FREE WHITEWATER

Politics

The Trump Bubble

Over at the conservative Bulwark, there’s a published email in which the email’s author anecdotally describes how some Trump supporters are ignorant of significant daily political events: I will also point out that the same people who were extremely knowledgeable about what was going on during the Obama administration amazingly have very little knowledge of…

Market-Hating Republicans Have Been a Local Problem for Years

George Will, writing in the Washington Post, observes that Josh Hawley sounds like he has far too much faith in government: The sails of [Republican] Sen. Josh Hawley’s political skiff are filled with winds gusting from the right. They come from conservatives who think that an array of — perhaps most of — America’s social injuries,…

If Not 2020, When?

In August, the Journal Sentinel published a story, Liberal ‘news’ websites launching in Wisconsin, where conservative versions have thrived. (From the viewpoint of the JS, these are ‘news’ sites not news sites, as the paper is suspicious of non-traditional reporting. Without seeing some of the online publications, however, the scare quotes seem presumptuous.) These months later, only…

Local Candidacies in Whitewater, 2020

There are six public seats up for election in Whitewater this spring (three on the Whitewater Common Council and three on the Whitewater Unified School District’s board.) It seems there are six candidates for these six offices (five incumbents and one former officeholder). This is what one would expect of government in Whitewater over these…

‘Bothsiderism’

Gina Overholser, a writing about a liberal paper, remarks of the New York Times that Its investigative and enterprise work rises to today’s unprecedented challenges. But in day-to-day political reporting, the Times is hopelessly stuck in the past. Its proud allegiance to presenting “both sides” in a time of political breakdown renders it a handmaiden…

One Year

For all the discussion of politics over these last three years, America now comes to a critical year ahead. In these next twelve months, we’ll see primaries, conventions, a general election, and thereafter possible challenges to, and necessary defenses of, the constitutional order. When was there another year so important to America as 2020 looks…

Jay Rosen Considers the Inconsiderable Chuck Todd

Jay Rosen of NYU writes about Chuck Todd’s three-years-too-late grasp of contemporary politics: ‘Round midnight on Christmas eve, Rolling Stone posted a short interview with Chuck Todd, host of “the longest running show on television,” NBC’s Meet the Press. Its contents were explosive, embarrassing, enraging, and just plain weird. Three years after Kellyanne Conway introduced the doctrine of “alternative…

The Lazy, False Equivalance in Craig Gilbert’s Analysis

A lazy, false equivalence runs through Craig Gilbert’s (@WisVoter) over-reliance on claims of hyper-partisanship. At the Journal Sentinel, he writes that ‘Nakedly partisan, rhetorically vicious’: Trump impeachment is echo of Clinton’s from two decades ago. The same conflation diminished Gilbert’s analysis in a 12.2.19 story (‘For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin, the impeachment…

Forget the Tender Feelings of a Pernicious Faction

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert writes about the political divide in For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin [Richland Center], the impeachment fight is a symbol of broken politics. The story establishes a false equivalence between those who support impeachment and those who oppose it, as though the conflict between these views…

In Wisconsin, Gerrymandering Has Brought Out the Crackpots

One reads – and it’s true – that in Wisconsin gerrymandering has disproportionately favored WISGOP candidates. It’s done more, it seems: gerrymandering has produced a decade’s worth of crackpot Republicans: Walker’s crony economics, Ryan’s trickle-down tax bill, Priebus’s sycophancy to Trump, Fitzgerald’s literal serenades for Trump, etc. Occasionally, these men spoke in libertarian language, but…