Item one: Joe Biden’s real opponent isn’t inflation or Gaza or even Trump himself. It’s nostalgia bias vs. negativity bias. |
By now, we’ve seen poll after poll showing that voters look back fondly on Donald Trump’s presidency. The polls suggest that millions of people forget completely, for example, Trump’s shambolic panic when the pandemic was coming, his total failure to order up ventilators and masks, his serial lies that the 15 Covid cases would soon be down to zero, and so on—behavior so obviously disqualifying that failing to see it is, to my mind, akin to seeing a man holding a smoking gun over a dead body and denying that the man was the shooter. Lately, these polls have been joined by other polls that say something just as false and just as dangerous. These polls show people giving Trump credit for things that Biden has accomplished and people being miffed at Biden for all manner of bad stuff that just isn’t real. In the latter category, we find a Harris Poll (yes, Mark Penn, but even so) showing the following hall-of-mirrors results, as Harold Meyerson wrote in The American Prospect: 56 percent of Americans think the country is in a recession, 49 percent believe the stock market is down, and 49 percent also believe unemployment is at an all-time high. We are not close to a recession, which is a decline in gross domestic product in two consecutive quarters. That did happen in early 2022, but the second-quarter dip was very shallow, and most economists didn’t call it a recession. The Dow is up 8,000 points since Biden took office. Unemployment is at its lowest level in half a century. Meyerson fingers—correctly, I think—the fact that so many people get their "news" from social media, which is usually just a collection of video and photo images that can pack an emotional punch but that explain and contextualize nothing. Social media, as Meyerson wrote, "has a built-in bias for the negative, the apocalyptic, the unedited, and uncurated." A steady stream of clips showing high gas prices or rubble in Gaza or students being arrested is bound to lead the consumer of said clips to some dark conclusions about the country teetering on the knife’s edge of chaos and collapse, which, once formed, facts are powerless to dislodge. |
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There’s another recent survey, one of the most depressing and telling I’ve seen this year, that seems to confirm this too. This was an NBC News poll that divided respondents based on where they got their news. Pay attention here. Among people who don’t follow political news at all, Trump led Biden 53–27. Among social media users, Trump led 46–42. But among people who actually read newspapers, Biden led—ready?—by 70–21. Pretty grim. But it’s even worse. This week on his Substack, New America fellow Lee Drutman wrote a really interesting piece about how our brains process thoughts about the past and the present. When we think about the past, he writes, we always remember it as better than it was. It’s called nostalgia bias. But when we think about the present? We tend to think of it as worse than it actually is. This is called negativity bias. As Drutman put it: "Our brains are deeply attuned to possible threats, and so we have a strong negativity bias in how we process the present. In an environment of nonstop national media and hyper-partisan confrontational politics, we are constantly getting triggered. This makes us especially likely to see the present moment as a crisis." Social media of course plays a key role here too. A 10-second video of undocumented people crossing the Rio Grande tells the brain: "Chaos!" And Biden is doing nothing. The people may have been apprehended or turned back, who knows. But those 10 seconds have done their job. Our brains have always worked liked this, as Drutman readily acknowledges. But Trump has made it all worse by constantly carrying on about how awful things are today—the sweeping and totally false generalizations about how no one is safe anywhere anymore; the unprovable (but, crucially for his purposes, un-dis-provable) assertions that Ukraine and Gaza and so on would never have happened if the election hadn’t been stolen from him. And what Trump is doing, by the way, isn’t simple nostalgia. Nostalgia is an innocent pining for our younger days, when we looked better and our backs didn’t hurt and we had more sex. What Trump is doing is much darker. What Trump is doing is fascism, which throughout its history, as Drutman notes, is obsessed with tropes of social decline. This is where we are, and this is really what Biden is up against—what perhaps any president would be up against in this jittery and overcaffeinated age. Even Trump fell victim to it in 2020 to some extent. But on balance, Trump benefits, and I’d say tremendously, because a media environment that encourages people not to think but only to react is a perfect mate for a political candidate who does the same. Yet I’m not saying all is lost. I don’t think it is. There are millions of Americans who reject Trumpism outright. There are millions of people who seek facts, remember the awful things Trump did, read newspapers. Trump has lost a lot more elections (if you count the ones since 2016 when he was "on the ballot," as it were) than he’s won. Still, it’s different now that Trump is out of office and can spin myths about his tenure and himself that too many people are willing to believe. The best counter to Trump’s mythmaking about the past? Insistently telling people about the ugly future Trump promises. Read Jamelle Bouie today on Trump’s deportation plans. I have to believe most Americans do not want their country to do that. The Democrats’ answer to Trump’s obsession with the past is to warn people about a Trump-led future. |
Item two: What is going on in Samuel Alito’s brain? |
When I wrote the subject line above, about Samuel Alito’s brain, I meant something like: How on earth can this man think that he can hoist these symbols of insurrection outside his homes and think he has the right to remain an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court? This was an insurrection against the United States of America. Against the Constitution to which he swore fealty. Five police officers died. Imagine him going out to the lawn and attaching that flag to the snaps and running it up the pole (or his wife, I guess, although maybe at the Jersey Shore house, he did it himself). Was there no part of his brain telling him that this maybe wasn’t such a good look? I would imagine that there was and that the other part of his brain quickly shooed the thought away. Just astonishing to think of it this way, at least to me. But now, having read this instructive editorial in National Review, I learn that my question can be looked at in a second way. To NR’s editors, natch, the whole business is silly. The editorial points out that the flag enjoys a noble non–January 6 history. It was commissioned by none other than George Washington himself! It referenced a riot in New Hampshire against British tree regulations. To this day, sans the "Appeal to Heaven" slogan, it remains the official maritime flag of the state of Massachusetts! So, to the question of what Samuel Alito was thinking, we may now answer: Why, he wasn’t thinking of January 6 at all. He was driven, no doubt, by thoughts of those noble New Hampshirites and their righteous rage against imperial tree regulations—which, like all regulations, were intrusive and totalitarian. Or he was thinking: "You know, I’m quite overdue to pay proper homage to the bold seafarers of the Bay State!" Right. I heard Lawrence Tribe on TV the other day remind us that with respect to Supreme Court judges, in fact all federal judges, the Constitution says this: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour." Disgraceful. |
Last week’s quiz: Holy Boomer Pop Culture IQ! A quiz about the old Batman show, and yes, Adam West will always be Batman to me. |
1. What actor was the other finalist to play Bruce Wayne/Batman, ultimately losing out to West? |
A. Brian Keith B. Bill Bixby C. Lyle Waggoner D. Don Adams |
Answer: C, Lyle Waggoner. As proof (YouTube is so great), here’s a little clip of Waggoner screen-testing for the role, with a guy named Peter Deyell as the Boy Wonder. Would’ve been a disaster. Waggoner ended up OK—he was a regular on The Carol Burnett Show for years. |
2. Which archvillain, in a wild and hilarious presaging of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, once ran for mayor of Gotham City? |
A. The Joker B. The Riddler C. The Penguin D. Mr. Freeze |
Answer: C, The Penguin. Two truly amazing episodes, and the Trump parallel is gobsmacking. "Vote for Pengy, yesiree / he’s the bird for you and me." |
3. Match the female villain to the actress who portrayed her (in the case of Catwoman, most of the time). |
Catwoman Lola Lasagne The Siren The Black Widow |
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Ethel Merman Joan Collins Talullah Bankhead Julie Newmar |
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Answer: Catwoman, Newmar; Lola, Merman; Siren, Collins; Widow, Bankhead. Merman and Bankhead were massive stars, and it was one of the charms of Batman that the producers got really big old-time stars to participate in this high camp. |
4. Name the actors who portrayed, respectively, Alfred the Butler, Commissioner Gordon, and Chief O’Hara. |
A. Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, and Stafford Repp B. Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, and William Dozier C. Lorenzo Semple, Oscar Rudolph, and Neil Hamilton D. Stafford Repp, Alan Napier, and Oscar Rudolph |
Answer: A, Napier, Hamilton, and Repp. I’ve seen Napier and Hamilton pop up in other roles, but not Repp. |
5. Rudy Vallee and Glynis Johns starred as an evildoing British couple in some episodes that gave the show an excuse to transplant the Caped Crusaders (and the newly added Batgirl, who materialized in the third and final season) to Swinging "Londinium." Vallee played Lord Marmaduke Ffogg. What was the name of the Johns character? |
A. Lady Horatia Churchthrill B. Lady Cecily Cockfosters C. Lady Penelope Peasoup D. Lady Hollis Simpson-Wallace |
Answer: C, Lady Peasoup. Kinda goes with Ffogg, although my fake answers are very Batman-esque names, especially D, which inserts a joke the older viewers of the time would have gotten. |
6. In an early scene in the Batman movie, which came out the same year the TV show debuted (1966), what handy item does our hero pull from his utility belt to save his life? |
A. Shark Repellent Bat Spray B. Bat Shrink Reverser Pill C. Bat Anti-Hypnosis Serum D. Anti-Eardrum Piercing Batmuffs |
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Join us on June 8 for a high-profile event that will feature authors who are currently banned; fellow writers who have taken up the cause; and teachers, librarians, and students who have been directly impacted by the book bans that are sweeping America. Guests include: Lauren Groff, Ellen Hopkins, George M. Johnson, Jacqueline Woodson, and more. |
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This week’s quiz: "And the livin’ is easy." Since it’s Memorial Day weekend—songs about summer. |
1. The above line, "and the livin’ is easy," is from what summertime song? |
A. "A Summer Song," by Chad & Jeremy B. "Summertime," by George Gershwin C. "Hot Fun in the Summertime," by Sly and the Family Stone D. "Summertime Sadness," by Lana Del Rey |
2. Antonio Vivaldi wrote a poem to accompany each movement of "The Four Seasons." What happens in the "Summer" section of the work, according to the poem? |
A. A storm destroys a farmer’s crops. B. A young man falls in love. C. A flood buries a village under water. D. A huntsman kills a boar. |
3. In Alice Cooper’s "School’s Out," what word rhymes with "intelligence"? |
A. Elegance B. Relevance C. Elephants D. There is no rhyme |
4. Perhaps the all-time greatest summer song is 1970’s "In the Summertime," by Mungo Jerry. What was the inspiration for the band’s name? |
A. A character in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats B. "Mungo Jerry" was a particularly potent form of skunk weed available on the streets of their Middlesex hometown. C. It was the nickname of a well-known busker in Shantytown in Kingston, Jamaica. D. It was the lead singer’s real name. |
5. In the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 1966 "Summer in the City," what is the "cool cat" in the second verse looking for? |
A. A ride B. A kitty C. A Caddy D. A place to hide from the heat |
6. Which of these acts has not covered "Under the Boardwalk," the 1964 Drifters hit written by Kenny Young and Arthur Resnick? |
A. Bette Midler B. Bruce Willis C. The Muppets D. Linda Ronstadt |
Answer: D, "Honey," a horrible, treacly song that had nothing to do with the spirit of the times. |
You have a favorite summer song? Answers next week. Feedback to [email protected]. —Michael Tomasky, editor |
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What American Fascism Would Look Like: It can happen here. And if it does, here is what might become of the country. |
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