I, for one, and very very happy with leadership at the top. Obviously, many other people see it too, as the shift in voter registrations---the only real, true, reliable measure of public sentiment---are not just moving but cascading toward Rs. The numbers who joined the Republican Party/left the Democrat Party since Charlie Kirk's assassination is astounding. So far, in states we've been able to measure, it is now occurring at at clip 3-4 times faster than before. Not just R gains, but, as in deep blue Pima Co., AZ, serious D losses. It seems the public has indeed decided that political violence comes from one side.
For what it's worth, we are rarely clear on where Larry gets his data from. Publicly available sources can't possibly show, e.g., that there has been a huge shift toward Rs in voter registration since Kirk's assassination because they don't collect or publish that data that often or in such a short period of time. States that track party registration usually put out updates on a monthly basis at most or, more commonly, only 2–3 times per year. So I can't say for certain whether his data is good because I don't know its origin, and without that it's hard not to treat these claims with strong skepticism. (That said, he is correct that trends show Rs are making more registration gains than Ds over the long term, though even here you need the context that the fastest-growing segment of the electorate by far is independents.)
My point was not to criticize Mr Schweikert's statistics, I was comparing his adulation of "the leadership at the top" with that of Kurtz's montagnard followers, and the photographer trying to make excuses for Kurtz's outrages. It certainly seems that, like Kurtz, Trump wakes up every morning and looks for a fresh victim to flat.
And, while we are on an Apocalypse Now trip, the Democrats could easily be likened to the bean counters in Saigon, who wish to be rid of a crazy man who is attracting so much attention while they lose the war.
Anyone looking to DC for moral guidance has been disappointed since Lincoln went to the theatre. They all have moments of brilliance, intertwined with poor decisions. FDR interned the Japanese. LBJ used Kennedy's death to pass legislation that some of the brightest historical Black scholars now believe sent millions of Black families down a path of destruction. Mr. Cox appears to be an exceptional political talent, but any regular visitor to Salt Lake City cannot help but notice the ever growing homelessness and urban blight in a city that once, largely avoided it.
Trump is nearly 80 years old. A metamorphosis is highly unlikely. Not even Christ, the Holy Ghost and Charlie Kirk, together in heaven, are likely to pull off that miracle. Did Trump need to reveal he hates his opponent at Kirk's funeral? Certainly not, but many Americans cherish his lack of a filter. They prefer it to a President that tells billionaire donors behind closed doors much of America is bitter, clinging to their God and guns in a perpetual fit of xenophobia. Or those who refer to 1/2 the US as a basket of deplorables.
Trump is unlikely to turn the temperature down, but then neither did his immediate predecessor. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, Lincoln never spoke about Confederate soldiers, let alone Southerners, with the vitriol Biden directed at MAGA Reps. Biden often did not speak publicly for days, but when he did, it was a safe bet the words "racism and xenophobia" would make an appearance. According to Biden, they were the only explanation any American would decry the purposeful dissolution of the Southern Border, or a naked 16 year old with male intimate areas, standing next to their naked 16 year old daughter, in a school locker room.
The words "uneducated" and "ignorant", once unheard of in US politics, now roll off the tongues of Dems with such regularity, they are no longer shocking. The are heard on the floors of the House and Senate, spat by Dem pundits during TV interviews and utilized on these pages. It is impossible to overlook the disdain and scorn behind the terms, when the word "uninformed" exists. What Dems fail to realize is their perpetual sneering is a large part of why Trump was reelected. In actuality, it is little different than Trump proclaiming his hate for his opponents, just slightly better disguised.
Excellent comment. Also, I wonder why Michael chose GWB over Reagan. If there was any “conservative” president post-FDR who actually led the country back off the moral precipice, it was Reagan.
This may be one of the stupidest posts that I have read on this comment board in some time. Which "Black Scholars" oppose the Civil Rights Acts? Biden spoke with vitriol about the rioters at the Capitol? Good, he should have. They were breaking the law based on false pretenses egged on by your "Dear Leader" whose only goal in life is to stay out of prison and a step ahead of his bankers.
Honestly, I understand that this magazine needs traffic, but good god some moderator needs to get involved and immediately post a warning whenever some anonymous poster comes on here claiming to speak for "scholars", or playing amateur historian.
I read the article kind of fast, heading out this morning, but did we just have a full article of America being in desperate need of moral leadership and not even a nod to God, in a country founded on HIS principles, where our logo honors HIM (In God we Trust) referencing past leaders, most of whom, were devout Christians?
How can that be? I've complained a bit in the past about the lack of at least an acknowledgement of our Creator's divine and integral role in our country, but an article on moral leadership and nothing about where our country, and many of the examples you site, received their moral foundations?
Have we not just witnessed what has occurred with God calling home one of his good and faithful servants (Charlie) after a job well done? Have you not, inadvertently, just underlined the problem?
As your polling data shows, Republicans and Democrats don't actually see political violence the same. Republicans see it coming from the Left and Democrats see it coming from the Right. Add those together and you get the big numbers deploring political violence. It is not actionable, however, since the perceptions are so different. Maybe if people would just start telling the truth about violence even if it comes from their side of the fence. We have just seen an apparently failed narrative attempt to define the Charlie Kirk assassin as being someone further right. That has faded somewhat as more evidence is revealed but millions still believe it. Something like that actually happened in the Shapiro case as the attempted assassin appears to have been motivated by Shapiro's Jewishness. Anti-Semitism exists on both Left and Right but the Free Palestine version is leftist. As for the Hoffmans, they were Democrats but the motivations of the assassin are murky. The Left is crafting a narrative that it was about abortion while the Right is attempting to tie him to Walz and say it was about her defecting from the Democrats on immigration. The assassin's statement to police that Walz wanted him to kill Klobacher is also playing in that too. Walz isn't crazy but the statement indicates that the assassin is. Voices in the head crazy. So it is narrative crafting all the way down. Perhaps there will eventually be clarity. I tend to think abortion on that one as the issue has in the past provoked violence by both sides but can't rule out immigration. The Walz stuff is just crazy and crazy is probably the main motive here.
Guessing politics. Really, no one outside of MN had ever heard of Hoffman but everyone had heard of Kirk even if they didn't follow him. LE instinct is to withhold while investigation is proceeding but sometimes they want to get ahead of the narrative. The fact that Kirk was a personal friend of Trump, Vance, RFK and many others made it hard to not get out there. Some PDs have taken to video bombing the media when an officer shoots a black man. Badge cams are a great officer survival tool.
When Democrats try to “both sides” in response to left wing violence, they discredit themselves even further. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spent the last four years calling Trump and his supporters Fascists. The killer carved that word on a bullet. The Democrats must take responsibility, and change their ways, or this epidemic of left wing violence, which has been ongoing since the Ferguson riots in 2014, stoked by Obama, will only continue.
As for the poll you cited, the sample was heavily skewed left compared to the actual public. Which means more people blame Democrats than blame Republicans. Stop hiding from it, and address the problem of violence on the left. Or you have no credibility.
The Harding/Coolidge campaign of 1920, "Return to Normalcy" followed the decade of the first Progressive movement. It was almost 100 years before the term 'Progress’ was successively used again.
The Hardy/Coolidge policies were the opposite of the progressive era that preceded it and the Great Depression that followed.
1. Infant mortality declined significantly, and an a\bove average increase in life expectancy.
2. Significant growth in the economy
3. Life was transformed for millions with the increased affordability; of automobiles, telephone, electricity, and home appliances like the refrigerator.
4. The continuation of the Great Migration north of black to manufacturing jobs
Harry Truman, to his great credit, desegregated the civil service and the military, after they had been segregated decades earlier by Woodrow Wilson and continued under Franklin Roosevelt.
Eisenhower should be on your list of moral leaders. His campaign slogan fit the times. “Peace and Prosperity” was just what the American voter wanted.
Who can forget Ronald Reagan, the man who:
1. Stuck by his Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, who drove a stake through the heart of decades of inflation, setting the stage for forty years of prosperity.
2. The leader who ended the decades long Cold War.
3. Was the last president to take hold of the third rail of politics and support the modification of Social Security, so there would be money when the baby boomers retired.
I think of a president the same way I think of a surgeon. The only thing that matters is competence. If they have a nice personality, great, but not necessary..
All of the "great uniters" listed above had the advantage of journalistic gatekeeping. Even in the Shrub's (Bush Jr) time the internet had not grown to be the monster that it is today. Before about Y2K, local and national leaders, wjose differences were far less stark than those of today could calm the sheep by telling them that the shepherds had a plan and the wolf would be dealt with. (Or in the case of the JFK assassination that there was only one wolf, and he had been killed by an overwrought civilian who just happened to be mob (wolf pack)connected).
Now, the flock of sheep gets information from an array of different sources, selected for them by algorithms that seek to excite rather than calm, feeding each sheep whatever makes them click the most, monetizing their fear. Sheep start to see wolves everywhere: red ones, blue ones, and those sheep that deny the problem are accused of being in league with wolvesof one kind or the other. And the shepherds, trying to keep their jobs go along with whatever strain of thought will gain the trust of the most sheep, demonize not only their competitors but also their followers. The flock breaks up.into cliques which dare not be seen to.speak to one another
Meanwhile, the real wolves are the ones beyond the fence who feed in misinformation which stirs up hatred within the flock, often directing conflicting messages simultaneously. The more dish it we and fractious the flock becomes,n the easier it will be to pick.off stragglers and the more opportunities n for exploitation there will be for the wolves.
Looking back from the top of the manure heap that our social media news landscape has become, I think that we were better off being lied to by a handful of news outlets rather than any fool with an internet connection.
"Sadly, today our fear often stems from each other. America’s leaders would do well to recognize this and encourage their constituents to fight the urge to lean into hatred and contempt—to not fear our neighbors and instead see their shared humanity."
Sorry, but I do not agree that our fear stems from each other. I stems from media rhetoric, those with a voice that spew hatred for things both liberal and conservative, but more hatred from the left than right. Trump derangement syndrome is by far the greatest voice at the moment. The death of Charlie Kirk rhetoric, though steeped in religion, is becoming politically useful for the conservatives. Cooler heads need to preside from both sides.
My favorite GOP person of principle - yes, there are some - is Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's former Secretary of State, who told Trump to pound sand when Trump asked him to "find" 11,780 votes in the 2020 election.
Good thoughts, but your poster child presidents are only half good. Do you want a president who reassures the gullible, but actually governs badly? FDR LBJ. FDR got us out of the depression by allowing us to go to war. It worked. LBJ lied and spent tons of money causing terrible inflation (guns and butter). His tenure was so bad he couldn’t bring himself to run a second time. He was good at civil rights. George HW Bush was a good guy. We need Reagan. Can we call him back? Best president of my 74 years.
I, for one, and very very happy with leadership at the top. Obviously, many other people see it too, as the shift in voter registrations---the only real, true, reliable measure of public sentiment---are not just moving but cascading toward Rs. The numbers who joined the Republican Party/left the Democrat Party since Charlie Kirk's assassination is astounding. So far, in states we've been able to measure, it is now occurring at at clip 3-4 times faster than before. Not just R gains, but, as in deep blue Pima Co., AZ, serious D losses. It seems the public has indeed decided that political violence comes from one side.
Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don't see any method at all, sir.
Honest question: Are Larry's posts inaccurate and if so in what way?
For what it's worth, we are rarely clear on where Larry gets his data from. Publicly available sources can't possibly show, e.g., that there has been a huge shift toward Rs in voter registration since Kirk's assassination because they don't collect or publish that data that often or in such a short period of time. States that track party registration usually put out updates on a monthly basis at most or, more commonly, only 2–3 times per year. So I can't say for certain whether his data is good because I don't know its origin, and without that it's hard not to treat these claims with strong skepticism. (That said, he is correct that trends show Rs are making more registration gains than Ds over the long term, though even here you need the context that the fastest-growing segment of the electorate by far is independents.)
Thank you!
My point was not to criticize Mr Schweikert's statistics, I was comparing his adulation of "the leadership at the top" with that of Kurtz's montagnard followers, and the photographer trying to make excuses for Kurtz's outrages. It certainly seems that, like Kurtz, Trump wakes up every morning and looks for a fresh victim to flat.
And, while we are on an Apocalypse Now trip, the Democrats could easily be likened to the bean counters in Saigon, who wish to be rid of a crazy man who is attracting so much attention while they lose the war.
Well put.
Anyone looking to DC for moral guidance has been disappointed since Lincoln went to the theatre. They all have moments of brilliance, intertwined with poor decisions. FDR interned the Japanese. LBJ used Kennedy's death to pass legislation that some of the brightest historical Black scholars now believe sent millions of Black families down a path of destruction. Mr. Cox appears to be an exceptional political talent, but any regular visitor to Salt Lake City cannot help but notice the ever growing homelessness and urban blight in a city that once, largely avoided it.
Trump is nearly 80 years old. A metamorphosis is highly unlikely. Not even Christ, the Holy Ghost and Charlie Kirk, together in heaven, are likely to pull off that miracle. Did Trump need to reveal he hates his opponent at Kirk's funeral? Certainly not, but many Americans cherish his lack of a filter. They prefer it to a President that tells billionaire donors behind closed doors much of America is bitter, clinging to their God and guns in a perpetual fit of xenophobia. Or those who refer to 1/2 the US as a basket of deplorables.
Trump is unlikely to turn the temperature down, but then neither did his immediate predecessor. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, Lincoln never spoke about Confederate soldiers, let alone Southerners, with the vitriol Biden directed at MAGA Reps. Biden often did not speak publicly for days, but when he did, it was a safe bet the words "racism and xenophobia" would make an appearance. According to Biden, they were the only explanation any American would decry the purposeful dissolution of the Southern Border, or a naked 16 year old with male intimate areas, standing next to their naked 16 year old daughter, in a school locker room.
The words "uneducated" and "ignorant", once unheard of in US politics, now roll off the tongues of Dems with such regularity, they are no longer shocking. The are heard on the floors of the House and Senate, spat by Dem pundits during TV interviews and utilized on these pages. It is impossible to overlook the disdain and scorn behind the terms, when the word "uninformed" exists. What Dems fail to realize is their perpetual sneering is a large part of why Trump was reelected. In actuality, it is little different than Trump proclaiming his hate for his opponents, just slightly better disguised.
Excellent comment. Also, I wonder why Michael chose GWB over Reagan. If there was any “conservative” president post-FDR who actually led the country back off the moral precipice, it was Reagan.
This may be one of the stupidest posts that I have read on this comment board in some time. Which "Black Scholars" oppose the Civil Rights Acts? Biden spoke with vitriol about the rioters at the Capitol? Good, he should have. They were breaking the law based on false pretenses egged on by your "Dear Leader" whose only goal in life is to stay out of prison and a step ahead of his bankers.
Honestly, I understand that this magazine needs traffic, but good god some moderator needs to get involved and immediately post a warning whenever some anonymous poster comes on here claiming to speak for "scholars", or playing amateur historian.
I read the article kind of fast, heading out this morning, but did we just have a full article of America being in desperate need of moral leadership and not even a nod to God, in a country founded on HIS principles, where our logo honors HIM (In God we Trust) referencing past leaders, most of whom, were devout Christians?
How can that be? I've complained a bit in the past about the lack of at least an acknowledgement of our Creator's divine and integral role in our country, but an article on moral leadership and nothing about where our country, and many of the examples you site, received their moral foundations?
Have we not just witnessed what has occurred with God calling home one of his good and faithful servants (Charlie) after a job well done? Have you not, inadvertently, just underlined the problem?
As your polling data shows, Republicans and Democrats don't actually see political violence the same. Republicans see it coming from the Left and Democrats see it coming from the Right. Add those together and you get the big numbers deploring political violence. It is not actionable, however, since the perceptions are so different. Maybe if people would just start telling the truth about violence even if it comes from their side of the fence. We have just seen an apparently failed narrative attempt to define the Charlie Kirk assassin as being someone further right. That has faded somewhat as more evidence is revealed but millions still believe it. Something like that actually happened in the Shapiro case as the attempted assassin appears to have been motivated by Shapiro's Jewishness. Anti-Semitism exists on both Left and Right but the Free Palestine version is leftist. As for the Hoffmans, they were Democrats but the motivations of the assassin are murky. The Left is crafting a narrative that it was about abortion while the Right is attempting to tie him to Walz and say it was about her defecting from the Democrats on immigration. The assassin's statement to police that Walz wanted him to kill Klobacher is also playing in that too. Walz isn't crazy but the statement indicates that the assassin is. Voices in the head crazy. So it is narrative crafting all the way down. Perhaps there will eventually be clarity. I tend to think abortion on that one as the issue has in the past provoked violence by both sides but can't rule out immigration. The Walz stuff is just crazy and crazy is probably the main motive here.
Why do LEs immediately release facts and manifestos in some cases but not others? What's going on with the Hoffman case?
Guessing politics. Really, no one outside of MN had ever heard of Hoffman but everyone had heard of Kirk even if they didn't follow him. LE instinct is to withhold while investigation is proceeding but sometimes they want to get ahead of the narrative. The fact that Kirk was a personal friend of Trump, Vance, RFK and many others made it hard to not get out there. Some PDs have taken to video bombing the media when an officer shoots a black man. Badge cams are a great officer survival tool.
When Democrats try to “both sides” in response to left wing violence, they discredit themselves even further. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spent the last four years calling Trump and his supporters Fascists. The killer carved that word on a bullet. The Democrats must take responsibility, and change their ways, or this epidemic of left wing violence, which has been ongoing since the Ferguson riots in 2014, stoked by Obama, will only continue.
As for the poll you cited, the sample was heavily skewed left compared to the actual public. Which means more people blame Democrats than blame Republicans. Stop hiding from it, and address the problem of violence on the left. Or you have no credibility.
Let’s not forget some of the other moral leaders.
The Harding/Coolidge campaign of 1920, "Return to Normalcy" followed the decade of the first Progressive movement. It was almost 100 years before the term 'Progress’ was successively used again.
The Hardy/Coolidge policies were the opposite of the progressive era that preceded it and the Great Depression that followed.
1. Infant mortality declined significantly, and an a\bove average increase in life expectancy.
2. Significant growth in the economy
3. Life was transformed for millions with the increased affordability; of automobiles, telephone, electricity, and home appliances like the refrigerator.
4. The continuation of the Great Migration north of black to manufacturing jobs
Harry Truman, to his great credit, desegregated the civil service and the military, after they had been segregated decades earlier by Woodrow Wilson and continued under Franklin Roosevelt.
Eisenhower should be on your list of moral leaders. His campaign slogan fit the times. “Peace and Prosperity” was just what the American voter wanted.
Who can forget Ronald Reagan, the man who:
1. Stuck by his Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, who drove a stake through the heart of decades of inflation, setting the stage for forty years of prosperity.
2. The leader who ended the decades long Cold War.
3. Was the last president to take hold of the third rail of politics and support the modification of Social Security, so there would be money when the baby boomers retired.
I think of a president the same way I think of a surgeon. The only thing that matters is competence. If they have a nice personality, great, but not necessary..
All of the "great uniters" listed above had the advantage of journalistic gatekeeping. Even in the Shrub's (Bush Jr) time the internet had not grown to be the monster that it is today. Before about Y2K, local and national leaders, wjose differences were far less stark than those of today could calm the sheep by telling them that the shepherds had a plan and the wolf would be dealt with. (Or in the case of the JFK assassination that there was only one wolf, and he had been killed by an overwrought civilian who just happened to be mob (wolf pack)connected).
Now, the flock of sheep gets information from an array of different sources, selected for them by algorithms that seek to excite rather than calm, feeding each sheep whatever makes them click the most, monetizing their fear. Sheep start to see wolves everywhere: red ones, blue ones, and those sheep that deny the problem are accused of being in league with wolvesof one kind or the other. And the shepherds, trying to keep their jobs go along with whatever strain of thought will gain the trust of the most sheep, demonize not only their competitors but also their followers. The flock breaks up.into cliques which dare not be seen to.speak to one another
Meanwhile, the real wolves are the ones beyond the fence who feed in misinformation which stirs up hatred within the flock, often directing conflicting messages simultaneously. The more dish it we and fractious the flock becomes,n the easier it will be to pick.off stragglers and the more opportunities n for exploitation there will be for the wolves.
Looking back from the top of the manure heap that our social media news landscape has become, I think that we were better off being lied to by a handful of news outlets rather than any fool with an internet connection.
"Sadly, today our fear often stems from each other. America’s leaders would do well to recognize this and encourage their constituents to fight the urge to lean into hatred and contempt—to not fear our neighbors and instead see their shared humanity."
Sorry, but I do not agree that our fear stems from each other. I stems from media rhetoric, those with a voice that spew hatred for things both liberal and conservative, but more hatred from the left than right. Trump derangement syndrome is by far the greatest voice at the moment. The death of Charlie Kirk rhetoric, though steeped in religion, is becoming politically useful for the conservatives. Cooler heads need to preside from both sides.
My favorite GOP person of principle - yes, there are some - is Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's former Secretary of State, who told Trump to pound sand when Trump asked him to "find" 11,780 votes in the 2020 election.
Good thoughts, but your poster child presidents are only half good. Do you want a president who reassures the gullible, but actually governs badly? FDR LBJ. FDR got us out of the depression by allowing us to go to war. It worked. LBJ lied and spent tons of money causing terrible inflation (guns and butter). His tenure was so bad he couldn’t bring himself to run a second time. He was good at civil rights. George HW Bush was a good guy. We need Reagan. Can we call him back? Best president of my 74 years.