Naomi Wolf apologizes to conservatives
In this substack essay by Naomi Wolf, she apologizes to conservatives and Trump-supporters for having believed the Democrat/MSM January 6th narrative. In it, she makes some historical points:
Massing peacefully at the Capitol and other public buildings, is part of our rights and inheritance as citizens, and this use of our First Amendment right to assemble has a long history. Indeed, the public has traditionally has the right peacefully to enter the Capitol — to obtain passes to events, galley seats and to witness the proceedings in other ways.
The Capitol is not a sealed space exclusively for legislators, but it is one that is supposed to welcome the public in an orderly way…
The violence of Jan 6 and its subsequent service as a talking point by the Democrats’ leadership, risks its use also to justify the closing off of our public buildings from US citizens altogether.
This would be convenient for tyrants of any party.
But my question is: why did she believe the narrative the left was pushing in the first place? I seem to remember she’s big on doubting the government’s COVID line, so I would think she’d be highly sensitized to the idea that there are a lot of lies floating around told by those with something to be gained by doing so, and therefore to look on these things with a somewhat jaundiced eye.
But that wasn’t her attitude towards January 6th reporting from the left. She utterly accepted it. Why? Was it because this particular story fed into her pre-existing presumptions about the right and Trump supporters in general?:
Leaving aside the release of the additional Jan 6 footage and how it may or may not change our view of US history —- I must say that I am sorry for believing the dominant legacy-media “narrative” pretty completely from the time it was rolled out, without asking questions.
Jan 6 has become, as the DNC intended it to become, after the fact, a “third rail”; a shorthand used to dismiss or criminalize an entire population and political point of view.
Peaceful Republicans and conservatives as a whole have been demonized by the story told by Democrats in leadership of what happened that day.
So a half of the country has been tarred by association, and is now in many quarters presumed to be chaotic berserkers, anti-democratic rabble, and violent upstarts, whose sole goal is the murder of our democracy.
Republicans, conservatives, I am sorry.
I also believed wholesale so much else that has since turned out not to be as I was told it was by NPR, MSNBC and The New York Times.
I believed that stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian propaganda…
I believed this all — til it was debunked.
I believed that President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia — until that assertion was dropped…
I believed that Pres Trump was a Russian asset, because the legacy media I read, said so…
I believed in the entire Steele dossier, until I didn’t, because it all fell apart.
There’s more in that vein. Note that all those things happened prior to January 6th, at least everything but the Hunter laptop debunking. So why did she still believe in January 6th as a deadly insurrection? Why has she been Charlie Brown to Lucy and the football?
My answer: a mind is a difficult thing to change. Most people are resistant to change despite evidence. It takes some sort of critical mass of a certain type of evidence, and even then the majority of people will probably continue to resist it.
I think the following may actually be the most interesting thing Wolf writes in the entire piece:
I don’t like President Trump (Do I not? Who knows? I have been lied to about him so much for so long, I can‘t tell whether my instinctive aversion is simply the habituated residue of years of being on the receiving end of lies).
It is especially unusual for a person on the left (where Wolf still positions herself) to be able to admit that maybe she was wrong even about Trump.
I am sorry I believed so much nonsense.
Though it is no doubt too little, too late —
Would that she could spread her new attitude around to enough people, so it wouldn’t be too late. But it is excruciatingly difficult to do what she’s doing – or beginning to do.
But that wasn’t her attitude towards January 6th reporting from the left. She utterly accepted it. Why?
Maybe she hates Trump as much as the next ‘liberal’. He’d had decades of loose-cannon exploits burned into her brain pre-Presidency, and they weren’t cancelled yet from their semi-permanent state.
Once one realizes how consistent has been the unmitigated mendacity of the leftist media (Pravda-on-the-Hudson, Pravda-on-the-Potomac, CNN, MSNBC, etc) on every issue, major as well as minor, over the last decade (and, of course, further into the past), with no truthfulness whatsoever in the coverage of Russiagate, COVID, J6, FBI/DOJ, so-called “killings of unarmed black men” (Trayvon, M Brown, F Gray, G Floyd, etc), the border crisis, the Davos/WEF/globalist agenda, Ukraine, BLM/CRT/1619 propaganda in schools, Soros-funded DAs (to name but a few), one begins to question all received opinion and “conventional wisdom”. Naomi Wolf is certainly to be commended for having taken the first small step to enlightenment, whether or not she becomes conservative.
I’ll give her credit, it’s hard thing to admit that you were wrong and to then apologize for being wrong. I think it’s especially difficult those who suffer from Trump-Derangement. I imagine that hating Trump is very invigorating. CNN’s ratings throughout the Trump years reveal how addicting hatred that seems righteous can be.
So wait, hold on.
She apologized for what about Al Gore now?
Oh.
It is especially hard if the beliefs are part of what you think make you a good person. It is a part of what makes you you.
She is learning some new facts and maybe even a new understanding of history. There are millions of people who still get their news and their beliefs from CBS, NBC and ABC. Those media sources have always been biased but there was, until the last few years, no alternative. Rush Limbaugh was the first widely available alternative. The left tried very hard to shut him up. Boycotts pushed by the left forced him to develop a new funding source for his radio program. He syndicated himself. The sponsors were local businesses, not national brands. That is very difficult to do with TV and the same efforts are being used to get Tucker Carlson.
We are seeing nominally leftist writers leaving old reliable employers and going independent. Bari Weiss, unknown to Congresswoman Garcia is one. Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi are two more. All have leaned left and are now seen to be on the right. The Virgin Islands Congresswoman called them “so-called journalists.” Have they changed their opinions ? Largely not. They are refugees from the crazy left. The NY Times editorial staff has been taken over by crazy gen z types. Like Gresham’s Law, they are driving out the rational and sensible. Naomi Wolf seems to be another one. The last time I noticed her, she was advising Al Gore on his wardrobe.
Naomi Wofe admits one more gaffe. Such as her Oxford doctorate.Interviewer Exposes False Data In Naomi Wolf’s Book About Homosexual Executions/
If it’s not one Naomi Wolfe gaffe, it’s another. At least she admits her mistakes- at least some of them.
The gaffe appearing in her dissertation went past her advisors without any correction. Doesn’t say much about Oxford or about academia.
It has always been a mystery to me that so many people absolutely despised Trump, seemingly right from the start. Part of that can certainly be attributed to the relentless negative media coverage he received, plus the sneering, dismissive attitude of our Elites, but it took hold right away, and every additional accusation, however false or exaggerated, just seemed to reinforce the attitude; people lost interest in inquiring any further. Ms Wolfe seems to fit in this category: a total non-skeptic as to all things anti-Trump, no matter how bright & inquisitive she might be on other subjects. It’s too bad it took so long to begin examining things, especially when there are so many alternative resources out there (and here).
I would guess the knives will be out for her from the Left. And even some on the Right.
While conservatives have long complained about news bias, and leftists have as well, something genuinely has changed in the establishment/legacy media. As recently as the 1990s, the mainstream media was capable of covering Bill Clinton with some degree of seriousness between Presidential campaigns. But then something happened.
Al Gore got the worst media treatment of any Democratic candidate I’ve ever seen. Then the media lost all sense of perspective on George W. Bush after 9/11 and didn’t get it back for several years. The media then just stopped doing their jobs mostly when it came to Obama, and then they got worse but in the opposite direction with Trump. And, of course, they essentially conspired to get Biden elected in a way I don’t think we’ve seen in modern history.
I think it would be easy to miss all that for someone like Wolf because the changes largely fit her own views. Add in that so many of us today are under constant media bombardment and that when every one of those inputs is screaming at you, it’s like being caught up in the middle of a crazed mob.
Mike
I voted against Hillary. Expected Trump to hire good people to do the job, and spend his time playing golf and signing paper.
Then, the anti-Trump physical attacks at rallys opened my eyes to how sick the left is, I began to become more pro-Trump than anti-Clinton.
And, it is amazing how he has survived the lawfare attacks. He is the cleanest guy in D>C.
As time Trump won and things progressed with lies and attacks against him and his administration, I became more in his corner.
Then, all the divisive b.s. about any how every Trump voter is racist, stupid, evil, etc. solidified my position that I will back Trump as a big F you to the haters.
As recently as the 1990s, the mainstream media was capable of covering Bill Clinton with some degree of seriousness between Presidential campaigns. But then something happened.
See Brent Bozell’s commentary at the time. The print media had a degree of detachment from the administration. The commercial networks were an extension of it.
It has always been a mystery to me that so many people absolutely despised Trump, seemingly right from the start.
==
Trump was indifferent to the elaborate menu of p’s and q’s in discussion among fancy people.
==
One thing we’re learning about street-level Democrats is that almost none of them are in the intersection between two sets: (1) people who are paying attention and (2) people who have fixed standards.
She was courageous to do this, she humbled herself so her honesty and humility should be applauded. I scolded her on GETTR over a year ago when she’d come on Bannon’s show and state she did not vote for Trump and on and on. I told her to stop as that was not the issue and no one wanted to her that crap. So, this apology of sorts is a quantum leap in her personal growth. Thank you Naomi.
always planting lies
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/03/10/anonymous-biden-official-who-lied-to-press-about-trump-era-spy-balloons-is-exposed-n714572
A variation on the Gell-Mann effect maybe.
As usual, the question. Why was she so vulnerable to obvious lies? She WANTED to believe. She NEEDED to believe. If she hadn’t believed, the views which made her a Very Good Person in her own eyes would have been in jeopardy.
A few observations on the entire episode
1) Good for Wolfe for not only having the self awareness to understand this about herself. But to admit so publicly
2) Part of the medias success in their coverage of Trump. Has been the relentless nature of it. Lie, never admit to the lie. Then follow up with even more lies. Leading to one of two conclusions. Those who paid close attention understood how bad things have deteriorated in the press and government. Or those pay slightly less attention believing that sure a mistake or two was made. But where there is this much smoke there must be a fire
3) I hate when people cheapen arguments by using Nazi’s as a stand in for current problematic group x. But as more information keeps appearing. It is be coming very clear the entire Jan 6th incident is being used solely as a political Cudgel. That most democrats and alphabet agencies not only know they are peddling horse manure. But have been actively obstructing any serious inquiry into it. And while at the beginning those claiming this was an American version of the Reichstag fire. Whom I frankly thought were greatly exaggerating the situation. Were closer to the mark then I ever thought possible
}}} My answer: a mind is a difficult thing to change.
I do not believe you were truly “liberal” beforehand, Neo. I suspect you always had a part of your mind filled with doubt, conscious and unconscious of certain inconsistencies.
My question is: “Will she stay changed”? Or will the Liberal Midnight Reset Button™ act to restore order?
Funny, is it not?
In NEO’s adjacent blog she discusses IQs and their supposed drop across all age groups.
I will bet that Naomi Wolfe has a high IQ (as do many, most? ) leftist intellectuals.
Looks to me that high IQ’s are a very poor or very , very narrow indicator of certain types of intelligence and certainly can be considered inversely correlated to one’s decision making abilities.
My parents, Boomers, get all their news from traditional printed media, and when driving news radio. It’s propaganda. I got them a subscription to the Epoch Times, and I buy red pilling books, it helps.
I have told my mother, what upsets me a lot, is I don’t know what is true, because of all the lies. In my areas of speciality I can detect the lies, but in others? I have become a lot more cynical.
A joke I make repeatedly on another blog, meaning in history when I find out a bit of history is false, is my head is spinning. And unfortunately this happens a lot.
Totally disagree on the coverage of Clinton. After the success of Gingrich’s Contract with America gave the House to the GOP in 1994 everything changed. EVERYTHING changed.
I talked with Tony Snow about it before and after the election. He and his friend, Andrew Ferguson, generally believed that most of their buddies in the news media were honest but biased in their perceptions. After two years of nonstop gaffes, mind-numbing corruption, and scandals galore, Tony said in the summer of 1994 the consensus of everyone in DC was that Bubba and Hillary were a joke (his word).
Then the election shocker happened. And stuff got real. The D team needed the news media to go to bat for them and they did. The only reason the coverage wasn’t as ridiculous back then was because the news media still had journalism pros in charge who realized that blatantly partisan news is not effective propaganda.
They were more effective at propaganda back then because it still sounded like news.
“I don’t like President Trump (Do I not? Who knows? I have been lied to about him so much for so long, I can‘t tell whether my instinctive aversion is simply the habituated residue of years of being on the receiving end of lies).”
I’m appreciative of Ms Wolf’s apology. I’ll assume it’s genuine & accept it as such although you’d be forgiven if you shrugged your shoulders & said “So what?” Truly, what’s going to come of it?
But the above sentence is one of those not-so-subtle proofs of leftism-is-a-religious-cult. Her own self-reflective capacity is lost to the hive-mind. We’re in one of those “battles not against flesh & blood” scenarios.
Truths come from odd places
https://www.coordinationproblem.org/2019/08/a-fictional-conversation-between-emma-goldman-and-john-reed-a-must-watch-for-anyone-thinking-about-t.html
When I worked in my family’s newspaper in the 1970s, it was my job to deal with the college interns. I had to teach them how to find and report the police and court news (very important in a local paper) as well as how to cover a school board meeting. Trust me, they did not like the 16-year old teaching them; they were all gonna be the next Woodstein. But the WaPo doesn’t hire grads from 3rd tier state sectional schools. Local papers did, and thus they needed my tutoring.
The existing staff were, with the exception of the editor, all from other fields who wound up doing newspaper work because they could write, and it was available. But it meant that we had a very broad, smart (not necessarily educated) crew that had real world experience.
I could see the change coming, though, in the interns. They didn’t have the experience, were uniformly liberal, and thought They Knew Better. 45 years on, the adults in the room have retired or died, and even that generation who were trained by the adults have mostly gone on. Now, the brats are in charge.
John Guilfoyle
It’s not her fault the lies were out there. M question is how she missed the fact that, one after the other, after the other, they were all proven untrue.
It would require a sustained effort at segregating one’s information sources to miss that. She didn’t need to watch Fox for a correction,.
Or, if we insist that only Fox and similar outlets were correctives, then how did she miss the fact that they were rarely wrong? She had to have stopped up her ears, more or less metaphorically, to positively, actively avoid such information.
Did/does that not cause some unease in a normal person? NO, NO! DON’T TELL ME ANY OF THAT! I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. I CAN’T ALLOW MYSELF TO HEAR!
How much is that exaggerated from those we know, or at least the most vociferous of those we know on the prog side?
She should not apologize for being the passive target of lies, but for actively seeking to avoid contradictory information. Consciously. Knowingly.
A fine and brave apology, which even includes the single most important word.
Demonization.
Naomi Wolf Demonization Syndrome.
This is often mislabeled as Trump Derangement Syndrome, from the prior Krauthammer Bush Derangement Syndrome and similar demonization against many Republicans: Reagan, Palin, Kavanaugh, Bork, Nixon, even Goldwater.
Demonization feels good – good vs the evil demon.
College demonization against Republicans should result in ending tax exempt status.
But solving the Dem Demonization problem requires identifying it – Demonization.
Democrat Demonization Syndrome.
Dem lies are mostly just “more Dem Demonization”.
It won’t stop until it’s punished.
More publicity with the more accurate Demonization label, will end it sooner.
She’s a kook though. Just because she might be correct on some things, doesn’t mean sh should be embraced
Unfortunately there’s a lot of evidence that you’re right, Israel. I was thinking of sharing that article with some left-wing acquaintances, as she is or at least was until very recently decidedly a leftist, so I thought they might pay attention. But I vaguely recollected that I had heard of her making some big factual claims that were disproved. So I looked at the Wikipedia article, which was instructive in two ways:
1) Her history is that of an often somewhat nutty (from my point of view) feminist-leftist, including a highly questionable sexual harassment accusation against the literary critic Harold Bloom.
2) The Wikipedia article can fairly be construed as a hit piece, in that it emphasizes the negative almost exclusively. So that tells us a lot about what can happen on Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
Still, there is enough there that is pretty definitely true, like the factual errors that caused one of her books to be pulled before distribution in the U.S., to call her general reliability into question, *especially* if that’s what you’re already disposed to think. So I did not share it, as my acquaintances would certainly dismiss it as the ranting of a nut. She’s been considered a nut by some on the left for many years, as shown by this Vox piece from 2014:
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/5/6909837/naomi-wolf-isis-ebola-scotland-conspiracy-theories
As far as I can tell she’s right or mostly right about Jan 6, and I certainly appreciate the apology. But she’s probably not going to make a dent in progressive heads.
Well, yeah, a bit of a kook (or more than a bit); but to paraphrase Dr. Johnson: “…when a feminist knows she’s been mugged over the past several years—with the depressing prospect of being mugged for several more—it concentrates the mind wonderfully…” (well, um, make that “certain feminists” I guess; Phyllis Chesler’s another one, though perhaps not the best example because she realized she was mugged decades ago. And then there’s the editor of “Tablet Magazine”—Alana Newhouse, I believe—whose “conversion” is of more recent vintage….)
In any event, I can’t imagine how difficult it was for Dr. Wolf to totally realign her ideology so as to comport with “her lyin’ eyes”….
(Moreover, I think her posing with—was that an AR-15?—kinda seals the deal, in a manner of speaking.)
File under: …but she’s OUR kook…and a most courageous one at that…
zeroing in on her epiphany,
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/03/this_great_stage_of_fools.html