The game of telephone and the difference between “enjoy” and “great”
Last night I was watching a YouTube video by Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying. Weinstein is the guy who defied the Evergreen crowd a while back. He’s on the left but with a strong libertarian streak. One thing in particular struck me: towards the end, Weinstein (no Trump admirer, to say the least) says that Tucker Carlson (whom I know has been ragging on Trump lately) quotes Trump as having said he’s enjoying watching the blue cities implode, and that’s why he’s not stopping it.
Here’s the passage; it’s short:
When I heard that, I thought it would be a pretty dumb thing for Trump to say, but I also wondered why I hadn’t heard about it before if indeed that’s what he said. How had I happened to miss it? So I did a search (on Google initially) and couldn’t find it; the closest I came was something quite different, part of the speech Trump gave to the crowd at the Tulsa rally [emphasis mine]:
And we did something in Minneapolis after watching for three or four days, I called, I said, “You got to get … you can’t protect yourselves.” I got them to take 8,000 National Guardsmen. And in one hour it all ended and they rode through the next three weeks with no problem.
And we did the same thing in other cities. But how about Seattle? Isn’t that great? So they take over a big chunk of a city called Seattle. I mean, we’re not talking about some little place, we’re talking about Seattle. Have you ever been to Seattle? They took over a big chunk and the governor, who’s radical left, all of these places I talk about are Democrat, you know that, every one of them, every one of them. And I’d have an offer out, I said, “Anytime you want we’ll come in, we’ll straighten it out in one hour or less.” Now I may be wrong, but it’s probably better for us to just watch that disaster.
I flew in with some of our great congressmen, who we’re going to introduce it a second. And I said to them, “Congressmen, what do you think? I can straighten it out fast, should we just go in? No, sir. Let it simmer for a little while. Let people see what radical left Democrats will do to our country.” But Americans have watched left wing radicals, burn down buildings, loot businesses, destroy private property, injure hundreds of dedicated police offices.
Nothing there about enjoying watching anything – just that people need to see the horrible things that leftists do, so they will learn. And when he says “it’s probably better for us to just watch that disaster,” Trump is talking specifically about the “big chunk” of Seattle known as CHAZ or CHOP, and calling it a “disaster.”
After quite a bit more searching (including DuckDuckGo, which I generally find to be superior not only in privacy but in efficiency) I was able find the source for what Tucker Carlson had said. Here’s the Carlson quote that Weinstein was supposedly repeating:
On Friday, Vince Coglianese of “The Daily Caller” interviewed Donald Trump in the White House. Coglianese asked the president why he hasn’t sent federal troops to stop the chaos in cities like Seattle. Here’s what the president answered: “Right now, I think it’s great sitting back and watching this catastrophe.”
We understand the point he was making. These are liberal cities, and they’re destroying themselves. Their policies don’t work. This is what you get when you vote for liberals.
But it’s still the wrong answer.
So the word “enjoy” was never used. Trump said “great,” and it was clear that he meant that the greatness lay in enabling people to see what the left does when it is in control. Carlson also says that Trump was referring to “cities like Seattle.” But actually, at least in the Tulsa speech, Trump was referring specifically to the small CHAZ section of Seattle.
But that’s just Carlson’s paraphrase/quote. What about the original of what Trump said? The speech in Tulsa didn’t seem to be it, because Carlson is referring to a Daily Caller interview. It took further searching on DuckDuckGo to find it. It still is not a transcript, though; it’s selected quotes from an interview. But here it is [emphasis mine]:
In recent days, Trump has urged Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to deploy National Guard troops to retake CHAZ and said that he himself “will take care of it” if Inslee fails to act. The president said Monday that he had discussed the situation with Attorney General Bill Barr. When asked by the Caller what Barr is “advising” him to do, POTUS answered, “right now, I think it’s great sitting back and watching this catastrophe.”
So here again we have the same important detail that’s been left out by both Carlson and Weinstein: Trump appears to only be talking about the specific situation in CHAZ/CHOP when he says “it’s great sitting back.” Unlike what Carlson suggests, Trump is not talking about the wholesale destruction that has gone on and is going on in various cities around the country. And he calls CHAZ a “catastrophe.” So the interview remark is almost identical to the one in his Tulsa speech (where he says it’s a “disaster”); he’s quite consistent.
More quotes from the Daily Caller article [emphasis mine]:
The Caller asked, if [Trump] indeed isn’t currently planning on intervening, why continue with the tweets and statements indicating he would do so.
“Well, because we can do it anytime we want,” Trump answered. “But when I watch, it’s showing how bad that city system of government is because they’re all leftist Democrats running all these places that have these problems.”
“Seattle’s a disaster,” he continued. “Minneapolis has been a disaster, and you know if I didn’t strongly tell them, ‘get the National Guard in there,’ Minneapolis would still be under siege.”
Again, Trump suggested Inslee “should be able to take care of it very easily, but he’s a radical left too.”
“The amazing thing is though that, think of it, they allow it to happen, and they’re actually considering ‘isn’t it a wonderful thing?’ I watched last night where store owners, their stores have been taken away, their livelihood has been destroyed.”
That’s a rather sloppily written passage, which is not unusual these days. I’d rather have heard the actual interview in full, of course, but it appears that the discussion from Trump was going back and forth between the specific situation in CHAZ/CHOP and then the situation in the other cities and then back to CHAZ/CHOP. Also, the only people praising it and calling it “wonderful,” according to Trump, are the leftist Democrats in charge of places like Seattle, where the mayor had praised CHAZ/CHOP and so had the press. So if anyone is “enjoying” it, according to Trump, it’s them.
I’m nitpicking about this because it’s a fractal of the way we get our news these days – a game of telephone that ends up misinforming us. We go from Trump’s words to the Daily Caller’s excerpts, and then from them to Carlson’s remarks on them, and on to Bret Weinstein’s misquote of Carlson and the original quote.
What’s more, Carlson’s on the right, and Weinstein is at least somewhat sympathetic to the right’s position on this. What the left does with Trump quotes is far worse. Plus, it took me at least an hour to begin to get to the bottom of it, and I still haven’t found a transcript of the entire interview with Trump, which I’d much prefer to see. Who knows what the Daily Caller did or didn’t leave out?
Weinstein is a man who tries to be careful with his words and with whom I often (although certainly not always) agree. Here he’s speaking in a podcast that, ironically, is about the power of words to mislead. If you watch the whole thing, you’ll see Weinstein and Heying have some interesting things to say about the subject. And yet Weinstein ends up misquoting Carlson and thus Trump, and although Carlson himself has quoted Trump properly, he has misstated the context somewhat in terms of how general or specific it was.
I don’t think there’s any way to stop this sort of thing except to be aware of the fact that it happens constantly. It seems to be in the nature of human communication, which almost inevitably involves a lot of miscommunication, some of it purposeful but some of it unintentional (for example, I doubt Weinstein was aware of or intended his error, but it may have occurred anyway because he seems to detest Trump).
Karl Popper said it best, perhaps:
Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
That said, Trump often speaks in a kind of telegraphese that makes it somewhat easy to misunderstand him, especially for someone who hates him to begin with.
And by the way, I looked for a site that would give that Popper quote in its larger context so that I could better understand exactly what Popper was saying and why. But you’re probably not surprised to learn I couldn’t find it.
I watch a lot of Bret Weinstein’s online stuff and admire his intellect and resolve. There’s a lot to like about what he thinks and has to say. But like so many others, he has this weird compartment that is stuffed full of crazy when it comes to Trump. I think the third party candidate he’s referencing in this podcast is William McRaven, one of the ex-Obama military leaders that seem to have become unhinged and forgotten their oaths of military allegiance.
With Trump I can look at his past development and see pretty easily that being obnoxious is a bit of NY shtick that he has used to his advantage, primarily to provoke his opponents into angrily underestimating him. But there is always something genuine about TDS that isn’t faked; somehow he gets people to really show their *ss in a way they can’t excuse later.
Eh. Tucker has kind of lost his cool on this because he lives in one of the cities under siege and already feels on edge knowing that some people at Fox News (Paul Ryan) would probably like to see him just go away.
I mean, this isn’t like school desegregation where local and state authorities were openly defying court orders. This is simply a case of them not enforcing their own laws to maintain the peace. The President isn’t in charge of local law enforcement. And besides, the DOJ says it’s launched 500 investigations into rioting and destruction of public monuments. What does Tucker actually want? Trump to send in Seal Team Six to take out the Seattle CHOP warlord?
Mike
The Army has a saying “Any order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.”
I listened to Joe Rogan’s interview of Weinstein. I stopped when Weinstein started blithering on about “The System”. It took me back to stoned hippies in the sixties pontificating about the problems with the US. Been there, done that, it’s stupid all the way down.
“I don’t think there’s any way to stop this sort of thing…”
Well there is, actually:
Simply do NOT believe anything that comes out of these people’s mouths (or from their keyboards).
Instead, try to trust your own judgement. Rely on your own common sense.
It’s a “lying eyes” kind of things. (Lying ears?)
Admittedly, this is a bit extreme; but the only way to deal with political reporting these days (perhaps always), is to remain totally, utterly skeptical. Most, if not all, of the MSCM has no credibility remaining to squander. (They may get it right on occasion, maybe, but if so, it would likely be purely by accident.)
Matt Taibbi, for example, gets it right on the issue of MSCM autophagy, but he has to “doctor” his truthtelling with the obligatory TDS embellishments—to establish his “bona fides” no doubt (“But, but, but I’m one of the GOOD GUYS—Really!: Here’s what I think about Trump!”). Maybe he thinks people on the Left will actually listen to him if he does that. (Wanna buy a bridge, Matt?)
Weinstein might be impressive in some ways. But he is who he is. PERIOD. And he cannot help himself. I repeat: HE CAN’T HELP HIMSELF.
The MSCM is broken and it is doing its best—standing proudly alongside the Democratic Party (Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Nadler, Schumer, Schiff, et al.)—to break America.
Believe them at your peril.
(To be sure, this might not be a solution, exactly, if one dearly wishes that one COULD rely on the MSCM. Well, we could keep on hoping, I guess. Or just decide to cut bait and the heck with it.)
Aggie:
Weinstein is a Sanders supporter. That really puzzles me.
Related:
https://twitter.com/Btaylor74/status/1276888190884823042
Barry Meislin:
I think it’s clear that I already do those things. That’s a big part of what I do on this blog.
But that doesn’t “stop” the phenomenon, because relatively few people read this blog in comparison to those who watch Tucker Carlson or Weinstein or the great number who read the MSM.
I duckduckwent to look up MSCM, went from there to abbreviations dot com and to acronyms dot thefreedictionary dot com, all to no avail (that made sense in the context of our conversation).
I’m guessing that MSCM = Main Stream Corporate Media. Am I correct?
If not, might some kind soul (Barry Meislin?) clue me in: what does MSCM stand for??
Not to worry.
I merely decided to update “MSM” so as to make the term a bit more accurate (though realizing it’s entirely unnecessary, totally redundant and absolutely obvious…but it makes me feel a little better FWIW, which is not a whole lot of course…).
(The “C” stands for “corrupt”.)
Much obliged, kind sir!
Well, it was a general “suggestion”, not aimed at anyone specific, per se.
But yes, all this heart-wrenching insanity is indeed hard to ignore, unless one firmly believes (or prays for) the “backlash theory” of the hoped-for silent majority.
On the other hand, if the Democrats are able to ram through ballot-by-mail (for all the “best” reasons, certainly), it might not matter how big the silent majority is (or how silent).
On the other hand, one of the aspects of Trump’s “great sitting back” remark that seems to have gone under the radar might be the President’s fervent hope that if the leaders of the BLM CHOP “initiative” would hear about his satisfaction at what they were doing, they would grow suspicious and decide immediately to stop. Well, there’s always Portland, where Antifa is currently showing the electorate why it’s so important to continue to vote for the Democratic ticket.
Furthermore (to hope for anything positive coming out of the latest Leftist anti-Trump gambit), how much would you like to wager that the Black American electorate is a whole lot smarter than the Democratic “vote-for-us-because-even-though-we’re-helping-to-trash-your-neighborhoods-we’re-blaming-Trump” Party (and their MSCM propaganda division) gives them credit for being.
(Which also makes one wonder what the Latin-American/Hispanic community thinks of all this….)
And when he says “it’s probably better for us to just watch that disaster,” Trump is talking specifically about the “big chunk” of Seattle known as CHAZ or CHOP, and calling it a “disaster.”
go back to my first post on that subject… nail, head, wham…
Should be “who I know has been ragging on Trump lately,” not “whom.”
I’ve been following Bret Weinstein’s podcasts the past few weeks, and although a lifelong Democrat he considers both major parties thoroughly corrupt, and refers to both of the 2020 choices as “decrepit clowns”. As such we can’t expect him to love Trump, but he’s certainly not enamored of Biden.
He’d like to see a third party ticket with two candidates, one center right, one center left, to govern as a team. His choices would be Admiral McRaven on the right, Andrew Yang on the left. I will say, of all the lineup of Dem candidates during the debates, Yang was the least objectionable for me. It may be called a “unity” ticket.
During his podcast this afternoon he mentioned a rollout of this ticket in the coming week, so we’ll see how that goes. He believes these are perilous times (as do I), and this is his response.
I took Trump’s “great” comment as ironic, much the same as “Oh, great.” or “How’s that working out for you?”
I didn’t hear it, so I may be wrong on that. But as words on the page I think that works.
“He’d like to see a third party ticket with two candidates“
I hate to say it but this sums up the immature nature of a lot of supposed grown ups today. Instead of grappling with what has caused the two-party system to break down, just chuck it all and believe in some fantasy that will fix everything.
Mike
Yes, and it is not surprising in a man who remains on the left.
At some point in life you realize that much of what you know is probably wrong, but that there is slight chance of improving and the rest of your life could be spent chasing down and checking even the smallest fraction of your beliefs. So it goes.
The misquoting of Trump should be more clearly illegal – so allowing “media” folk to be sued, and lose.
The only peaceful way to stop this immoral demonization by Democrats is to sue them and win lawsuits and damages.
Neo,
I began to watch the Tucker Carlson opening monologue and could not get past the Teddy Roosevelt part because Carlson had the reasons for the removal of the Roosevelt statue completely wrong. He goes on and on a tangent about how they are removing it because they think Roosevelt was controversial and that they are tearing it down because he is a hero and those who tear it down want to humiliate and control us. Okay, that is just factually wrong in this particular case.
The reason they are taking the statue down is not because Roosevelt was controversial – indeed the museum has TWO other statues of Roosevelt inside the museum which will not be removed. The reason this particular statue is being removed is because:
Museum president Ellen V. Futter said the decision did not reflect a judgment about Roosevelt but was driven by the sculpture’s “hierarchical composition”.
He is riding atop a horse flanked by an Indian and a black person thus presenting what many consider a message about white supremacy. The statue was built in the 1930’s many years after Roosevelt died and so it doesn’t actually reflect Roosevelt at all but instead the imagination of the artist who created it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrian_Statue_of_Theodore_Roosevelt_(New_York_City)
Roosevelt’s own great great grandson has approved the removal saying that it reflects “neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice.”
So even though the larger message by Carlson about statue removals is happening this one is not done by an ignorant mob but by a museum that, yes, is reacting to the times but also making it clear it’s not about Roosevelt the man or the president or his policies.
That said I like Bret Weinstein and agree with his assessment of the far left. Thanks for the link to his podcast. I’ve begun to listen to them.
By that “logic” Mt Rushmore must be taken down too; four dead white males looking down on everyone. White supremacy writ large, eh Montage? What does the great grandson think about that representation?
ca. 55:45
“Trump said that?”
“Well, of course he did.”
There’s the real problem, someone who “knows” so much of what the merdia has told him to think that he assumes he “knows” what Trump said without actually bothering to investigate.
Good piece, Neo.
Om
Mt Rushmore would only be similar if it had four smaller heads of Native Americas and /or Blacks below the prominent heads. So in this instance, it is not similar. I have not heard an opinion by any of Roosevelt’s family on it. Some Native Americans do want it to come down though – mainly because it is on what is considered sacred land. There has been a proposed Crazy Horse monument a few miles away that has yet to be completed.
I don’t approve of the destruction of many of the statues or covering up history. I would rather instead see more statues that include diversity in our history. That’s an idea that few seem to consider.
Your post just soured me on Weinstein, just another “expert” professor spouting his own BS.
“I don’t approve of the destruction of many of the statues or covering up history.”
Yes, you seem really worked up over it. I’m sure when people are actively trying to get Mt. Rushmore dynamited, you’ll be first in line to denounce that and won’t come up with some new excuse for why that is okay.
Mike
Henry David —
Other than the TDS and this third-party unity candidacy nonsense, Weinstein is very much worth listening to. He and his wife very accurately diagnose what’s going on with the left lately and how it was prefigured by his Evergreen experience.
His talk with his brother Eric a couple weeks ago was remarkable for its range — Eric explains 14-dimension physics, for instance — and was mostly about stultification in the sciences and how it relates to stultification in the general culture.
I know TDS is hard to wade through, but it’s not the focus of the podcast/Youtube channel at all.
Montage:
If the Museum of Natural History heads had one day voted to take down the TR statue, and his family agreed, I wouldn’t really care, if it was done in a different context. It would be just their decision. And in the legal sense it actually still IS their decision.
But that’s not what’s being objected to. However this was decided, and although it’s not part of the vogue of the mob tearing down statues, this is still a part of a mass movement to destroy our history and to lie about some of it as well. Only the negative is taught, and since everything has some negative It Must Be Destroyed. There is nothing to replace it but jargon and lies and leftism.
It started a long time ago – Zinn being a major practitioner, but he wasn’t even the first. That’s what this is about – not this statue, or what the museum people decided, or what Roosevelt’s descendants want. In fact, I’m not a TR fan myself.
Montage:
The sculptor had a whole mountain to work with and yet he didn’t include any Native Americans, POOCs (People Of Other Colors), or alphabet people. Therefor it must come down. Who is to decide these four dead white males deserve a monument? The mob, that’s who. Run with the mob, die by the mob, that’s how it works, even for you.
Montage:
Please list the statues which you deem merit destruction. Should be interesting to match that to what the mob considers irredeemable. Do be complete and anticipate their future demands. Can’t have a disordered random approach to this reasonable process.
Om
The idea of destroying or taking down statues is not something I would do.
But since you ask then Confederate statues can officially go. Everything else is fine. The Confederacy was a lost cause and an asterisk in American history. Make a museum for their cause if you want. But it’s not my decision and shouldn’t be. Let the voters in each state decide.
“But since you ask then Confederate statues can officially go. Everything else is fine.”
So…you support a monument to that infamous owner AND rapist of slaves, Thomas Jefferson? Wow, you are one big, fat, hateful bigot.
Mike
The South was allowed to build memorials to their dead in the same manner that America allowed the Japanese to grieve for theirs. In the end, after you defeat the enemy, you need to rebuild. If you choose to humiliate them then you open yourself up to never-ending hostilities. In my travels I’ve seen more racial disharmony in the North than in the South. Of course it is up to the voters but I think that the radical Left is galvanizing public opinion against themselves.