Thread by @johnastoehr

1. Jonathan Bernstein said this morning that the worst part of Robert Mueller’s testimony was hearing Republican conspiracy theories. That’s not the worst part.

2. The worst part is a political press that can’t or won’t say that House Republicans did little but repeat conspiracy theories they had heard from the right-wing media.

3. The worst part is a press corps that can’t or won’t recognize the amazing fact that a former FBI director said amazing things about the president, for instance:

That Donald Trump welcomed Russian interference and lied about welcoming it.

That Trump hoped, as a candidate, to profit from a real estate deal in Moscow.

That Trump is not exonerated of obstruction of justice

That Russia’s interference is not a hoax or “fake news.”

More:

That the office of the president shields Trump from indictment but he could be charged with crimes after leaving office.

That Russia interfered to help Trump win; that foreign interference as well as presidential candidates asking for foreign help may be the "new normal.”

6. Most of this isn’t new. There was important news, though: Mueller said *all this* before Congress *under oath* for the *entire country* to see. And what’s news depends on who you are.

7. If you’re a normal person with normal worries and normal responsibilities, what Mueller had to say might be new, and for that reason alone, yesterday *was* news.

8. But the worst thing of all was the reaction of many in the political press, and by this, I mean the highest-profile reporters from the most influential outlets, so-called truth-tellers who listened to Mueller not with concern or worry or even fear, but with indifference.

9. Everything is as good or bad as everything else in Washington, so nothing truly matters.

Welcome to moral relativist hell.

10.

@AaronBlake said the star witness wasn’t much of a star.

@kyledcheney and others called his testimony a flop.

@GlennThrush called it “a yawn.”

@maggieNYT said it would be quickly forgotten.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT 11. NBC’s @chucktodd misrepresented the goal of Mueller’s testimony. When he did not rise to that false standard, Todd called it “a disaster” for the Democrats.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 12. Trump does not need a Soviet Politburo. He does not need a Nazi Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda. He does not need an army of Russian saboteurs. He doesn’t even need House Republicans repeating conspiracy theories.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 13. All this president needs to make war on the truth, break the law, profane the US Constitution and undermine the will of the people is a press corps as aggressively anti-moral as ours.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 14. However much he doddered, make no mistake that Robert Mueller was saying to the Congress that the president committed crimes; that future presidential candidates might not be as loyal to this country as we want them to be;

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 15. that future presidents, as a result of getting foreign help, might be vulnerable to blackmail; that Mueller can not, and should not, be the sole person holding a president accountable;

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 16. that only Congress can perform that duty; and everything lawmakers need is in his impeachment referral.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 17. And yet the political press saw more of the same. This is like saying hurricanes don’t matter.

This is like saying you’ve seen one natural disaster, you’ve seen them all.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 18. Sure, people are killed and injured, property is destroyed, local economies are damaged, but who really cares? The story is always the same so why bother paying attention to it?

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 19. It’s a yawn, as @GlennThrush might say.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 20. No reporter would ever say such a thing. Indeed, saying such a thing about disasters of any kind in any newsroom in any part of the country might be a firing offense, because saying such a thing would reveal a utter lack of professionalism, and it would

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 21. reveal a utter lack of character and morality. No one would ever say “why bother?” to people in need of information to rebuild their lives.

Yet elite reporters were looking yesterday at the political equivalent of a once-every-hundred-years flood and doing what?

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 22. I explained last week what’s wrong with fascist politics in a republic.

stoehr.substack.com/p/for-2020-its…

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 23. Fascists sort society into in- and out-groups. Within this structure and hierarchy, nothing matters, not even morality, except who’s in and who’s out.

So even when the out-group does the right thing, doing the right thing is the wrong thing because the out-group did it.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 24. I do not suggest that the press corps sorts society into in- and out-groups, but it clearly sorts society into political parties. Within this structure and hierarchy, nothing matters, not even morality, except who’s in which of the parties.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 25. So even when the Republicans do the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing doesn’t matter, bec. it’s all politics. Conversely when the Demss do the right thing, it’s all politics. Everything is as good or bad as everything else, so nothing matters. This anti-morality is deadly.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 26. Trump is wrong in calling the press the enemy of the people. But they aren’t his enemies either. Power is all that matters. Fascists have a way of finding each other.

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 27. If nothing matters but power, Trump can do no wrong.

stoehr.substack.com/p/fascist-pres…

@AaronBlake @kyledcheney @GlennThrush @maggieNYT @chucktodd 28. Editor’s note
I want as many people as possible to see this.

So today’s edition is going out to everyone.

But please, if you can, subscribe ($5/mo.) and support my work!

Just click on the red button.

Many thanks! —JS

stoehr.substack.com/subscribe?utm_…