reflectivepundit

Democrats Must Magnify the Unholy Agenda of Trump’s Congressional Proxies

By Brigitte L. Nacos

President Biden, the White House, and the Democratic Party have received ample criticism for their lack of effective and around-the-clock public communication promoting their considerable policy achievements and countering the hell-bent Trumpian propaganda of lies, most of all, that he and his coterie are the protectors of the American people against their evil enemies within the country.

I have been asked frequently, how Biden and Democrats could counter their opposition's positions and promote their own. Here I provide a very small but, I believe, workable example.

Below you see the closing lines of a New York Times article by Catie Edmondson about current efforts in the House of Representatives to prevent the shut-down of the government later this week:  

"Among the measures that Republicans have sought are one that would restrict access to abortion medication and another to restrict the Department of Veterans Affairs from flagging veterans deemed mentally incompetent in a federal background check needed to buy a gun. They also have tried to block an effort by Democrats to increase funding for nutrition programs for low-income women and children."

There are no better facts than those described above for Biden and his communication experts to highlight as three of many outlandish measures which are typical for the Republican Party’s extreme, inhumane, and violent agenda.

First, Republican House leaders are not content with the conservative U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Now they try to further limit American women’s decision-making right over their reproductive health by adopting federal restrictions to access abortion medication.

Second, Republicans in the House want to give mentally challenged veterans the right to buy guns by removing their health information from background checks. If they succeed, they will make another dangerous gift to the gun industry in return for generous campaign donations. And that at a time, when mass shootings and the number of innocent victims are on the rise.

Third, in another scandalous move, Republicans in the House want to withhold food from children who live in low-income households by blocking efforts by House Democrats to increase funding for this basic nutrition program. Another heartless move by House Speaker Mike Johnson who claims to be a Christian but does not act like a real Christian.

I, like others, have long been disappointed by the Biden White House’s and more recently by the Biden campaign’s lack of old-fashioned spoken and written public relation tactics that use the opposition’s own measures and demands to explain and amplify the threat that the MAGA/GOP and its Dear Leader pose for all Americans and the democratic fabric of the 250-year old American governmental system.  

CNN Offers Donald Trump Once Again Free Propaganda Time

Brigitte L. Nacos

CNN has offered and Donald Trump accepted the cable network’s invitation to a May 10^th townhall meeting in New Hampshire 18 months before the 2024 presidential elections and more than 9 months before the start of the primary season. The rationale for the deal is clear: With ratings down, CNN expects from Trump’s performance a huge audience and great media interest, while Trump wants to show Fox News that he has alternative means to spread his propaganda.

Free mainstream media.

Although there are two other declared contenders for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump will be the only one in the 60-minute show that will be moderated by CNN morning show co-host, Kaitlan Collins. Some Republican and Independent audience members will get an opportunity to ask Trump questions.  

In 2015 and 2016, CNN was instrumental in over-covering Donald Trump’s toxic campaign performances and bringing the outrageous and scandalous news about the TV reality star turned presidential candidate to American and global audiences. The payoff came in form of  high ratings, high commercial rates, and healthy profits.

It seems that the CNN bosses have forgotten the frequent attacks on the network, its star correspondents and moderators by first-time candidate and later president Trump. They also must have forgotten that Donald Trump plotted with others to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and incited the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 by his supporters.

For years, Trump called the mainstream media “the enemy of the American people” and news organizations and individual journalists “liars.” That is an old trick of autocratic strongmen who violate the laws and conventions of liberal democracy. Not for the common interest but their own corrupt interests.

CNN’s bosses should know better. After all, the network was high up on Trump’s hate-the-press list that encouraged MAGA fanatics to threaten journalists covering Trump’s rallies.

Again and unfortunately profit imperatives matter more than the journalistic ethics rules of a free press. 

Why did Trump order the Assassination of the Iranian General? The President’s Twitter Archive provides the Best Answer

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Since 2011, Donald Trump mentioned Iran 380 times in tweets that revealed his obsession with and hostility towards the Islamic Republic. In many of these Twitter messages he attacked President Obama for not being tough enough.

But in the most revealing tweets are the following:

Nov.  14, 2011: @BarackObama will attack Iran in the not too distant future because it will help him to win the election.

Nov. 29, 2011: In order to get elected @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

April 4, 2012: Remember what I said about @BarackObama attacking Iran before the election...

Oct. 22, 2013: Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected—be aware Republicans!

As we know, President Obama did not attack Iran to trigger a rally-‘round-the-flag effect in support of his reelection chances as Trump predicted wrongly.

However, according to the Pentagon, it was Trump who ordered the deadly drone strikes that killed Qassim Soleimani, the Iranian general in charge of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force. While not shedding tears over Soleimani’s demise, one wonders about the overall strategic concept behind the assassination. While an all-out war is unlikely, Iran will strike back sometime, somewhere.  And the explosive Middle East will become even more dangerous and destabilized.

But that obviously does not concern Trump.

Replace “@BarackObama” and “Obama” with @realDonaldTrump in the four tweets above and you get a good idea why the Commander-in-Chief gave the green light for the assassination of the Iranian general on the territory of the sovereign state of Iraq.  

The President obviously believes that the conflict with Iran will raise his public approval and help his reelection along with his fight against the impeachment process.

So far, so good, for Trump: The breaking news now is all about the U.S.-Iran conflict—not about impeachment and likely Democrats running against the president in the general election campaign.  

Trump’s Virus of Alternative Facts Spreads at Home and Abroad

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Drawing on his experience as Hitler’s propagandist-in-chief Joseph Goebbels revealed, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” What once was the centerpiece of Nazi propaganda has become commonplace in contemporary America. The virus of alternative facts—in common language: lies propagated as truth--has spread from Donald Trump’s campaign and White House to his supporting cast in the administration, in Congress, and throughout the onetime Great Old Party.

Whether in his tweets, staged press encounters, or mass rallies the president himself tells and repeats again and again the same alternative facts. Just as important for these lies to spread is that

(1) the right-wing media report Trump’s whopper lies with excitement and breaking news prominence as true revelations; and

(2) the mainstream media, although day-in and day-out attacked by Trump, cover the President’s tweet output constantly and thereby, unwittingly, magnify them.  

Today, the wide gap between alternative fact and actual fact, between truth and lie, has increased the ideological and partisan polarization. Roughly half of the American public believes whatever alternative facts the President and his enablers in politics, FOX News, and others in his media propaganda arm say or write, while the other half of the nation form their views based on demonstrable facts.

Take this example: After the President met yesterday with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office (ironically, the same day congressional Democrats publicized the text of the two impeachment articles!), U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that President Trump had “warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in United States elections.” Lavrov, however, told the press during a news conference in the Russian Embassy that he and Trump did not discuss elections at all.

Sad but true, the Russian’s version is credible, Pompeo’s is not. After all, President Trump has all along denied any Russian interference in the 2016 election—why, then, would he warn of any interference by Moscow in next year’s presidential race?

The virus of alternative facts has not merely dire consequences at home but also abroad. Trump’s constant attacks on ”fake news” and “fake media”—a  reprise of the term “Luegenpresse” (lying press) used by Nazi leaders in their assaults on not yet completely controlled news organizations—have become part of the propaganda schemes of  leaders around the world, including those in  Russia, China, Turkey, Venezuela, and Israel.

Most disconcertingly, even when followers recognize fully that their leader is a chronic liar they may not withdraw their support. Indeed, the other day, a voter in the United Kingdom revealed “she was voting for Mr. [Boris] Johnson precisely because he is a proven liar. It shows, she said, that he is ‘human’.”

Preferring serial liars as leaders! That’s the very sad state of affairs here, in the UK, and elsewhere.

The unpresidential President: Are there Limits to Trump’s Character Flaws and his Alternative Truth?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When the man holding the highest office in our land displays publicly a deficit in basic human values and in positive character traits, this should not sit well with all of us—regardless of partisan and ideological preferences. While Donald Trump exhibits such a deficit day-in and day-out—particular in his Twitter feeds, he highlighted yesterday his ethical bankruptcy in the most regrettable ways:

As he celebrated the adoption of the "John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act" during his visit at Fort Drum in upstate New York, he thanked a number of individuals but never mentioned the US Senator of Arizona. Instead, he called the new law “National Defense Authorization Act” dropping the Senator’s name included by Congress in honor of McCain who is fighting brain cancer. Unable to forget his political differences with the old war hero, Trump attacked him at his next stop—a fundraising event—again without naming McCain. But everybody knew what he meant when he referred to Obamacare and said, "I would've gotten rid of everything, but as you know, one of our wonderful senators had thumbs down at 2 o'clock in the morning.” 

I can’t think of more unpresidential behavior—apart from his on-bended-knees performance at the Helsinki “summit” and the press conference with Vladimir Putin.

That the 45. President is a pathological liar is well documented. Yesterday, for example, he tweeted that “the very unpopular Governor of Ohio (and failed presidential candidate) @JohnKasich hurt Troy Balderson’s recent win by tamping down enthusiasm for an otherwise great candidate…” The truth is that the last available opinion poll of June this year showed a 52% approval for Kasich compared to a 43% approval for Trump!

More importantly, there seem to be signs that the one-time reality TV star and shock jock may not get away with murder (as he has bragged) forever.  

A just published CNN poll revealed the following:

55 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Russia investigation vs. 34 percent who approve.

56 percent say Trump has interfered with the investigation, only 38 percent who say he has not.

70 percent say Trump should testify to Mueller, 25 percent who say he should not.

57 percent say Trump knew about contacts between his campaign operatives and Russians, only 36 percent who say he did not.

These results indicate that there are some cracks even in Trump’s base. Thus, there is now some hope that alternative truth and alternative facts cannot trump actual truth and actual facts forever.

Time for President Obama to Use the Bully Pulpit and Assert Strong Leadership

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Thanks to his clear victory this week President Obama has replenished political capital to assert the same strong leadership he displayed in reaction to Hurricane Sandy.

To be sure, Republican leaders in Congress have shown none of the qualities that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demonstrated when he abandoned partisan politics and cooperated closely with the president in the face of a horrendous crisis for the benefit of the many hard hit hurricane victims in his state.

President Obama must nevertheless strive to install the bipartisan Obama-Christie cooperation model in Washington in order to find agreements to solve the nation’s most pressing problems. Never mind that Republican leaders, who might want to cooperate, will continue to feel threatened by the wrath of uncompromising Tea Partiers and Grover Norquist, the unelected ruler of the GOP’s no-new-tax dictate.

The president’s stump speeches in the last phase of the campaign underscored that he is an excellent communicator if he so chooses.

Unfortunately, the great communicator Obama was mostly absent from the political arena for most of his first term. Had he explained, for example, in plain language the provisions of the “Obamacare” package, he could have enlisted solid public support.

He left it to the opposition to fill the gap with misinformation.

This must change. In today’s mass society with its many forms of mass communication and mass self-communication a strong leader must constantly inform and engage the people rallying their support for policies benefiting the vast majority and opposition against those measures designed for the super-wealthy 1 percent.

First of all, and before the new congress convenes, the so-called fiscal cliff must be dealt with decisively. Unless there is finally a fair agreement on how to handle the expiring tax cuts adopted during the George W. Bush presidency, there will be across-the-board spending cuts in Pentagon and domestic programs.

President Obama must insist on doing away with all of the favorable tax rates for the rich and super-rich while preserving those for the lowest and middle income groups. He should muster all his communicative qualities to lead a vigorous public discourse on good and bad ways to deal with the fiscal crisis.

And he should try to win former President Bill Clinton to be his negotiator-in-chief with congressional leaders in the upcoming struggle to avoid going over the financial cliff.

But ultimately it is the presidential bully pulpit that matters most.

Deceptive Propaganda and Health Care Reform

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The images of mostly old Americans in chaotic townhall meetings this fall are unforgettable as are the untrue arguments against meaningful health care reform made in those gatherings. Although enjoying the benefits of their government-run Medicare entitlements, the elderly in particular ranted and raved against a public alternative to private health insurance.

The deceptive propaganda campaigns (just think of death panels) by conservative ideologues and a greedy insurance industry have misled rather than educate certain segments of society. Thus the outcry against the alleged horror of government bureaucrats making decisions about health care needs—although bureaucrats in insurance companies decide day-in and day-out what medical treatments will be paid for--or not.

When a propaganda of fear warns of socialism and communism taking hold and replacing good, old capitalism, such nonsense tends to scare the hell out of those who fear to be the losers of reforms.

It is a disgrace that a rapidly growing number of Americans do not have any health insurance. But not only Republicans but also several Democrats in the U.S. Senate do not embrace meaningful health care reform that must include a public option. Therefore, MSNBC’s talk show hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow called for setting up temporary free clinics for the uninsured to shame those conservative Democrats--Lincoln and Mark Pryor (both D-Ark.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.)—into joining the majority of Democrats and prevent a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate.
 
Until last night, when I happened to look at Larry King Live, I had never heard of “The Dr. Oz Show” and its host Dr. Mehmet Oz. But this physician’s account of his involvement in such a clinic in Houston drove home the plight of many, many millions of men, women, and children without health insurance.

There was the gripping account of a little girl that was recently examined in one of those temporary clinics in Houston. Although working, her mother has not been able to afford health insurance. As it turned out, the little girl had a hole in her heart. One wonders how many treatable health problems are not discovered for lack of insurance.

And that in the United States—not some third world country!

Presidential Power, Health Care Reform, and President Obama

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When it comes to ranking the greatest communicators in the White House, Ronald Reagan and the two Roosevelts, Franklin and Theodore, deserve top billing as does the current president. But even in the age of communication presidents cannot rely solely or mostly on what Samuel Kernell has explained as the need to “go public” and win popular support for presidential policies.

Barack Obama’s personal and his campaign camp’s communication skills were instrumental in winning first his party’s nomination and ultimately the presidency. Once in the White House, however, a president’s power to get his enacted does not derive from public support only.    

To be sure, public support is very important. The idea here is that popular backing of presidential policies will help to persuade members of congress and other influential actors to follow presidential leadership. Yet, bargaining with and convincing Washingtonians at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that it is in everyone’s interest to follow the president’s lead remains very much part of presidential power as it was in the past and as Richard Neustadt described it so well fifty years ago.

More recently, as presidential scholar Richard Rose recognized, post-modern presidents face three imperatives: going public, going Washington, and going international in the sense of communicating with and persuading the general public and fellow-decision-makers at home as well as foreign governments and publics. 

Going public and going Washington effectively is imperative especially with respect to a domestic policy goal that aims at fundamental changes. Meaningful health care reform is such a policy objective.

But, strangely and inexplicitly, President Obama was late on both counts. It was only after the opposition had gone public and eroded public support for a meaningful health care reform that candidate Obama promised during the campaign that the White House decided in favor of direct presidential appeals to the American people. And to this day, there is no intensive “going Washington” campaign.

To persuade members of Congress it is not enough to invite a bunch of representatives and senators to the White House for a group session with the president. As Lyndon Johnson demonstrated, when he pressed for key civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, support for highly controversial policies can be won by one-on-one contacts with as many individual law-makers as possible. The great communicator Ronald Reagan, too, worked the phones to push members of congress to support his first budget and major tax cuts—although he was recovering at the time from the injuries suffered during an assassination attempt.

Perhaps it would be too late now to make a difference in the outcome of the health care reform but White House aides should read or reread some basic literature on presidential power—starting with Neustadt, Kernell, and Rose.

Note to Pres. Obama: Public Diplomacy Must Aim at Largest Audience

By Brigitte L. Nacos
That President Barack Obama is sticking to his campaign promise of changing America’s foreign policy approach was obvious, when he granted his first formal White House interview to the Arab TV-network  al-Arabiya and used the occasion as a platform to address the Arab and Muslim street. As Karen DeYoung reports in the Washington Post, the responses to the president’s outreach “have been largely positive.” But her assessment is not based on polls of or interviews with regular Arabs and Muslims but rather on the reactions of various government officials. While there is no doubt that leaders of governments and of non-governmental groups took notice of Obama’s promise for a new start in America’s relations with the Muslim and Arab world, one wonders how many members of general public in these countries watched the actual interview.

Unfortunately, by selecting the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya network rather than the Qatar-owned al-Jazeera, the White House selected a moderate medium with a rather modest viewership over a more Arab-centric network with the by far largest audience in Arab countries.

This, then, was a missed opportunity in public diplomacy in that it did not aim for and did not get the attention of the largest segment of the targeted audience. As the 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland found by surveying representative samples of the public in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, taken together al-Jazeera has 53% of the audience whereas al-Arabiya has only 9%. Similarly, a December 2008 survey found that more than 50% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza al-Jazeera was the most watched satellite television compared to 10% for al-Arabiya.

Unlike traditional diplomacy or government-to-government communications—often during person-to-person contacts--, public diplomacy is directed to foreign publics and therefore must aim at reaching the largest number of people. You do not have to agree with the medium of communication as long as you are assured that an interview, a speech, and messages in whatever form are aired in their original form. In other words, al-Jazeera, not al-Arabiya, is the by far best platform for public diplomacy with Arabs and Muslims.

Hillary Clinton: “Two-for-One” Perception is Too Risky

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I read the other day that John Edwards endorsed the prominent roles that spouses play and should be entitled to play during presidential campaigns. Growing up in Western Europe, I did not witness anything close to the American tradition of spouses and other family members weighing in quite heavily during campaigns. Mostly, this is explained by the distinctly different candidate selection processes in parliamentary systems. In the current battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination there is a widely shared perception (part of it fueled by competitors’ campaigns and part of it by media reporting and comments) that former President Bill Clinton has been too outspoken and aggressive and divisive in his wife’s campaign efforts—especially, after her win in New Hampshire and before her poor showing in South Carolina.
    Senator Obama’s wife and former Senator Edwards’ wife have been blunt in their support of their husbands and critical of their husbands’ rivals. But they, unlike Bill Clinton, are not ex-presidents who are persistently in the limelight and have credits and liabilities accrued before and during presidential terms.
    While one would expect any man or woman in the American political context to go to bat for his or her spouse during campaigns for the highest public offices, in this year’s extraordinary and so far unique case, one of the spouses is a former president.