CSotD: Subjective Reality, Alternative Facts
Skip to comments
A simple cartoon can contain a lot of different messages, and Derenne doesn’t tell the reader what to think. She just gives us a visual poke to get the thinking process started.
First of all, Trump does peddle a lot of fake news, whether it’s deliberate lies or cockamamie theorizing. By this time, we ought to recognize that trying to differentiate lies from lunacy is a mug’s game, because it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he believes what he says, because the critical point is whether other people believe what he says, and, obviously, many of them do.
Derenne’s cartoon raises one of the most important aspects of this, because Trump believes, or at least asserts, that news is valid if it agrees with him, and that news which challenges his positions is “fake” and a “hoax.”
And we should remember that this nonsense about “alternative facts” began with his preposterous claims about the size of the crowd at his first inauguration.
Which is similar to his utterly asinine ideas about making 600% reductions in drug prices. It’s not a matter of Democrat or Republican. It’s not even math. It’s arithmetic. We could count the crowd at his inauguration and we know that you can’t reduce prices by more than 100%.
And yet to deny either claim is fake news, and another hoax, because in a cult of personality, you are expected to operate on faith in Dear Leader, not on the phony theories of pinhead professorial types.
Sometimes, it’s simpleminded advice that can get the suckers in trouble. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggests that people lower their withholding in order to increase their net pay, his theory based on this year’s lower tax rates for many people.
Theoretically, it’s true that withholding more money than required is the equivalent of giving the government an interest-free loan. But adjusting your withholding requires knowing what you’re likely to be paying next April, and to say taxes are in flux is understating the situation.
Those who get the math wrong, whether by their own error or because tax rates change or deductions turn up differently, will face an unwelcome bill on April 15. You certainly shouldn’t use withholding as a Christmas Club to provide a big refund, but you also shouldn’t cut it too fine.
And given people’s average computing skills, our shifting economy, and the relatively small rise in average refunds this year, Bessent’s advice is more harmful than helpful.
It isn’t fake news and it isn’t a hoax. It’s just really bad advice.
Speaking of possible changes in your taxes, Wolterink notes that Trump’s nominee for head of the Federal Reserve is an obedient puppy on a short, red leash. This fits in with Dear Leader’s notion that opposing him is treachery and fraud, but it doesn’t fit in with the idea that the Fed is supposed to avoid decisions based on loyalty and party policy.
Matson uses a different metaphor, but expresses similar doubts about Warsh’s independence, after he endured some extensive grilling in the Senate Banking Committee hearing.
However, the prospects of his confirmation seem less based on whether he can be expected to maintain the independence of the Fed and more about whether a majority of Senators will oppose the wishes of the president.
And it should be noted that the decisions the Fed makes about interest rates could readily change prospects for people who adjust their withholding based on last year’s economy.
One dubious change is that, while the Supreme Court struck down Dear Leader’s imposition of random tariffs on imports, the refunding of payments made by importers is unlikely to trickle down to individual consumers. Certainly, they won’t come in direct refunds, but it’s also doubtful that many companies will lower prices to compensate for the overcharges which were paid by consumers.
But for that matter, good loyal MAGA believers may still refuse to believe that tariffs are paid by Americans, not by exporting nations.
There is a certain level of gullibility in those who trust what they are told, but there’s also a level of loyalty, and of lack of information, given that there really is a partisan press that reports genuinely fake news.
The administration continues to claim that they are deporting violent criminals, and Pett points out that the more immigrants are rounded up, the more likely it becomes that people will know some of the individuals involved. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that we’re arresting and deporting people with no criminal records, but not every news outlet is publicizing those numbers.
The administration promotes the horrific crimes of a handful of immigrants, but never says how many horrific crimes are committed by American-born citizens, nor does it publicize the percent of immigrants who don’t commit rape and murder. Or that entering the country illegally is only a misdemeanor, like driving with a tail light out.
But, hey, they’re just defending the public’s right not to know.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The big deal of the day is the rush to redistrict before the midterms, and both Bramhall and Huck suggest that it is distasteful, with Bramhall recalling the self-destructive final scene of Dr. Strangelove, and Huck going back to the days when cartoonists hung Elbridge Gerry’s name on the outrageous redistricting he promoted: Gerrymandering.
Neither, obviously, celebrates the practice.
But Benson joins the chorus of rightwingers outraged over Virginia’s vote to redistrict, forgetting that the gerrymandering began with Texas Republicans on a request from Dear Leader. Or perhaps they haven’t forgotten, but are choosing to ignore the issue of where it started and at whose direction it began.
However, some people genuinely, intentionally have their heads buried in the sand, taking information only from those news outlets that reinforce what they want to believe and ignore disturbing reports.
Which brings us back to Anne Derenne’s depiction of Dear Leader and his newsstand, because we’re so overwhelmed with alternative facts and polarized opinions that people are tempted to believe that it’s all fake, that it’s all a hoax, and that there’s no point in their becoming involved.
Which is how you undermine democracy and create the world of Orwell.
Comments 11