In his
memoir James Comey has filtered an editorial into what we had a right to expect
would be straight news. Donald
Trump is "unethical, and untethered to truth....
his leadership is
transactional, ego driven."
Strong opinions, with which many would agree, but with no more authority
than any other editorialist's opinions.
Where Comey does have the authority that makes
a claim on our interest is in his privileged position observing what Trump did
and said. Feed us what you know, James,
let us put that with whatever we've learned from other sources, and we'll write
our own editorial.
That's respecting the reader. It's honoring the implicit promise an
educated person makes when he or she communicates something to another educated
person: "I will not try to
slip anything over on you."
Sliding your authority as FBI director over the weaker authority
you share with ordinary editorialists, to strengthen it, is slipping something over.
Respect for the reader is what the New York Times was for many years famous
for. Along with trust that the
reader would get a point without a megaphone in his ear. Now, with Donald Trump, the Times can't seem to maintain that
trust. How else to explain the
redundance of evidence about him, with only minute variations? "Trump is an incompetent asshole,
he is, he is. See? See?"
Redundance in the news, redundance in the
editorials. On the Op-Ed page
variations, within a narrow range, on dismay, indignation, outrage. Broader variations in wit, irony,
analogy, ridicule, sneers (so witty you can't help laughing — for a while), but
with diminishing returns.
Inability to hear readers like me, saying, "Look, I already know
what kind of asshole Trump is; I've used up my appreciation of easy wit on this
subject."
I'm probably putting the whole load of my
liberal-media reading and listening onto the Times (David Brooks and Mark Shields on PBS were as complaisant as anybody) but I think my sense of a
great change in public discourse is sound. Donald Trump has —
if coarseness were ever justified, it's here — turned American public discourse into a pissing contest.
I know, this has happened before, and
shouldn't exercise us. But this
time it's an accepted pissing contest. No voice (with Comey I'm waiting to
hear from the Times) is saying
"they shouldn't be speaking like this"; all are asking, "Who's winning?" or, if they've
decided that, cheering their man.
For educated people, in the stands, it's a new
kind of cheer. Where once the roar
came at a solid point driven home, it now comes when the stream finds its
mark. "Man, he really wetted
him down on that one!"
Whatever the immediate outcome, the long-term
winner is Donald Trump. It's his
game, played on his kind of ground.
And if educated people think they can, with their superior wit, at least
win in the short term, they are mistaken.
Get in a pissing contest with a skunk and, as the folk axiom ought to
remind them, you can only lose.
