Will Bunch

Thursday’s real debate takeaway: Only we the people can save US democracy

So this is how liberty dies—in the void of an Atlanta TV sound stage plastered with more CNN logos than a NASCAR Camaro, where the relentless march on Washington by an American Mussolini, fueled by lies about everything from national greatness to his sleazy sex life, could not be stopped either by the muzzled moderators or the coughing and occasionally confused 81-year-old who was the last thing standing between the United States and dictatorship.

Everything you need to know about the critical, on-a-ventilator condition of American democracy can be explained by this:

The candidate whose most memorable line was, “I did not have sex with a porn star”—an all-but-certain lie on top of roughly 30 fact-checked falsehoods about important things from NATO to abortion law—and who walked onto the Atlanta stage with 34 felony convictions and civil verdicts of an adjudicated rape and massive financial fraud, and who urged on an attempted coup against the U.S. government, is NOT the guy that pundits are begging to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

Celebrating four decades of utter fecklessness, consistently choosing candidates not with the goal of winning but with fear-driven hopes of not losing, and consistently siding with rich donors over young people who desperately want a party they can believe in, Democrats are ultimately the ones who threw an 81-year-old deer into the TV headlights of a debate stage.

That guy would be President Joe Biden, who finally beat Medicare—whatever that means—but lost his first debate with Donald Trump, in what may have been his last chance to convince America’s legions of casual, TikTok-besotted, less-tuned-in voters that the oldest president in U.S. history has the strength for another four-plus years in the White House.

It turns out that the president who endured weeks of right-wing conspiracy theories that he was going to be high on Adderall or “jacked up on Mountain Dew” didn’t even bother to take throat lozenges when the moment of truth arrived. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, who gets paid the big bucks to find the humor in such a dire situation, riffed that both men should have been on performance-enhancing drugs, before gesturing at their pictures and slamming down his papers: “This cannot be real life! It just can’t!... We’re America... God!”

But it was real life.

Thursday night, just like many of you, my phone started pinging around 9:05 pm Eastern with texts from nervous and horrified family members, seriously worried about their future. It was a night that reminded me of three other moments: June 6, 1968, when I was a nine-year-old kid walking to school and heard from a car radio that Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was the latest leader to succumb to assassination; September 11, 2001, when I saw the second tower collapse and wondered how I’d ever explain this to my two grade-school children; and November 8, 2016, when Trump’s first election inspired the same kind of frantic texts I got Thursday night, wondering if America was the nation we thought it was.

But our country used to have the resilience to overcome assassinations, riots, even a large-scale terrorist attack. June 27, 2024 felt different. Thursday’s debate didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a moment when many of our institutions, especially the ones that could be a check on an authoritarian president, are failing—miserably.

In the 48 hours before the lights went out in Georgia, a runaway Supreme Court anticipated the next Trump presidency with rulings that all but legalized political bribery, and made it virtually impossible for federal regulators to stop polluters or white-collar criminals. On the cusp of a Christian nationalist America, Oklahoma’s top educator required Bibles in schools, and a Louisiana law mandated the 10 Commandments in classrooms—because they believe that neither our corrupted courts nor a “Red Caesar” president will dare stop them.

Do not obey autocracy in advance. It’s OK and totally normal to feel demoralized today, but then we have 129 days left to prevent the nightmare of Project 2025 from becoming a reality.

And yet perhaps no once-trusted institution is failing America more right now than the news media. CNN’s stellar fact-checker Daniel Dale went before a national audience and in stunning, rapid-fire fashion, exposed nearly 30 lies by Trump, many of them absurd (like grocery prices have quadrupled) or falsely taking credit for things he didn’t do. But this happened at 11:47 pm, more than an hour after the debate and when most folks were asleep.

CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash did no fact-checking in real time, allowing Trump to spin his bizarro-world version of the last eight years uninterrupted. In a typical exchange, the ex-president and convicted felon absurdly lied that “this man [Biden] is a criminal. I did nothing wrong.” Tapper responded simply with, “Thank you, President Trump.” One of the few interruptions came from Bash, who stopped Biden in mid-sentence from setting the record straight on insulin prices.

But the biggest clue that something is terribly wrong in America was, in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, the dog that did not bark. Nothing in this election is more important than the simple fact that Trump wants to rule as a dictator, who would call up troops to put down protests, launch a dead-of-night mass deportation scheme to send thousands of migrants to desert detention camps, sic the Justice Department on his enemies, and free violent insurrectionists. Don’t listen to me; read the 900-page blueprint for autocracy, the 2025 Project.

And yet in a stunning fail, Project 2025 was never even mentioned during the debate. Not once! Not by CNN, in a shocking example of journalistic malpractice, but also not by Biden. That was one more unforced error by a president who’s actually gotten a lot of stuff done, but just can’t live up to his job as Ronald Reagan reinvented it in the 1980s: performer-in-chief.

Because let’s face it: Another institution that has miserably failed the Americans it purports to represent is the Democratic Party. Celebrating four decades of utter fecklessness, consistently choosing candidates not with the goal of winning but with fear-driven hopes of not losing, and consistently siding with rich donors over young people who desperately want a party they can believe in, Democrats are ultimately the ones who threw an 81-year-old deer into the TV headlights of a debate stage.

And it probably won’t shock you when I say that the American public―not all of it, but a lot of it—is wiser than Friday morning’s shock and gloom from the TV pundits and the political establishment, which has been almost solely focused on Biden’s mumbling performance. But in Thursday night focus groups from coast to coast, many everyday voters who’ve ignored Trump for four years were suddenly reminded why 81 million of us voted against him in 2020. The over-the-top lying. The bullying disrespect of our current president. And the blatant racism, like when Trump accused Biden of being “a bad Palestinian,” which did not suggest fondness for Palestinians, or with his bizarre claim that migrants are taking away “Black jobs,” whatever those are.

In several focus groups Thursday night, voters remained divided, with some more put off by Trump’s lying than by Biden’s shaky performance. “We’re in heat-filled Arizona where we are suffering from climate change,” one swing state voter told an NBC News reporter. “To say that there is no problem with our climate is another lie from Trump.”

In a normal world, Trump’s refusal to even address climate change amid a sweltering summer on the cutting edge of a global climate crisis would be a big story. Instead, New York Times columnists and the talking heads on Morning Joe are discussing nothing else but whether Biden should drop out, which would throw the Democrats into sheer chaos. I’m an agnostic about that. Let’s see some polling data first. But frankly, I’m a lot less worried about Biden than I am about stopping dictatorship.

Do not obey autocracy in advance. It’s OK and totally normal to feel demoralized today, but then we have 129 days left to prevent the nightmare of Project 2025 from becoming a reality. I said it last week and I’ll say it again: If you don’t want a far-right Christian government controlling women’s bodies or putting the 10 Commandments in your kids’ classroom, you should follow the examples of Germany and France and take to the streets and protest. And remember that even a weak Biden, if he’s the candidate, is a bridge to a democratic future, while Trump is a road to nowhere.

Eight years after Trump ran on the false premise of making America great again, it was heartbreaking to watch a 90-minute conversation about the nation’s future that pretended that America still doesn’t have the best universities, the best scientists, the best pop music, and millions of idealistic Gen Z and Millennial folks who want to talk about how to make it even better. Donald Trump will destroy that, and Joe Biden is not going to save us. Neither is Chuck Schumer or Sonia Sotomayor or the next editor of The Washington Post. Thursday’s real debate takeaway is that only we can save ourselves. So let’s get to work.

From Your Site Articles

The Media Is Helping Bush Scare the Populace

What I'm saying is that there has been fear-mongering, the likes of which we have not seen in a long time in this country. It happened early in the cold war. We got accustomed to it, we learned to live with it, we learned to understand what it was about and get in proportion. We haven't done that yet with terrorism.

And this administration is really capitalizing on it and using it for its political advantage. No question, the academic testing shows, the empirical evidence shows, that when people are frightened, they tend to go to these authority figures, they tend to become more conservative. So it's paid off for them politically to do this. -- John Dean, author of "Conservatives Without Conscience," on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," July 10, 2006.

On Monday morning, the 11th of July, an historic townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side exploded in a spectacular fireball. It turned out that the cause was natural gas -- the doctor who owned the building was apparently trying to kill himself. But that's not what many New Yorkers thought at first. They were convinced it was terrorism.

One of them was CNN's famed evening talker Larry King, who was staying nearby and was thus one of the first journalists of any kind to arrive at the flaming rubble. That morning he said:

And I heard the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life, an incredible boom, obviously an explosion, I thought it was a bomb. First thing you think of is 9/11 naturally.

Naturally, the first thing that Larry King thought of was 9/11.

After all, he watches CNN.

So do we. And while we couldn't agree more with John Dean, that the climate of overhyped fear-mongering begins at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there's also more to the equation than just the actions of the Bush administration. Anyone who watches TV news or reads a newspaper -- and who's seen street thugs elevated into global terrorists, or Internet chatter become an "intricate plot" -- knows what we're taking about.

And here's the thing, no matter what we do or say, the current crew in the White House will be whipping up these "terror threats," to paper over mistakes or to justify new military adventures, between now and January 2009. We can't stop them from throwing it out there.

But the media and its role as a super-enabler -- that's a different story. In theory, a news outlet would act as a filter, determining what terrorism stories are important and which ones carry the strong whiff of baloney. Instead, since Sept. 11, 2001, the media has become a giant amplifier, not a filter. When the subject is "the war on terror," no development is too small for wall-to-wall "breaking news" coverage, or a front-page scoop.

In the initial months after 9/11, that made sense. Over time, however, news directors and editors received plenty of evidence that not everything in what was unanimously called "the war on terror" was what it was cracked up to be.

As a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News, I learned that lesson early -- and painfully. I wrote a front-page article on Sept. 19, 2001, with the screaming headline: DOCTOR; TERRORIST?; FBI SUSPECTS A YOUNG, WELL-LIKED RADIOLOGIST IN TEXAS. Residents were stunned that a mild-mannered doctor had been plucked from their suburban community -- and in hindsight they should have been. As Human Rights Watch later reported:

A medical doctor doing his residency in San Antonio, Texas, [Albader] al-Hazmi had no previous criminal record or interaction with the FBI. The government based its arrest of al-Hazmi on the fact that he shared the last name of one of the hijackers and had been in phone contact with someone at the Saudi Arabian Embassy with the last name "bin Laden" (which is a common Arabic name). After the government arrested al-Hazmi, agents searched his house for twelve hours, turning his house "upside down," with little regard for his wife and young children. He was detained for two weeks in jails in Texas and New York before being released. He never testified before a grand jury or court.

So many reports about "second waves" and Arabic men trying to board planes or trains with box-cutters or wads of cash -- all, or almost all, total bunk. Tourism camcorder clips became "terrorist surveillance videos." Even "successful" terror cases, like this one in Detroit, were later thrown out or were overblown by prosecutors.

Then came the color-coded terror alert levels -- the ultimate "dog that did not bark." There has never been an orange-level alert since Bush was successfully re-elected in November 2004 -- not one. Also, new (and usually debunked) terror threats constantly popped up on bad news days for George W. Bush, as this piece we wrote last October shows.

Then, Bush's political advisor Karl Rove came under a legal cloud, and a lot of the real scare stuff seemed to suddenly disappear, even when the president's approval rating plunged. Last month, Rove was apparently cleared in the CIA leak probe, and in an amazing coincidence "the war on terror" was back with a vengeance, with a flurry of new arrests and new plots. And just like "Pirates of the Caribbean," the media seemed to fall for the sequel even more than the original.

Last month, CNN went virtually wall-to-wall for an entire day with the arrest of seven young men in Miami, in a story that was frequently billed as "the plot to blow up the Sears Tower," even though, as Newsweek later reported about the ridiculous outfit known as the Seas of David:

Yet at the same time federal officials were promoting the case as another breakthrough in the terror war, they admitted it was unclear just how real a threat the men posed. The Feds conceded that the group had no weapons and no detailed plan to carry out an attack. There is no evidence that the men were in contact with actual members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

We hoped this nonsensical story was a one-day wonder when we left for a week-and-a-half of vacation, but when we returned, there was a new subject of cable overkill, now a "plot to flood New York's financial district." Instead of a flood, here's some cold water:

"The so-called New York tunnel plot was a result of discussions held on an open Jihadi web site," said Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and contributor to American Conservative magazine, in a late Friday afternoon conversation. Although Giraldi acknowledges that the persons involved -- "three of whom have already been arrested in Lebanon and elsewhere -- are indeed extremists," their online chatter is considerably overblown by allegations of an actual plot.

In fact, the terror hunt is so cranked up these days that it's getting harder to call off the dogs once they're sent out. Our sense yesterday was that the New York townhouse explosion was a bit overplayed -- after all, no one was killed -- but that it was hard for CNN & Co. to shift gears even after terrorism had been ruled out.

So why does the media fall for bogus or misleading terror stories, Charlie-Brown-football-like, time after time? One answer is clearly: It works. The aftermath of 9/11 was the high water mark for cable news in terms of ratings, and it's hard to let go of that. A newspaper like the New York Daily News, which broke the vague "financial district plot" recently, was surely glad to "scoop" the New York Times on the terror beat. What's more, there is the acceptance of the notion that combating terrorism is indeed "a war," which merits amped up "war coverage."

But news outlets have another. more important role: To be responsible. Terror fears have warped the American political debate, from clearing the way for an unjust war in Iraq to papering over White House scandals. That type of influence is something that goes well beyond ratings. CNN would also get lots more viewers if Carol Costello or Anderson Cooper read the news in the buff, but that wouldn't be very appropriate. Scaring the American public needlessly, we'd argue, is a much greater sin.

In fact, although they seem not to realize it, but TV execs and top editors have the power to cancel the version of "The Fear Factor" that's broadcast out of Washington, with a few easy moves. Here's how:

You set the agenda, and not the White House. You wouldn't tell your plumber how to fix your toilet. So why do the world's best newsmen let politicians tell them how to cover the news? -- it's baffling. When the government announces "a major terror arrest," it's impossible not to rush in at first with guns blazing, and that's fine. But an hour or so into it, take a deep breath, and do your own analysis. When the government says that drifters with no weapons or plans were going to blow up the Sears Tower, does it pass the smell test? If it doesn't, it's just as easy to run away from a story -- or at least downgrade it to its rightful tiny hole at the top of the hour -- as to rush into it headlong.
Define your own terms. Again, news directors are the ones who need to decide whether the terror struggle is truly "a war," or something else, or whether online chatter in an Arab country about New York's tunnels is really "a plot." There's good precedent for this. Over time, many editors have agreed that in the abortion debate, the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are politically loaded bombs, and not the language of news or accuracy. And so many papers shun these terms. It was easy when citizen groups were involved, so why can't the government get the same treatment.
Talk to each other. Shocking, we know. But these are desperate times for America, and desperate times require some desperate measures. Imagine if the news chiefs of CNN and MSNBC and Fox -- OK, Fox is probably out -- had a hotline for sharing their initial impression of terror stories. Imagine if the CNN guy said, "I kinda of think this Miami story is baloney, myself," and if MSNBC agreed. At the least, we'd love to see this: An emergency summit on covering terrorism. Gather in a big meeting hall, call in the C-SPAN cameras, and work toward some notion of when terror is real, and when it is manufactured. Critics would scream "collusion," but would it really be collusion or would it be serving democracy, journalism's highest calling?
Prioritize the issues of the 21st Century. Yes, terrorism is a significant story. But where does it rank against global warming, dwindling fossil fuel supplies, the rise of China and India, or the disappearance of the middle class here in America? You -- and not Karl Rove -- need to make these decisions.

The media is indeed the most powerful tool of our time. But right now, it's being manipulated by outside forces. Jazzman Gil Scott-Heron said famously, "The Revolution Will Not be Televised."

But maybe the real American revolutiion will not be televising.

How the Poor Got Trapped

Last week, you learned how how locals and New Orleans-based Army Corps of Engineers begged the Bush administration to spend more money on shoring up the city's levees, to no avail. But as the hellish situation in the city slides deeper into anarchy, there is clearly another failure of equal importance -- and this time there's blame for everybody.

In the months leading up to Hurricane Katrina, it became increasingly clear to local officials that in the event of a killer storm, the No. 1 problem in a city with a 30-percent poverty rate was some 134,000 residents who did not have a car. They knew these people had no way to get out of town -- and that a Category 3 hurricane or stronger would likely bring a flood of Biblical proportions.

And so the plan was...to do nothing.

Well, almost nothing. This summer, as local officials were streamlining the counter-flow interstate traffic plan so that better-off New Orleans residents could leave more quickly, they also prepared a DVD for local churches and civil groups urging the poor to find a ride out of town.

They didn't say who from. They only said who it wouldn't be: The government. Even more amazing, the mayor of New Orleans took the city's buses -- the most viable means for getting poor residents out of town -- and used them to bring people to the Superdome, even as he was acknowledging that conditions there were bound to deteriorate.

This is from a story I filed last week for Philadelphia's Daily News.

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Why the Levee Broke

Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters continued to rise in New Orleans on Wednesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

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Thursday’s real debate takeaway: Only we the people can save US democracy

Why the Bernie Sanders Revolution Is Not Televised

What the Hell Is Wrong With America?

The Taserification of America

The Tragedy of Robert McNamara Does Not End With Vietnam

The Media Is Helping Bush Scare the Populace

How the Poor Got Trapped

Why the Levee Broke