A culture change in the red tribe world!

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2024

The New York Times gets it right: We were struck by a front-page report in this morning's New York Times.

The report discusses a culture shift we've been struck by at the Fox News Channel. The headlines on the Times report say this:

Piety and Profanity: The Raunchy Christians Are Here
In the Trump era, a surprising number of evangelicals are rejecting modesty and turning toward the risqué.

Has "family values" red tribe culture taken a major turn? After offering a few examples, Ruth Graham, a writer on religion, offers this thumbnail account:

GRAHAM (3/18/24): As a core faction in the Republican coalition, conservative evangelicals have long influenced the party’s policy priorities, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. And the influence extended to conservative culture, where evangelical norms against vulgarity were rarely challenged in public.

In some ways, they remain intact. Most pastors don’t cuss from the pulpit, or at all. Mainstream conservative churches still teach their young people to save sex for marriage and avoid pornography.

Yet a raunchy, outsider, boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.

For decades, "family values" conservative culture stressed evangelical norms against vulgarity. As of now, that culture is being replaced in some conservative circles by "a raunchy, boobs-and-booze ethos," Graham reports.

As we've noted in recent months, one such conservative circle is the Fox News Channel, where primetime hosts Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld are best described as "a little bit nutty and substantially smutty." 

For the record, the "raunch" this pair of mossbacks provide is typically laced with throwback, misogyny-adjacent behavior.

We'll offer examples as the week proceeds, but we were struck by Graham's report due to our own observations. We've been amazed by the degree to which Fox has moved in the direction of the "raunch" and the misogyny which are now prevalent in much of its primetime culture.

Just within the past week, Spring Break "coverage" has been widespread on Fox, with a heavy emphasis on teen-aged women in bathing suits. Watters is skilled at finding ways to report—in smarmy and condescending ways—on young women who are no longer in their suits.

At least two of his subjects in recent weeks have plainly been mentally ill. There seems to be nowhere this haunted fellow won't go, with help from his hidden producers. 

To our eye, these fellows strongly exhibit smarmy, throwback gender values. By the way, was 47-year-old comedian and primetime weekend host Jimmy Failla totally sh*tfaced as he cavorted with those college coeds in that Spring Break footage this past Saturday night?

Graham says this change is happening within evangelical culture. We've been surprised to see its dominance all through the world of Fox News.

Within the past month, we've criticized the upper-end press for averting its gaze from this behavior at Fox. This morning, bowing to our will, the Times has started to describe what's happening out there in the real world.

SKILLS: This time around, has Candidate Trump...

MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2024

...perhaps improved his skills? As a courtesy, we're going to show you the fuller text of what the candidate said.

Our guess would be that he knew what he was doing—that he was employing one of skills—when he used the word we highlight in this bit of transcript.

That would be our current guess, although we can't say that we know. As you can see, Candidate Trump was discussing the developing state of the American automobile industry when he employed the word:

CANDIDATE TRUMP (3/16/24): If you look at [the leadership of] the United Auto Workers, what they've done to their people is horrible,

They want to do this all-electric nonsense, where the cars don't go far, they cost too much and they're all made in China. And the head of the United Auto Workers probably never shook hands with a Republican before. They're destroying—

You know, Mexico has taken, over a period of thirty years, 34 percent of the automobile manufacturing business in our country. Think of it. Went to Mexico.

China now is building a couple of massive plants where they're going to build the cars in Mexico and think—they think they're going to sell those cars into the United States, with no tax at the border.

Let me tell you something to China. If you’re listening, President Xi—and you and I are friends—but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now—and you think you're going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no. 

We’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line—

[APPLAUSE]

—and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected!

Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

A friend of mine—all he does is build car manufacturing plants—he's the biggest in the world...

And so on from there. 

(To watch the entire speech, click here for the C-Span videotape. You should jump ahead to minute 32 for the part of the speech in question.)

And so on from there! Meanwhile, the word in question is "bloodbath." As of yesterday afternoon, the candidate's use of that colorful term had launched a thousand ships. For the basic report from NBC News, you can just click here.

Candidate Trump made the statements in question on Saturday afternoon. We've shown you a reasonably large chunk of his actual text.

With blinding speed, a much smaller chunk of the candidate's text had been propelled into the world. It came from Acyn Torabi, a former "Internet influencer" who now seems to direct a great deal of liberal commentary through his work as "researcher and senior digital editor" for the website MeidasTouch.com. 

(Torabi tends to post as "Acyn," full stop. Does his work really shape that much liberal commentary? It's hard to be totally sure.)

At any rate, the candidate delivered his speech on Saturday. We've shown you a fairly large chunk of what he said in the passage which created the latest firestorm.

With lightning speed, Acyn posted a much shorter chunk of what he had said. As you can see, this is what Acyn quickly posted:

CANDIDATE TRUMP: Now, If I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. 

Acyn's post was stripped of context, as his posts typically are. 

He even dropped part of that short segment out! At this site, we may know what you need, but Acyn may know what you want!

Given the skill levels of American journalists and pundits, stripped-down versions of this candidate's statements will often be warmly received. Sometimes, Acyn "paraphrases" what the candidate said—reinvents his words in such a way as to make his statement even more exciting for us in the blue tribe world.

We aren't big fans of Acyn's approach; your assessment may differ. That said:

In this case, what did the candidate mean by his statement? More precisely, what did he mean by the part of his statement in which he predicted "a bloodbath" is he doesn't get elected?

The candidate's campaign quickly said that he was referring to an economic bloodbath. If President Biden gets re-elected, we'll have a general economic mess.

They said that was what he meant. That's what his campaign quickly said.

Helped along by Acyn's editing, blue tribe members more quickly announced that he meant something quite different. According to various blue tribe observers, he meant there would be rioting in the streets if his campaign failed.

We'll be discussing this question as the week proceeds, but we'll do so in a larger context—in a context which involves an array of things we saw over the weekend.

We'll refer to the (genuinely idiotic) discussions we saw on the Fox News Channel last Friday afternoon and evening—idiotic discussion which may be quite effective in driving the red tribe's messaging forward.

We'll be discussing the remarkably calm and orderly interview the candidate gave to the Fox News Channel's Howard Kurtz—an interview which, in edited form, consumed the full hour of yesterday morning's weekly program, MediaBuzz.

We'll be discussing the skill levels of our own blue tribe's high-end pundit corps—and the (possibly diminished) skill levels of our own Candidate Biden. For the record, the skill levels of the professional pundit corps have often been extremely low, dating back to the days when they insisted, for years on end, that an earlier candidate had actually claimed that he invented the Internet.

(A thousand other embellished claims followed that first embellished claim. We refer to embellished claims by the mainstream press, not by that particular candidate.)

Concerning Candidate Trump, our current guess would be this:

We'll guess that his skill levels have developed to the point where he uses language of the type in question as a way of "trolling" our own blue tribe. In the present instance, our current best guess would be this:

According to this provisional theory, we'll guess that he dropped the term "bloodbath" into his discussion to generate a reaction from our own blue tribe. Strikingly, we saw this specific possibility being explicitly discussed, last evening, on a Fox News Channel program! 

We'll also discuss a remarkable front-page report in this morning's New York Times. We think that report is so instructive that we'll discuss it this afternoon.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—and events now move very quickly. It seems to us that Candidate Trump's skill levels as a campaigner may now be advanced over where they once stood.

The skills in question may be fiendish, but they're skills nonetheless! In other sectors of the modern American discourse, the skill levels are virtually nonexistent.

Who will end up winning in November? We can't tell you that. There is one thing we're able to tell you as we close this morning's report. We're able to tell you this:

Almost surely, you've seen none of our blue tribe's pundits discuss the substance of what the candidate said!

Is it true? Has thirty-four percent of the American automobile industry really decamped to Mexico? Are electric vehicles all being built in China?

Is it true, as the candidate went on to say, that giant plants are being built in Mexico—but new plants being built in the United States are much smaller?

The candidate's comments to that effect generated applause from his audience. Those substantive comments went undiscussed on today's Morning Joe as pundits said that major American journalists are behaving like "idiots" when they try to figure out why voters might support Candidate Trump.

We told you this a long time ago—you can't run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps! Has this candidate developed the kinds of skills which will let him take advantage of that current group of "thought leaders?" Which will let him get elected again?

We can't answer that question. At present, though, we've begun to wonder if this candidate's array of skills is simply better than ours at this point in time.

Was the candidate trolling our tribe when he used that colorful word? 

We'll offer that as a possible theory. But as of this morning, we haven't seen that larger discussion about the American auto industry, and the chances are fairly good that we never will.

This afternoon: The red tribe's world is going raunchy, the New York Times has now said

.

SATURDAY: MSNBC aired a special program!

SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2024

It seemed like every program: We didn't exactly hate yesterday's Daily Howler. But it did leave us disquieted.

Partly, we were dealing with fatigue, based upon the loss of an hour last Saturday night. Thanks a lot, President Biden!

We're willing to call spade a spade! Mainly, though, the problem involved this disquieting fact:

In our view, the other tribe has been more right than wrong concerning one major topic.

Say what? The other tribe has been more right than wrong about something? So it has seemed to us:

In our view, the other tribe has seemed to be more right than wrong in the degree of emphasis it has placed on issues involving the southern border.

At times like these, it hurts to voice some such assessment. But so it has seemed to us as the other tribe has stressed an array of worries concerning the southern border, and as our own tribe has largely pretended that the border doesn't even exist.

So it went in recent years among our blue tribe's journalistic "thought leaders," but also among our major elected officials:

Biden officials kept insisting that the border was "secure" and "closed," even when it plainly wasn't. Our major blue pundits focused on the various trials of Donald J. Trump, and on little else.

As our blue tribe was adopting this stance, the red tribe plainly wasn't. They kept stressing a number of concerns about the border—concerns which seem valid to us. 

The questions they've raised have gone unaddressed as our own floundering tribe has kept trying to send Trump to jail. Full disclosure:

In our view, our blue tribe's efforts reached the point of parody at 10 o'clock last night. At that time, MSNBC aired a one-hour special which carried this name:

The Trump Indictments

For the record, that's the title of a new book by Melissa Murray and Andrew Weissman, a pair of highly capable MSNBC legal analysts. Murray and Weissman served as co-hosts of last night's one-hour special. Their book is published by Norton. 

Somewhat parodically, The Trump Indictments is also the name of a different new book! That new book was edited by Ali Velshi, another major figure at MSNBC. 

At some point, it might be easier to list the names of MSNBC personnel who haven't published new books called The Trump Indictments. At any rate, Murray and Weissman served as co-hosts of last night's hourlong special. It was Velshi who brought them on, after serving as substitute host for last night's edition of Alex Wagner Tonight.

Nothing which follows is intended as a criticism of Murray, Weissman or Velshi.  That said, last night's hourlong special opened with Murray saying this:

Good evening and welcome to a special hour devoted to the Trump indictments... 

Donald Trump is charged with 88 felony counts in four different jurisdictions. In this hour, we will cover the latest developments in Donald Trump's criminal cases starting with Fulton County, Georgia today.

That's the way the program started. Our immediate question was this: 

What primetime program on MSNBC within the last year hasn't been "devoted to the Trump indictments?" Within the last year, what hour hasn't "covered the latest developments in Donald Trump's criminal cases?"

The analysts yowled and tore at their hair as Murray offered that somewhat parodic introduction to last night's "special" hour. Briefly, though, let be clear:

The various indictments of Donald J. Trump do, in fact, constitute a set of major news events. There's no reason why they shouldn't be covered by major news orgs.

That said, the border has been a major news topic too, even as MSNBC has seemingly tried to ignore it.

Putting it mildly, the Fox News Channel hasn't ignored the southern border. In turn, the Fox News Channel has done its best to ignore or erase the events of January 6 and the role the former president played in those astounding events.

So it has gone as these two news orgs have stressed one major set of events while disappearing another. Here's our sad admission:

In our view, Fox has been more right than wrong in its focus on the border. Also, Fox has been more right than MSNBC in the amount of coverage it has given to border / immigration topics.

In our view, MSNBC has badly misfired in the massive amount of emphasis it has placed on the Trump indictments. In fairness, the channel has presumably pleased its target audience with this unyielding emphasis.

There were matters we didn't get to yesterday. We'll link you to several today.

We'll start with three posts in which Kevin Drum has attempted to explain some basic provisions of the proposed (and quickly discarded) border bill. All in all, this sort of thing is pretty much never done:

Kevin Drum on the border bill:
February 4, 2024: Senate immigration bill expands detention, increases asylum judges, and allows the president to shut the border

February 5, 2024: Here’s a quick look at objections to the Senate immigration bill

March 9, 2024: Why did Republicans vote down the immigration reform bill?

That sort of thing is rarely done. On cable, here's what happens instead:

On MSNBC, personnel repeat a talking-point about how great the border bill was. On Fox, personnel have tended to mumble imprecise claims about the bill's alleged flaws and limitations while saying that President Biden could fix the border all by himself, with no legislation needed.

Those are the dueling memorized claims. Depending on which channel you watch, you hear one claim or the other, with no disputation allowed.

We were also interested in Christopher Wray's testimony last week before a Senate committee. His testimony drew little press coverage. Headline included, here the start of a poorly-proofread report by ABC News:

ABC News: FBI director warns of 'dangerous individuals' coming across southern border

Amid a bitter election-year debate over illegal immigration, FBI Director Chris Wray told a Senate panel on Monday that dangerous individuals have entered the United States illegally at the southern border.

"We have had dangerous individuals entering the United States have a variety of sources," Wray said at the annual "Worldwide Threats" congressional hearings at which the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies testify.

"We are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border, " he said, citing drug trafficking in particular. "The FBI alone seized enough fentanyl in the last two years to kill 270 million people," he said.

[...]

"There is a particular network that has—some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have—ISIS ties that we're very concerned about, and we've been spending enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating," Wray said.

Overall, he said, threats from various groups have reached a "whole other level."

"Even before October 7, I would have told this committee that we were at a heightened threat level from a terrorism perspective—in the sense that it's the first time I've seen in a long, long time," he said..."[S]ince October 7, though, that threat has gone to a whole other level. And so, this is a time I think for much greater vigilance, maybe been called upon us," he said.

On Fox, they talk about such alleged threats all the time. On MSNBC, rightly or wrongly, little of this gets mentioned.

We also would have liked to direct you to something Senator Katie Britt said on last weekend's Fox News Sunday. 

Britt was doubling down on a grossly misleading anecdote she uncorked as part of the official GOP response to President Biden's State of the Union address. Here's part of The Hill's report about what Britt now said:

ROBERTSON (3/10/24): Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) defended herself on Sunday after she used a story of sexual violence from two decades ago in Mexico as an attack on President Biden in her State of the Union response.

[...]

The senator brushed off the criticism, claiming the story [she told] is emblematic of the president’s border policy.

“I’ve said, in [Biden’s] first 100 days he had 94 executive actions, and those executive actions didn’t just create the crisis. They invited it,” Britt said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview with Shannon Bream. 

“The truth is, and the media knows that they’re not covering it, that human trafficking has gone up under President Biden,” she continued. “If you look back under 2018, it was a $500 million industry, human trafficking by the drug cartels. It is now a $13 billion dollar industry. Shannon, the drug cartels are winning under this. This is a story of what is happening now.”

Say what? Human trafficking by the drug cartels is now a $13 billion industry?

As it turns out, Britt was citing a pair of accurate dollar figures. Inevitably, she was doing so in a somewhat misleading / inaccurate way—though we tend to agree with her claim that "the media" tends not to cover this topic.

At any rate, they talk about "trafficking" all the time on the Fox News Channel! When it comes to topics like this, MSNBC tends to play Goofus to that channel's Gallant, broadcasting hourlong special programs designed to do the same thing they do during every primetime program.

Fox pleases red tribe viewers with its topic selection. MSNBC provides the same service to us blue tribe viewers.

This isn't the doing of Murray and Weissmann. It is a way to create a pair of warring populations, in much the way we read about on the wide plains outside Troy back in ancient times.

Last night, our blue channel offered a special broadcast. For better or worse, it seemed like every other broadcast—like the ones they don't call special!

Has the red channel been more right than wrong about this particular point? 

Much of their work comes straight outta clown college, astoundingly and inexcusably so. But is it conceivable that the others have maybe been more right than wrong, if only this once, just when it comes to this?


Jesse Watters breaks the news...

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024

...concerning the CNN smear: Did Aaron Rodgers really say that the murders at Sandy Hook were a government hoax?

Yesterday, we discussed CNN's report to that effect. Then, shortly after 8 o'clock last night, we saw the Fox News Channel's Jesse Watters turn CNN's story to dust.

Well, not exactly! This is the way it went down:

Watters excitedly started his 8 p.m. show with the thrilling possibility that Rodgers may run for vice president under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

He was filled with excitement at that prospect—and he assured his viewers that CNN's report was just the latest "smear" by the liberal press in support of the Biden White House. 

Behind him, that's what the backdrop said—the backdrop said RODGERS SMEARED.

CNN's report was the real "hoax," the channel's silly child said. "This is just another dirty disinformation campaign to distract from the lifeless Democratic ticket," the smarmy Fox host declared. 

At that point, Watters dropped his purported bombshell. He played an audiotape from 2012 in which Rodgers said, on his Milwaukee radio show, that the incident was a terrible tragedy which he hoped we could learn from.

To see Watters play that audiotape from 2012, you can click right here.

Does that audiotape mean that CNN's report is itself a hoax and a SMEAR? Not really! Here's the problem:

The audiotape played by Watters seems to have been made in real time—in December 2012. According to CNN, the statement in which Rodgers claimed Sandy Hook was a government hoax was made five months later, at the Kentucky Derby in May 2013.

(In standard fashion, Watters seems to say that the reported statement by Rodgers was made at the Derby in 2012. In a thoroughly typical mangling of facts, he's off by one full year.)

In short, CNN's report isn't necessarily undermined by the fact that Rodgers made the earlier statement. It may be that Rodgers signed on to the growing conspiracy theories surrounding Sandy Hook in the months that elapsed between the two incidents.

Also, maybe Rodgers never did say that Sandy Hook was a hoax! We have no personal knowledge concerning this matter. Also, we have no desire to encourage hatred of Rodgers.

Did Rodgers really believe and say that Sandy Hook was a hoax? We can't answer that question, and we aren't looking to turn people into haters.

As we noted yesterday, so we'll note again today:

Many people do believe this least plausible of all possible claims. We regard that as an important, major new fact about the way we human beings frequently function. 

It's an anthropology lesson—anthropology all the way down:

Despite the ways we tend to describe ourselves, we human beings are inclined to believe all sorts of highly implausible, wholly unfounded claims. Unfortunately, this is a modern-day, important new fact about the way our politics functions. 

One final point about Watters: His disordered, throwback behavior concerning women is the most startling thing about his program, but also about the way the reinvented Fox News Channel now functions. Eventually, we'll force ourselves to return to this unpleasant, delicate topic, with one other prime time host thrown into the mix.

That said, we recommend pity for the stunted emotional growth of people like this. At the same time, we pose these questions:

Why in the world is the Fox News Channel constantly putting this misogyny-adjacent, broken-souled content out there on its air? Also, why does this conduct engender exactly zero comment from the profoundly aware, high-end blue tribe press?


WARS: Britt lodged some strenuous accusations!

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2024

As always, blue leaders ignored them: It's as we noted yesterday. Midway through his State of the Union address, President Biden described his stance regarding the southern border.

He went all the way back to Day One. This is what he said:

PRESIDENT BIDEN (3/7/24): Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office I introduced a comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure the border, and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and so much more. 

Because unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans...

Actually, that was pretty much all the president said about his initial policies and proposals concerning the southern border. He went on to call for the passage of this year's proposed border bill.

Roughly an hour later, the president was met with some strenuous pushback from Senator Katie Britt. Citing his first hundred days in office, she offered this assessment:

BRITT (3/7/24): President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border wall, and announced a plan to give amnesty to millions.

We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.

[...]

From fentanyl poisonings to horrific murders, there are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one because of President Biden’s senseless border policies.  

Just think about Laken Riley...She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland.

Britt was giving the official Republican response to the president's address. In her account, President Biden had issued 94 executive actions with respect to the border in his first hundred days. 

She said he created the "border crisis" through the "senseless policies" embedded in those executive actions. She said that people had lost their lives. 

Rightly or wrongly, she even named Laken Riley.

Stating the obvious, Senator Britt was lodging a deeply severe set of accusations. Along the way, she also recounted an anecdote about sexual trafficking with respect to the border—an anecdote which turned out to be grossly misleading with respect to the most basic facts.

Something else happened that night during the president's speech. As is becoming a bit of a norm, President Biden was interrupted—was heckled—midway through his address.

The interruption came from the usual suspect. According to the AP's transcript of the evening's live remarks, these are the words which were spoken:

PRESIDENT BIDEN: I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the [proposed border] bill. He feels political win—he viewed it as a—it would be a political win for me and a political loser for him. 

It’s not about him. It’s not about me. I’d be a winner—not really. I—

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: What about Laken Riley?

(Crosstalk.)

AUDIENCE: Booo—

REP. GREENE: Say her name!

PRESIDENT BIDEN: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken—Lanken (Laken) Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.

REP. GREENE: By an illegal!

THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?

(Crosstalk.)

To her parents, I say: My heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.

At that point, Biden went on to describe some of the contents of the proposed border bill, moving beyond the contents of his prepared text. 

But there you see the interruption—the heckling directed at Biden. Like Senator Britt's grossly misleading anecdote, the interruption—the heckling by Greene—launched a thousand ships.

As we've noted, Senator Britt doubled down on her misleading anecdote on Fox News Sunday last weekend. Offered a chance to disown the gross misdirection she had authored, the young solon refused to relent.

According to the Washington Post, Britt's office took the same approach just last night in response to further questions. This is the way the game now tends to be played within our deeply destructive Red Nation / Blue Nation divide.

Senator Britt has now tripled down on her grossly misleading anecdote! This is the way the game is played as a political war continues to grow.

That said, there was another predictable reaction to Senator Britt's accusations concerning Biden's border policies:

Blue tribe pundits completely ignored the senator's claims concerning those border policies. Blue tribe pundits walked away from the merits, or the lack of same, inhabiting Britt's critique.

Instead, blue tribe pundits lambasted Britt for her misleading anecdote. Also, they scolded President Biden for his impromptu use of an inappropriate word.

At this point, we'll repeat what we said at the start of the week. For ourselves, we wouldn't use "illegal" as a noun, the way the president did.

We wouldn't refer to someone as "an illegal," as is the norm on Fox. We also aren't inclined to regard that point of language as more important than the actual facts concerning Britt's accusations—accusations which are made on a daily basis on Fox.

We aren't inclined to regard that point of language as more important than the actual life-and-death facts concerning the southern border. Inevitably, that is what our blue tribe punditry instantly did.

Progressive thought leaders pummeled Biden for having used that word. Did anyone address the claim that Biden's first three years of border policy had led to fentanyl poisonings and horrific murders?

Essentially, no one did. Here's what happened instead:

In the wake of his address, the president appeared on Jonathan Capehart's little-watched weekend program on MSNBC. 

During Capehart's interview, the president was instantly asked about his use of that word. The president said he should have said "undocumented" instead.

The president said he regretted using that word. Inevitably, that's where any discussion of the border ended.

A few days later, Paul Krugman's column emerged. The column appeared in Tuesday's print editions under this headline:

Sex Trafficking, De Facto Lies and Immigration

In his column, Krugman focused on Senator Brit's grossly misleading anecdote. We don't disagree with what he said about that.

With perfect justice, he pummeled Britt for her misleading anecdote. At the same time, he paid exactly zero attention to the claims Britt had made about the effects of Biden's border policies over the past three years.

Along the way, he offered an extremely weak refutation of a claim we've seen no one make. But so it has gone, within our pair of warring nations, within (let's say) the past year. 

Red tribe observers constantly talk about the crisis at the border—a crisis they say the president's policies caused.

They talk about fentanyl deaths. They talk about the dangers of letting unvetted people into the country en masse, as has become the norm. 

They talk about human sex trafficking, including the trafficking of children. They talk about the number of apprehensions which have involved people on terrorist watch lists—and they wonder how many such "got-aways" may have occurred under current arrangement.

They relate the murder of Laken Riley—and other similar violent crimes—to the alleged chaos at the border under the president's policies. Our blue tribe pundit corps has responded in the following way:

On the whole, they've responded by pretending that the border doesn't exist. So it has gone as our two nations agree to a journalistic arrangement built upon "segregation by viewpoint:"

On Fox, the border is discussed around the clock. The events of January 6 are almost completely disappeared. 

On MSNBC, the southern border barely exists. Instead, we're fed constant legal minutia, with dreams of criminal convictions dancing in our heads.

Two groups of pundits behave in such ways, and never the twain shall meet. On each channel, no one is asked to consider the possibility that the other group might actually be right about something, if only in some tiny way.

Blue tribe viewers see police being beaten on January 6. Red tribe viewers never see any such tape. Instead, they see tape of people streaming across the border. Blue viewers are shielded from that.

Eventually, northern Democratic pols began to say that the immigration situation had become unsustainable. Only then did blue pundits and pols move to address a situation which may cost us the White House this year.

We don't mean to single Krugman out. His column reflects the general way the blue world reacted to last Thursday night's events.

Blue pundits hammered Senator Britt for her act of misdirection. Progressives also challenged Biden for his use of that word.

Speaking with the reliable Capehart, he said he regretted the use of that word. Our tribe then returned to its usual fare.

Endless clowning continues on Fox from people like Gutfeld and Watters. But when they focus on the border, can anyone swear that they're wrong?

There's a great deal more which ought to be said about these red and blue tribal reactions. Most simply put, artificial segregation by viewpoint is a good way to gear up for a dangerous war.

There's a great deal more which ought to be said. We can promise you this:

If you stopped a thousand liberals on the street, no more than three could tell you what President Biden's original policies were. Only a handful could tell you what's been proposed in that new border bill. 

We certainly couldn't do those things! Instead, our blue tribe lives in splendid isolation—and they're living the same way over on Fox. This is good for ratings, profits and salaries—at their channel but also at ours. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. President Biden may win re-election this year—or then again, he may not!