Groupthink

Another insightful analysis by Thomas Continetti in the Free Beacon bewails the bias in the press that Trump has no pushed into the open. Among other things, he blames groupthink fostered by social media. I'm not sure it's social media so much as cultural isolation.

When I was writing my political column for MarketWatch, the editors gave me totally free rein to pick my subjects, write my columns, express my opinions. It was a liberating experience and I'm grateful to them. Only once did I take part in an editorial conference call, shortly before the November election. to coordinate coverage of the big event. I was astonished -- and that is a mild word for my feeling -- at the groupthink evident in the call. The disdain for Trump (and his supporters), the unshakable conviction that Hillary was going to win skewed the whole conversation as editors and columnists divvied up how to cover her victory. I kept quiet. In my columns, I'd already repeatedly expressed my concern that Trump was on a path to victory because of Hillary's flaws and his ability to find issues that people cared about.

All this only got worse when he won, and that is the point of Continetti's column today:

The forces that brought Trump to power are alien to the experience of the men and women who populate newsrooms, his supporters unlike their colleagues, friends, and neighbors, his agenda anathema to the catechism of social liberalism, his career and business empire complex and murky and sensational. Little surprise that journalists reacted to his election with a combination of panic, fear, disgust, fascination, exhilaration, and the self-affirming belief that they remain the last line of defense against an emerging American autocracy.

And again:

Especially when the depletion of veteran editors, the relative youth and inexperience of political and congressional reporters, and the proliferation of social media, with its hot takes and quips, its groupthink and instant gratification, makes the transition from inquiry to indignation all too easy.
There is still excellent journalism. I would point, for starters, to the work on charter flights that led to the resignation of Tom Price. But the overall tone of coverage of this president and his administration is somewhere between the hysterical and the lunatic.

I don't know how this ends, but I can't think it's helping media any.

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Starting afresh

My column for MarketWatch, Darrell Delamaide's Political Capital, ended yesterday after nearly 10 years. I mostly refrained from writing on this blog in order not to give any ammunition to critics about any biases betrayed here. Now that I'm free from that constraint, I will repurpose this blog to continue my political commentary. These blogs will be more informal, and generally much shorter, than the column.

In the latter months of writing the column, I was often accused of being too sympathetic to Donald Trump, of defending him, even of being a right-wing hack. Even before he announced his candidacy, when he was talking about single payer healthcare and expanding Social Security, I said he bears listening to. A dinner party guest here rejected that notion, saying she would never listen to anything that racist, misogynist creep said. She's probably still not listening to him, but 63 million people did and voted him president.

I don't like Trump, I didn't vote for him and never would. I think in many respects he does represent a danger to the world. But the one-sided, biased reporting on him and his administration has mostly served to degrade the media, not him. Anything I have to say that might seem to support his point of view is partly to correct that failure.

So, for instance, the tax plan announced yesterday is, in my opinion, in large part a reasonable, even very constructive plan. In particular, corporate tax reform is long overdue. It drives me crazy when lamestream media simply lumps it all together as "tax cuts for the rich and companies." These are such completely different things, Reducing U.S. corporate tax to 20% from 35% only brings it in line with other industrial countries, A onetime reduced penalty for repatriating foreign profits is also a reasonable and overdue measure. Both have the potential for significantly increasing investment in this country.

The other thing that caught my eye was Trump abandoning notions of public-private partnerships for infrastructure investment. This, too, is a positive step. At their best, these "partnerships" only impose another tax on Americans in the form of tolls for roads and bridges. At their worst, they are an invitation to graft.

The effect of both these plans will be to increase the federal deficit, which is fine by me. I have long made the argument that we can afford to substantially increase the deficit. The deficit is causing absolutely no harm now -- in crowding out private borrowing or pushing up interest rates, for instance -- and there's no evidence a bigger deficit would either. All these fables about saddling our grandchildren with a burden they will never be able to repay is nonsense, and most of the people who cynically peddle this notion know it. The federal debt will never be repaid, it will only be rolled over and serviced ad aeternam.

And while the Laffer Curve has largely been discredited, it may well be that some tax cuts will result in added growth and increased tax revenue to offset the cost of the cuts. I'm all for trying it.