statues, and markers that have been removed over the past five years, according to The Washington Post. Called the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order, it will direct Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate anything he finds to be espousing “anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian’s museums and research centers. While the Smithsonian says it has tried to tell American histories from more “diverse” perspectives, Trump derided such efforts as ones aimed to replace “truth” with “ideology.” The Smithsonian had already shuttered its diversity office following Trump’s January executive order aimed at ending diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, according to Artnet.
→Stat of the Day: 40%
That’s the percentage of fraudulent phone calls made to the Social Security Administration offices, said Aram Moghaddassi, an engineer at DOGE, in a Fox News interview hosted by Bret Baier that also interviewed Elon Musk and other top officials from DOGE. Musk said Social Security fraud is happening “all day,” with scammers tricking SSA employees into routing retirees’ Social Security benefits checks to false addresses. The interview began with Baier asking Musk what surprised him about his new role in the federal government, to which he responded, “The sheer amount of fraud and waste. It’s astonishing. It’s mind blowing.” As an example, Musk alluded to a standard government survey that was budgeted at $10,000 but was billed to the government to the tune of $1 billion. It was unclear what survey he was referring to, though it seemed to be a questionnaire related to national parks. Steve Davis, Musk’s top lieutenant at DOGE, said that information would be available on the DOGE website in the coming weeks.
→Alleged Communist Paul Kim was charged Wednesday for purportedly firebombing Tesla vehicles in Las Vegas on March 18, according to The Daily Mail. Police told reporters that Kim has been charged with 15 offenses, including arson and causing property damage upwards of $5,000. They said his social media postings suggest Kim was a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause. At the end of the Las Vegas police’s press conference, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the building and said they’d be obtaining a federal arrest warrant, according to Fox News’ national correspondent Bill Melugin. They took Kim into federal custody Thursday, where he has a detention hearing scheduled for today and a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 10, according to the Department of Justice.
→Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation Thursday eliminating his state’s income tax, according to the Washington Examiner. The governor said that putting the kibosh on income tax will be a massive boon for bringing businesses and entrepreneurs to the state. A previous bill reduced the income tax rate to 4%, but this legislation will reduce it by .25% each year, beginning in 2027. By 2031, the rate will reach 3%, and it will be reduced further only if certain revenue “growth triggers” are met—although the legislation allows the state to end income tax immediately even if the growth triggers aren’t met, if it chooses to do so. Some economists fear the state is making a disastrous economic mistake, given that the income tax makes up a third of Mississippi’s revenue. Neva Butkus, a senior analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, estimated the state will lose $2.6 billion from its current $7 billion budget. Butkus said the tax cut might lead to the elimination of programs needed by the state’s poorest residents, while creating a “windfall” for its richest.
→Video of the Day
This video shows some of the devastation of the aftershock in Myanmar after the country was hammered by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that rippled all the way to Thailand Thursday. The video shows at least two people falling to their deaths as the tallest building in Mandalay shakes in the aftershock and its rooftop pool floods the streets below with thousands of gallons of water. The military government said the death toll in Myanmar stood at 144, with 732 injured. The military junta that controls Myanmar has been on the verge of collapse for some time due to the country’s dismal economy; experts say the support of China, Russia, India, and Thailand is the main reason the government has been able to maintain its loose grip on power. Following the quake, according to The Times, the junta requested international aid for the first time since it seized power in a 2021 coup. The quake was so powerful that a mid-construction building in Bangkok, Thailand, collapsed, according to CNN. At least seven deaths have been confirmed in Thailand.
→Image of the Day
Yesterday, the White House’s X account posted a ChatGPT AI-generated, Studio Ghibli-style photo edit depicting a cartoon version of the March 12 arrest of 36-year-old illegal immigrant Virginia-Basora Gonzalez, a Dominican Republic citizen who had been convicted of fentanyl trafficking, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gonzalez was charged with trafficking 40 grams of fentanyl and sentenced to 12 months in prison before being deported in 2020, according to The Times of India. She recently again crossed the border into the United States illegally. The Ghibli image has elicited wildly different responses, with some people lamenting its “casual cruelty” and others celebrating it as a strong deterrent to illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Fentanyl and opioids killed almost 80,000 Americans in 2022 alone, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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Since the revelations of the Twitter files the level of trust in the mainstream media has crashed to all time lows
Sorry, that photo of Jon Leibowitz and Ezra Klein made me nauseous and had to stop reading.