This essay-review in the latest New York Review of Books is a decent summary of two recent books on Trump and television. I think the article is wrong to leave Taibbi's belief that "Russiagate" is ultimately a hoax akin to Saddam Hussein's WMDs. Taibbi's judgment is horribly and cynically wrong because there is more than smoke with Trump's long relationship with Russian oligarchs and many of Trump's foreign policy moves, as Seth Abramson and Craig Unger, two respected reporters, have disclosed in books on Trump and the Russians, released a year or more ago. I am surprised the writer, David Bromwich, who should know better, seems to have not considered those books in evaluating Tiabbi's conclusion. Worse, Bronwich seems unfamiliar with findings in the Mueller report, which showed over 100 contacts between Trump, his campaign, and the Russians in the 2015-2016 campaign period, and totally ignorant of Mueller's clear conclusion that, while he believed he was bound by the executive branch conclusion that no president could indicted, Congress had the power to take action against Trump and others surrounding Trump. Mueller's testimony made clear to any reasonable person he believes Trump should be further investigated, particularly where Mueller acquiesced in not personally deposing Trump. This is a major failure on the part of Bromwich, who again should know better as a veteran NY Review of Books reviewer for over 30 years.
However, I am glad Bromwich properly castigated the colloquiums and cliches that mar the other book being reviewed, and was wise enough to recognize some important analysis within that other book. Bromwich says:
"Here indeed is a clue to his (Trump's) presidency. For though Trump is an attention guzzler—he wants an audience to notice him every hour of every day—he has a smaller need than the average politician for wide popularity. An extra skin or protective layer of unconcern goes with his readiness to say or do the abrasive and insulting thing. It was this that most set him apart from his immediate predecessors, Obama and the younger Bush. The numerical minority and electoral majority that lifted him to the presidency seem to have done it partly in response to this trait. He offered a perversely satisfying relief from the soft-sell pandering of American political life."
This insight is why those who revere Trump, mostly older, white Baby Boomers and addled Oldsters, who have racial insensitivities and appear unable to overcome corporate media biases, mostly right wing and elitist, are less and less interested in majority rule--and worse, live in a world that promotes a new type of anti-intellectualism and portent of outright fascism. Eric Alterman, who I used to like a lot, but who I find less and less interesting, had earlier this year written an essay in The New Yorker that traced the decline of History majors in public universities to a decline in historical understanding, noting Yale University was increasing the number of History majors because of its elite status, where people graduating with a degree in History were in a much better position to land a job teaching History. This is true as far as things go, but wholly unsatisfying as a reason for any decline in historical understanding. I would say most of the American population has long had a problem with historical perspective, as Gore Vidal properly said our nation should perhaps be called "The United States of Amnesia." Vidal understood the role of broadcast corporate owned media in heightening an inability to grasp and evaluate historical perspectives and how people are often focused on trivialities, inanities, and gossip. I would also add the destruction of private unions across the nation that accompanied the de-industrialization of the nation, which corporate-friendly trade deals accelerated. These are more systemic and more profound in producing Trump as a political leader and where our nation's discourse is at in the present. I find it more and more impossible to converse with people who claim they are Republicans or support Trump to the extent they live in a right-wing media bubble, complete with unfounded and discredited conspiracy theories against the Clintons, a lingering belief Obama is not a US citizen and is a "secret" Muslim fundamentalist friend of terrorists, and are obsessed with immigration and guns based upon an avalanche of misinformation and fear.
In addition to the substantive points responding to Bromwich, I have a perhaps quibble with Bromwich, which is his assertion that the New York Times is "an organ for educated middle class." This is incomplete if not outright misleading. The New York Times, for the past 100 plus years, has been an organ for elite opinion, particularly the economic elite, and that is well beyond the middle class. That the middle class buys too much into the slant from corporate owned media, and does not critically evaluate the information, that much is definitely true. It is also true of Bromwich's article, though Bromwich's article should nonetheless be read in its entirety to help move forward a discourse sorely needing progress.
