Where’s The Line Between Paraphrasing And “Sanewashing?”
Is it the press's responsibility to turn nonsense into sense?
There is no question that Former President and current Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump has a “unique” approach to stump speeches and responding Q&A. While Trump likes to claim that English professors think his ability to weave stories together is brilliant, others will agree that it is sometimes hard to figure out what he is saying. His circuitous stylings challenge reporters covering him: how do you take rambling statements and whittle them down to more traditional, brief news quotes?
Increasingly, journalism critics are calling for the press to consider what gets lost in that process. To illustrate this issue, let’s work backward from reporting to what was actually said. Last night, the former President was the guest at the Economic Club of New York meeting. During his time, he answered questions from the club. Here’s the reporting on one of his answers:
Note that New York Times Reporter Michael Gold extracts two quotes from Trump response: “Take care” and “As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.” The second quote is a little ambiguous. For example, what does “the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in” mean, and how does it relate to getting child care costs taken care of? That said, the reporting makes what said feel (at least kind of) normal.
Let’s take a look at what Trump actually said. First, here is the question he was responding to:
Reshma Saujani, founder of the nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, prefaced her question by noting that childcare outpaces inflation and costs the economy more than $122 billion annually.
“If you win in November,” she wondered, “can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and, if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?” [source]
And here is Trump’s response:
Well, I would do that…We had Sen. Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. it’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about …child care is child care. You have to have it — in this country you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to — but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care.
I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about.
We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible [country that can] afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about Make America Great Again, we have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it.
Gold’s calling this 330+ word response “jumbled” suddenly feels like an understatement. I’m going to skip the question of what trade tarriffs have to do with the cost of child care (the sane answer is nothing). I’ll also skip the former President’s gross mischaracterization that foreign countries are the ones who pay for tarriffs (the is no credible ecomonist, regardless of political orientation, that agrees with that statement). I’ll also skip over the claim that Trump will get the country to no deficit (trade? budget? who knows) in a “short period of time” (something he spectacularly failed to do the last time he was in office). Instead I want to focus on Gold’s paraphrase of Trump:
“As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”
As close as I can tell, it’s a paraphrase of this small portion of the answer:
“I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about.”
Isolating this quote one can see how much work Gold did to make that excerpt parsible. He also dropped the entire second half of the quote, which made it clear that Trump thinks that tariffs will somehow pay for child care.
In an essay in the New Republic from earlier this week, Parker Molloy refers to what Gold and other Reporters do with Trump as “sanewashing:”
This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.
Voters who rely solely on traditional news sources are presented with a version of Trump that bears little resemblance to reality. They see a former president who, while controversial, appears to operate within the bounds of normal political discourse—or at worst, is breaking with it in some kind of refreshing manner. You can see this folie à deux at work in a recent Times piece occasioned by Trump’s amplification of social media posts alleging that Harris owed her career to the provision of “blowjobs”: “Though he has a history of making crass insults about his opponents, the reposts signal Mr. Trump’s willingness to continue to shatter longstanding norms of political speech.” Meanwhile, those who seek out primary sources encounter a starkly different figure—one prone to conspiracy theories, personal attacks, and extreme rhetoric. …
By framing Trump’s incoherent ramblings as some form of avant-garde oratory, the Times isn’t just failing to accurately report—it’s actively warping reality to its readers.
The consequences of this extend beyond misleading headlines or sanitized quotes. It’s creating a dangerous disconnect between reality and reported news, fostering an environment where extreme rhetoric becomes normalized and conspiracy theories gain unwarranted legitimacy. [source]
Unsurprisingly, like most of the OTB readership who comment, I strongly agree with Molloy’s argument. Other media critics have made similar points about the reporting of Trump. The question is: “why does the press do this?”
One reason is that Trump’s quotes often defy summation. In a case of the medium being the message, traditional news reporting at the Washington Post and the New York Times are still tied to the physical dimensions of paper, making reproducing a 338-word answer verbatim essentially impossible. For example, the body of the in-depth Washington Post article covering that speech (and other related topics) is approximately 1400 words. For those at home keeping score, Trump’s answer to that single question represents 23% of the word count of that article. So a semi-coherent quote is sanewashed down to the following 94 words:
When asked about how he’d make child care more affordable, Trump suggested that he would help pay for it by placing taxes on foreign governments. “We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s relatively speaking not very expensive compared to the kinds of numbers we’re going to be taking in,” he said. He did not provide details or specifics about how this would work; experts have warned imposing tariffs on such a scale would risk triggering an international trade war. [source]
The Washington Post didn’t even describe the answer with the relatively neutral descriptor “jumbled.” Perhaps, from a jaded reporter’s perspective, they think that “jumbled” is already baked in, so it’s better to finish the section with the (correct) opposing viewpoint that “experts have warned imposing tariffs on such a scale would risk triggering an international trade war.” That’s the type of “one side says ‘X’, the other side says ‘Y'” neutrality that journalists have been taught to do to ensure that their stories are “balanced” (or even worse “objective”). Returning to Molloy’s point, this reporting doesn’t capture all aspects of Trump’s message and delivery. It leaves out important information to help voters vet candidates (like the former President’s increasing incoherence).
At the same time, I suspect that some of our Trump-supporting readers bristled at Gold’s use of “jumbled” from the start of this article. “How dare a reported call that response ‘jumbled’?! His meaning (as with so many other Trump utterances) is completely apparent! ‘Jumbled’,’ and this essay, are just another example of the bias of liberal media and Trump Deragement Syndrome.” This has been the drumbeat of conservatives popularized by Rush Limbaugh and carried forward by folks like Tucker Carlson (who, allegedly, was unwittingly funded in part by RT to advance that message) and other current right and alt-right commenters (at least some of whom, were, not unwittingly funded in part by RT to advance that message).
To be clear, their working the refs (combined with diminishing news profits and reporters and editors taking the wrong lessons from J-school) has worked; hence the sanewashing.
The irony, of course, is that just a few days ago, I was told with a lot of assurance that isn’t what the radical-free-thinking-free-speech crowd (which many Trump supports see themselves) as want:
Why does every interviewer have to be an advocate or an activist? Can’t you make up you own mind about who is right or wrong?
(or are you [Matt] another one who thinks that we simply *should not be allowed* to see or read any objectionable material because the Great Unwashed are just like children and people like you are the annointed Arbiters Of All That Is True And Good?)
I have to wonder what Robert Jones would think if the media starter to publish Trump quotes unedited. Perhaps he would advocate that is what journalists should do for us to make up our minds about “who is right or wrong.” I also wonder if he, or those like him, think that applying the accurate discriptor of “jumbled” to that statement makes a journalist an “advocate or activist.” I suspect that if Gold had taken it a step further and used discriptors like “confusing” or “semi-coherent” it definitely would cross that line.
That said, to Molloy’s point, what they are reporting (which I suspect Trump supporters already think is deeply biased), thanks to sanewashing, is already misrepresnting the reality of Trump’s media answers. Which is equally a dangerous form of bias. But I’m not sure Trump supporters are ready for that.
(Countdown to a whataboutism response in the comments commencing… In 3, 2, …)
Addendum: One theme that has emerged in the comments is that the quote wasn’t Trump at his worst. In my opinion, that emphasizes the broader point about sanewashing. The fact that even involved followers of politics think this is “normal” for Trump helps us understand why the press ultimately chooses to cover him in the way that it does. And it presents the issue with how low our expectations for him have become (not to mention the role that sanewashing has played in lowering those standards).
Political Scientist Mark Copelovitch has an ongoing series on Twitter in which he notes “neither our media nor our political system is designed to deal with a far right authoritarian party” and he, sadly, is 100% correct.
Thank you for writing this. “Warping reality” is right. It’s not just that people who don’t follow this closely don’t see Trump’s rambling and incoherence, which is a major concern. The newspapers are also conveying that there’s something reasonable or actionable about his ideas, and mild criticisms buried within about what “experts have warned” do nothing to counteract the blaring headlines about “Trump’s sweeping economic vision.” So if Harris wins and the price of child care doesn’t drop right away, people will complain that Trump could have easily fixed it with his “taxing foreign nations.” The public’s misunderstanding of the political process remains, cynicism about government remains, and the desire for a strongman promising to “fix everything” continues.
Child care. Slowly I turned. Step by step. Inch by inch….
HuffPost actually did a good job covering this is an article titled, Donald Trump Rambles Incoherently When Asked About Reducing Child Care Costs.
An excerpt:
That last line introduces several paragraphs describing Trump and the GOP’s actual record on child care issues, something that the corporate media often fails to do with him (for example, when they touted his very temporary promise to be good for women’s reproductive rights).
Of course, HuffPost isn’t pretending to be objective, so ironically they’re freer to describe objective reality.
I tried asking Copilot to summarize the word salad, This is what it came up with:
“The speaker emphasizes the importance of child care but argues that the economic benefits from taxing foreign nations will generate much larger revenues. These funds will help eliminate deficits and support domestic needs, including child care. The focus is on prioritizing America’s economic growth and self-sufficiency before assisting other countries, aligning with the “America First” policy.”
It’s tempting to say the AI is objective and neutral, but it carries the biases built into it, and the one big bias no one ever notices: it has to try to do what you ask. While t may not favor EL Weirdo, it will try to come up with a summary of the verbal diarrhea so it’s legible.
When you examine each part of the summary, you find there’s no there there. Nations don’t, and can’t tax each other. Tariffs are paid by the consumers in the nation that imposes it. No amount of government revenue will pay for child care if there is no law mandating government pay for child care. And so on.
Trump is not the first politician who, when asked about issue A, managed to work in something about issue B, which is much more of a signature issues. It’s the pivot, and it’s a foundational maneuver in politics.
And most of them who do it, do it in a single sentence or paragraph, and pivot to only one issue, not many.
I’m not sure that gaming news media is the primary goal of this behavior, though. I don’t think Trump ever thinks in terms of brevity.
This little ramble isn’t about the incoherence, it’s about simply not having an answer. I mean, sure, he’s incoherent and absurd, but this is Trump being bad at the transparent Powerpoint trick that you pull out when you’re flailing, where you repeat the question keywords, say something that you (think you) have an answer to, and tenuously connect the two.
If he were forced to follow up, he would definitely try to act like you were an idiot for not understanding him – that’s the second line in this strategy.
I don’t actually think it’s the Worst of Trump, it’s just him falling back on a habit that has served him well in the failed-upward corporate world, where a flashy suit, unearned confidence, and the right connections will get you a check 80% of the time.
But I do think it’s telling that he falls back on “we’ll have so much money” instead of trying to fudge in even part of a workable policy idea. He has always just paid someone else to take care of things, so he easily confuses “how to manage Problem X” with “how to afford to pay for Problem X to be ‘taken care of’.”
It’s gibberish. Trump, when younger, was able to bullshit his answers to the press. He’s gotten older and less articulate, but hasn’t changed.
It absolutely is sanewashing to interpret his rambling.
After the public excoriation of Biden, due to age, this is entirely appropriate
Trump:
When I heard his full quote I thought, there he goes again.
Back in 2016 he said we’re going to build wall and Mexico is going to pay for it.
Now he says we’re going to have a federal child care program and Europe is going to pay for it.
I’ve given up. Nine years in and the MSM is still covering Trump like he is just another candidate. If they’re going to paraphrase then leave the inane and insane in. In other words most of it.
@Monala:
I feel like I’ve commented on this in the past, but the notion of objectivity was removed from the journalism code of ethics in the US more than two decades ago. In part, that’s because its all but impossible to be objective and “balanced” at the same time. (Note that the decision had nothing to do with the post-structuralism debate about objectivity in general.) Here’s more on that: https://nupoliticalreview.org/2022/03/10/abolishing-journalistic-objectivity-in-the-pursuit-of-truth/
@Kathy:
100%, this was something I was working on during my time at Cornell. Some of my thoughts on this made it into this very old OTB post: https://outsidethebeltway.com/some-thoughts-on-security-data-mining-and-other-forms-of-witchcraft/
@Jay L Gischer:
Again 100% to this point. Answering the question you want to answer, not the question that was asked, is Media Training 101. I discussed this a bit in this article: https://outsidethebeltway.com/softball-questions-and-the-limits-of-running-on-anger/
The problem is that Donald Trump doesn’t do this well. In fact, he’s gotten significantly worse at it since 2016. That’s probably due to age-related issues (at a minimum). The bigger issues is even in answering the question he wants (Why we need tariffs) his actual answer is only at best semi-coherent. Worse still because he is choosing to tie it back to child care it makes even less sense.
That’s before, as I said we get to all the logical issues in the response. Again, note how many of those I chose to ignore.
By the way, I really need to get around to writing that piece on the almost certain negative impact that Trump’s immigration and tariff policies will have on inflation and the economy if they are implemented as promised.
Relevant article in The Guardian today: The mainstream press is failing America – and people are understandably upset
I hope that during the debate when Harris answers a question she points out that Trump rambling on with addressing the issue is not answering the question.
@Jay L Gischer:
I’m a pretty good bullshitter. It’s so much fun. The point is never to “game the media” or convince someone for or against something. The point is to make someone or a group to question objective reality. The moment when someone’s confusion becomes visible and then resolve in your favor is intoxicating. You control their reality because your unreality has become their unreality. I enjoy doing it because I like chaos, confusion, and most importantly attention. All attention is good attention and there is never enough. It can make you a real fun person to be around, it can also, objectively, make you a real fucking irritating person (which I also enjoy).
The problem is though, you have to control when you’re doing it. I have to actively shut my bullshit off when I’m in court or dealing with important stuff. It make it real hard to have serious, factual, reality based discussions. The other problem is that you are always a little incoherent. How many have you read something I wrote here when I was trying to be serious and thought to yourself, “WTF is she talking about.” I’ve learned that I have to have some friends that are inured to my nonsense act as Certified Beth Translators. It can be frustrating at times.
When it comes to Trump he’s not trying to convince anyone of anything. He’s trying to replace objective reality with his. He is WILDLY successful at that. I think that’s one of the reasons that Vance comes off as so loathsome. He’s trying to use bullshit to advance his misogynistic nonsense, but without any of the unreality and he comes off looking like a desperate, sweaty, neckbeard.
I don’t recall anyone’s mentioned it, and this seems a good place. Yesterday, rather weirdly, WAPO published a Guest Opinion (guest link) by A. G. Sulzberger, Publisher of NYT, on the potential threats to a free press under a second Trump administration. In comments, which I assume he’ll never read, he got toasted pretty good for failures to live up to even the minimums he claims. With overnight to think about it, I believe the big takeaway is that he talked a lot about hardening the Times to protect it against Trump, but not so much about protecting the country from Trump.
This post is a perfect example of the continued failings of our media. I would, however, note that NYT does seem to be getting a little better. They did a very good photo essay thing a couple days ago about what whether you were really better off four years ago. The schizophrenia between the sporadic good NYT and FTFNYT is maddening to watch. They don’t seem very interested in feedback, or in responding to criticism, but the barrage of criticism they’ve gotten has to be getting through and does seem to be having a small effect. It should be continued in every way possible.
The NYT reporter gave Trump credit for words spoken by the questioner and not by Trump, portraying him has much more thoughtful than he actually was. The question was “…commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable, and, if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?” It’s not at all clear what “Well, I would do that” meant in response to that multipart question.
The reporter’s first and possibly most important response attributed to Trump, “he said he would prioritize legislation on the issue,” is borderline fiction.
@Matt Bernius:
When Trump talks about the benefits of tariffs, it could be worth asking if he is familiar with concepts such as “retaliatory tariffs” and “trade wars.” Or, perhaps, if he knows anything about the economic consequences thought to be associated with the Smoot-Hawley Act.
@Matt Bernius: I guess that “HuffPost isn’t pretending to be unbiased” might have been a better way to put it.
——-
The Bulwark has also addressed Trump’s child care comments. I like how they describe tariffs in Trump’s fevered mind:
I would give someone $100 to ask Trump why, if tariffs are so great, they didn’t wipe out the deficit and bring in trillions (literally the number he said) the first time around.
Matt, why do you continue to steelman this newspaper drivel?
They [both NYT and WaPo] do it because the leadership [both owner and management teams] is 100% Republican and the employees want Republicans to win.
The media is conservative —– and hasn’t thought any further than “How can we, today, help conservatives win their next election?” Follow-up point: Because newspapers are corporations, they will always be conservative.
Occam’s Razor leads to depressing conclusions at times.. but isn’t wrong.
Republicans continue to attack newspapers for the 2,3 articles per week on page 8 below the fold in which assistant editors throw random meat to liberals who pay the majority of their subscription fees.
I think we are all missing the much larger point here. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the amount of “paraphrasing” the reporters engaged in was acceptable. Then the immediate issue is that they got the paraphrasing wrong. If you accept that Trump meant to link the two then there is a huge, huge news story they missed. Trump says the tariffs will solve the childcare problem. Today, the government collects tariffs and individuals pay for childcare. He just proposed that instead the government will pay for childcare using the tariff revenue! That is a gigantic change in policy. Universal, government paid childcare!
Note that I’m not being sarcastic in any way. If you interpret Trump’s nonsensical stream of consciousness in the way the reporters did, there is no other conclusion.
@gVOR10: I see FTFNYT all over the place but can’t seem to find anyone spelling it out. I’m guessing fuck the facts? Can someone help me out?
@Jay L Gischer:
With all due respect, Jay. You’re doing “sanewashing”, because this is NOT what Trump is doing. You’re ascribing to him a skill he does not have; speaking cogently and coherently on specifics of policy.
Your comment exactly the sort of comment that make it seem that Trump is only doing what other politicians do. It normalizes what is, essentially, gibberish. As Catherine Rampell said, on Twitter.
My job is to analyze policy. I can’t even find a complete sentence in this.
There is, literally, not one complete sentence in his entire 338 words answer. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that the audience, made of of many smart money people, fucking clapped for that gibberish. They clapped, even though they have no idea what he said.
@Erik: Eff the Effing New York Times. OK, not quite spelled out.
@Erik: I always assumed the first F is an imperative verb, and the second F is the adjective form of that word, describing the NYT.
“I’ll also skip the former President’s gross mischaracterization that foreign countries are the ones who pay for tarriffs”
Ah. So no doubt you will agree that corporations don’t pay taxes, or the proposed tax increases. Rather, consumers do.
Or is that – ahem – “different.”
@Gavin:
I can’t speak for those specific newsrooms, but given my time working with journalists and observing how newsrooms and editorial work, I don’t this doesn’t match my experience.
Yes, management exerts some control on editorial, but not necessarily in the way that you think.
I do agree that most major newspapers are not “liberal,” as we think about it. At best, most they lean mainstream, establishment Democrat (think Pelosi/Schumer).
@gVOR10 @gVOR10: @Monala: thanks!
@jack:
Yup. At the end of the day, consumers are the ones who pay tariffs. Especially in cases where there are not competing products that are “American Made.” And even when there are “American Made” products, if material components (like steel) are imported under tariffs, then consumers are paying for those tariff taxes as well. Especially lower income individuals.
I’ll write more deeply about my perspective later.
Again, see: https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-biden-tariffs/, https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/tpc-trump-tariffs-would-raise-household-taxes-and-slow-imports
For the record, I think Biden/Harris maintaining the Trump Tariffs is an ongoing mistake.
If you asking if I “agree” with that, it suggests you hold a similar position on it too. If so, how do you square your support of Trump with his economic policy promises?
If I’m wrong and you are pro-tariff, I’d love you to make that argument for them from a conservative economic position.
@MBailey: You are engaging in a binary. The binary is “Trump is sane” vs. “Trump is insane”. I reject most binaries applied to humans. Math has binaries. Computing has binaries. People do not have binaries. I reject this binary as applied to humans. I have some very good people I know who have issues with mental health. AND, they are good people I rely on for things.
So, I prefer to dig a little deeper than to make simple binary assertions. Because, you see, those people are a LOT more important to me than Trump is.
@Matt Bernius: Your commentators have the Party Political Partisan lens on. If the media source is not cheerleading it is therefore the Opposition (of coure they get quite offended as they are unable to see their desires as partisans are for cheerleading, seeing it is true and factual).
The moustache twirling evil owner story while very belowed of the Lefties is a poor explanation of the actual structural failures – and it is clear as an outside observer that the papers like the NYT and the WP are structurally stumbling about and their historical analytical and reporting cultural are like the US party structure now rather structurally misadapted – this different than The Bosses control the Media – and I think rather more insidious and difficult to address.
A Pr Taylor-esque analysis of the structure and incentives* more useful than party political partisan moustache twirling villians as mode of understanding.
*: as while I have at times been frustrated with his academic abstraction on response (as in solutions to the problem), the posts on the party structure were extremely eye opening (and being an economist by proper academic training, egg-headed economist in me rather did see how the incentive structure and lack of input control is fundamental to end results)
@Lounsbury:
Once again I’m in total agreement.
@Matt Bernius: I think jack is implying that Harris’ proposed corporate tax increases will be passed on to consumers.
@jack:
Analytically consumers may bear a portion of company taxation (versus the asset owner in impact on return_ – it rather depends on price elasticity, on the margins and another of factors.
Of course in the end taxation is a fee born by the non-government actors.
In the same manner, unless the foreign exporter undertakes to bear the difference by cutting the price offered to the tariff-imposing country resident buyer(so that the end post tariff price remains unchanged from the importing actor point of view), the price differential is born in same fashion as a domestic tax increase. The general result in real world is it is just a domestic tax increase s not very typical the foreign seller cuts pricing in compensation.
Amongst virtually all proper economists, and certainly historically free market economists, tariffs are rather disliked as a particularly inefficient and distorting tax.
That the Orange Cretin has introduced this insidious inefficient tax increase and has supposed Republicans lapping it up in somewhat empty minded party partisan tribalist group think is one of the great disappointments.
@Monala: yes he is, and he can be right in some circumstances – taxes are a cost of business and to the extent there is pricing power, a business will build that into their pricing.
However profits taxes are rather more efficient instruments than tariffs so any pretence of full comparability is nonsense.
@Lounsbury:
This is critical. With so many of these discussions, we should approach them from a “less bad” perspective.
Unfortunately, that type of approach tends to break some people’s brains.
@Lounsbury:
Targeted tariffs can be used to protect specific industries that a country wants to have a domestic source of. Think, for example, of armaments or strategic minerals.
I like the terminology word salad. Maybe the NYT can say that “when asked a question about childcare Trump answered with a word salad”. Who knows, maybe it will increase readership.
Matt, thanks for writing this.
If Trumps words defy summation, then there is no obligation for the press to invent some cogent narrative out of his ramblings. Either say that he didn’t really answer the question, or present the words he did say (though figuring out the starting and stopping points in his verbal effluvia is a conundrum). All the press is doing is playing the same role that Trump’s staff performs: cleaning up after a mess that he creates. In this case, it’s a verbal mess, but it’s a mess nonetheless.
@charontwo: Yes, such argument is made. As a proper economist, if the funny graduate degree from a place people have heard of enables the claim, I am more than aware of the ideas put forward to justify tariffs. I have the general opinion of such that most proper economists have (as in it is a bad and inefficient pretence and there are better modes to achieve the same).
@Matt Bernius: yes, quite so. People rather tend to fall into either or thinkig, or formally, fallacies of the excluded middle.
On the LEft it tends to be Gov Good Regs Good, Companeis Bad, on the US right, it tends to be a simple minded inversion of that. Rather than something more strictly analyticl as “regulation can be good or bad, and probably it is a sliding scale of harms and goods – and as likey where the balance is can change over time.”
the sterile commentary on transport and trains a bit back an example of poorly structured either-or thinking.
@Raoul: Journalistic “ethics”. Rick Perlstein put it nicely a couple days ago – they can’t say it rained just because they see puddles. They can’t make conclusions, only report the evidence or quote someone as saying it rained. Somehow, though, that rule never seems to work against GOPs. They don’t have to print the evidence as in a transcript and they can conclude from that word salad that Trump said tariffs would help childcare. I guess tariffs, like high end tax cuts are a cure for everything.
Perhaps someone should point out to Vance that every child killed is one less potential baby machine.
@Matt Bernius: Yes, jack is right about consumers paying the taxes of corporations. They also pay the cost of running the factories, the salaries of workers and managers, the water, sewer and garbage fees, basically 100% of the incidental costs of providing the goods produced and/or services provided. Economists and business majors even have a term for such costs–they are called “overhead.” Part of the overhead is for services that the government provides–police and fire protection, maintaining a safe and non-anarchistic place in which the business can survive, and various other amenities. The government also establishes regulations, inspection regimes, and other requirements that serve both the public and the business (in the form of giving the population at large confidence that the products are safe and foodstuffs wholesome, for two very important examples). And they charge the businesses for these benefits because it makes better sense than trying to charge individual purchasers–after all, the consumers are going to pay for them in the end (overhead, ya kno 🙂 ).
So, taxes are just another part of overhead. Tariffs are part of a foreign company’s overhead. Raising tariffs for the purpose of generating expanded government income is, as even Lounsbury seems to know, a false economics act in many cases. Tariffs are mostly for different purposes in the modern free-trade (like) systems we currently strive for. Arguments for raising corporate taxes–and I am one who leans “pro” rather than “con” on this point–have to do largely with taxes on corporations currently being lower than the costs corporations add to the economic structure. Additionally, they serve to pry held capital from the hands of the owners toward the end of benefiting the society at large, hopefully creating more prosperity for a larger portion of the community at large. A current argument for raising corporate taxes is also that corporations have experienced significant levels of windfall profits over the recent decades–including times before and after (?? assuming it’s “over”) the Covid-19 pandemic. And that is a subject that deserves a serious debate, but won’t get one because (IMO at least) neither side is prepared to lose the argument and would rather just ad hominem the opposition.
As to the why of taxing windfall profits, even Adam Smith is said to have advocated taxing windfall profits–and using the funds to expand “the dole” according to some of the witnesses. I gave away my annotated and indexed copy of The Wealth of Nations when I moved to Korea, so I can’t document the claim.
@Lounsbury:
And why shouldn’t they? Partisan cheerleading is not automatically bad. Performative fence-straddling contrarianism is not automatically better; reflexive nonpartisanship for its own sake is its own type of prejudice — bias in biege.
In the Trump era, we’ve discovered that, yes, mustache-twirling villains do exist outside of old-timey cartoons. They’re alive and well in our politics, culture, and media— and have a group discount with the Republican Party. That is the reality check that continues to drive people like me out of that party.
Partisan or not, those who point out these villains are not problematic. It’s those who deny their existence and pretend they’re misunderstood antiheroes who are not telling the truth. If the reason for this delusion is to for the deluded to aggrandize themselves as holier-than-thou nonpartisans, bless their hearts. But it still means they’re dishonest.
That the truth appears partisan because one of our parties has turned almost totally to non-stop lying does not mean that people who can face reality should shy away from speaking up.
When those who think, wrongly, that fetishizing nonpartisanship makes them special then lazily accuse Americans of wanting the media to be partisan cheerleaders, they’re just offended that, unlike them, the rest of us won’t play along with the orgy of Republican dishonesty enabled by their equally lazy unwitting sidekicks in the press.
Sanewashing? That’s the least of it.
Trump is fundamentally incoherent and he is getting worse with every public appearance. What I wouldn’t give for the mainstream press to offer ⅛ of the “is he cogent enough to serve?” treatment they gave Biden after one debate performance.
@charontwo:
Back when Trump imposed additional tariffs on Steel and Aluminum, he justified that because it would induce American companies to open new steel and aluminum production in the US.
Were there new steel or aluminum plants built in the US, as a result of the tariffs?
@Matt Bernius:
I don’t buy the Evil Boss explanation for mainstream press behavior in the Age of Trump either, but “the structure and incentives are to blame” is a cop-out. It suggests that major newsroom management and their journalists have no agency to challenge their structures or change the incentives.
As @Steven L. Taylor notes:
Well, we’ve had a far right authoritarian party emerging and gaining power in the US for at least 8 years. It’s past time to blame the structural design and high time to call for redesign.
@Scott F.:
To be clear, I don’t interpret it that way. And this is a sign that I need to write a post (at some point) on my take of the age-old structure/agency discussion that has shaped most social sciences since their inceptions.
The TL:DR; version of my take: it’s both and depending on historical and cultural moments, one can/may have more influence than the other.
Whether or not the speaker is a Republican
@Jay L Gischer:
No. No. No. Bullshit. The binary choice isn’t “Is Trump insane?” vs. “Is Trump sane”? The choice is “Is Trump spouting gibberish or speaking cogently”. You’re assigning cogency and depth to what is, plainly, gibberish, by equating it with a political strategy. Trump didn’t answer the question that way due to a political strategy. He answered it that way because he knows absolutely nothing about any child care policy that would help Americans in their day to day lives. You’re giving cover to his gibberish by equating it to a political strategy, as opposed to calling this out for what it actually is: an incoherent and non-nonsensical word salad.
@MBailey: Good response. There was nothing in what you wrote that suggested anything at all about Trump’s mental health, only his speaking ability. And your follow up comment gave a very good explanation for why Trump speaks in gibberish.
@Bobert: That claim was always nonsense. Even Trump knows that the reason to build a new metal production plant/mill is because the market value of the metal will “pay for” the construction and staffing of the new installation. Increased tariffs do nothing to guarantee that outlay paying off.
@Scott F.:
I’d argue 40 years, and I could make a case for more.
@Lounsbury:
Economists are not fucking infallible gods and there exist goals and values separate from economic efficiency. E.g., “developing” countries using tariffs as a means to move past that status and become developed countries.
@Bobert:
I honestly have no idea, but Donald J. Trump would not be my go-to example of someone who engages in thoughtfully strategic policies.
He would also not be my go-to example of a fellow who frankly and openly discloses his actual real goals.
Beyond that, I tend not to view playing “gotcha” as constuctive discourse.
@just nutha:
Really? Increased tariffs disengage the local price from the world price (i.e., make it higher).
@Lounsbury:
Well put.
Also, corporate taxes are significantly less regressive than tariffs on consumer goods and raw materials, in terms of their differential impact on various wealth quantiles.
@charontwo: No economists are simply educated people with a certain expertise and a numerate data-based framework for attempting to analyse the complex and multi-variate changing systems that are human economies.
You are free to follow whatever beliefs you so desire of course, including irrational lashing out (see “fucking gods”) when someone blandly notes that such the profession fairly universally finds tariffs to be a poor tool and generally inefficient to bad idea. That observation of course implies no godhead.
Of course I am also professionally an equity investor in developing markets – private not traded equity – have spent the vast majority of my career, so I can say yes, indeed I rather know quite a lot directly as well as by professional training about the subject – rather beyond Guardian hand-wringing regurgitation in the end. Not that there is any chance of such changing any innumerate minds hear outside of your echo chambres. (else one can rather look at the piss poor track record of tariff protected industries becoming economically competitive, which is rather the point of industries if one wishes to avoid Soviet style industrialisation (that is successful, economic efficiency being well, how one does build wealth else one remains mired in poverty) – tariffs are a generally a poor and inefficient industrial policy tool. I draw attention here that my comment is not one against government industrial policy – in prudence agains the typical Leftist knee-jerking here – but rather there are better and worse tools to achieve. Industrial policy has its place, but tariffs are an inefficient and most often unsuccessful tool in themselves (state backing in other forms has better track records over all)
@DrDaveT: Yes quite right – and also can be better tailored to promote efficiency and investment – in conjuction with fiscal policites (i.e. government suports spending). Tariffs are a crappy general tool (in prior centuries due to institutional and operational constraints they made more sense probably – here a warning that one should have care not to reify an analysis – systems and institutional changes can make some tools more or less effective over time)
@Scott F.: Incentive and structure is not a “cop out” it is a necessary basis to understand the real ecosystem and environment in which the ”human agency” will act – and understand the real parameters. Else one is prone to enage in naive and idealised reflection – see Pr Taylor’s political systems analysis – the structure defines choice weights, etc.
Just as like in a biological system – an animal in a lab divorced from ecoystem factors may behave in ways rather different than in its ecosystem.
Otherwise all you are engaging in is moral posturing – much beloved of a certain fraction of the commentariat here but rather empty in the end as ends in simple frustration.
A systems analysis as like Pr Taylor helps lead one to an improved unerstanding of what is in the background structuring conscious but also unconscious descisions.
(or in another context, calling it a cop out in itself is wrong in the same fasion those on the Right who call an acknowledged of structural issues impacting say ethnic minorities leading to e.g. crime is a cop out of personal responsability are wrong…. it can of course be – if one simple mindedly then uses it to excuse bad behaviour and avoid consequences – an error of some on the Left to point that finger – but it can also be a tool for improved reflection while also maintaining the personal responsability of the actual actors.
Avoidance of either-or thinking….
There is now a piece at WaPo that does quote the entire unedited response, but then still goes on to sanewash a bit:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/06/following-trumps-train-thought-it-derails-child-care-question/
(The quote as posted above) …
Do we buy this? Seems a bit pat.
@Lounsbury:
Ah yes, the infallible patronizing condescension argument, which never fails.
I am not a big shot private investor, but I have worked overseas in a country that was moving from resource extraction into manufacturing, so I suppose my perspective is a bit different.
“… innumerate minds … ”
Innumerate? The exam I took to become a Registered Professional Engineer had a pass rate of around 35%. Innumerate people do not pass.
I suppose not being a talented insult comic is a bit of a handicap in this sort of online banter.
@charontwo:
There is a take similar to the WaPo piece over at NMMNB:
“NMMNB”
…
Porque no los dos? Dementia combined with lying/bullshitting.
There’s a figure that the NYT and WaPo printed something like over 100 stories on Biden’s mental competence shortly after the debate. These guys have a literally *unlimited* ability to print Trump’s words and to analyze them.
They are not failing to do their jobs due to mundane limitations, but from the simple fact that they are pro-Trump.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/09/06/dick-cheney-kamala-harris-liz-cheney-colin-allred/
…
@Barry:
You would sure think that based on their coverage, but Sulzberger posted a very long opinion piece at WaPo that reads very differently:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/05/sulzberger-free-press-new-york-times/
He continues with detailed discussions of India, Brazil and Donald Trump.
This is an extremely lengthy piece, I can’t begun to quote all of it. (Sulzberger being the publisher of The New York Times).
@Lounsbury:
250 some words to call me mindless. You need to tighten up your condescension game.
@charontwo: I wouldn’t read that and automatically assume Sulzberger can’t be pro-Trump. Sure, he deplores Trump’s war on the press. But plenty of Trump voters claim to deplore this or that about him — yet somehow still wave the MAGA flag, proudly or reluctantly.
Sulzberger claims he’s prepping the New York Slimes for Trump Part Two: The Purge. He’s like those generals who wax poetic about the horrors of war, yet are itching for more glory days on the battlefield. Sulzberger’s piece is titled “How the Quiet War Against Press Freedom Could Come to America.” His internal subtitle read: “…and how fighting this epic battle against Trump will be ca-ching! for the Times in clicks, clout, subscriptions, and ad sales.”
To wit, Sulzberger finally chews the beef:
Oh.
And since when, bro? Might be persuasive if we hadn’t just watched the Times and its sister outlets raise up in unified doom squad opposition to Joe Biden’s campaign, appointing themselves remote-control gerontologists and using every lever of their power to drive Biden from the race. Where then were the Very Serious People’s concerns about not directly opposing candidacies? Nice amnesia tho, Sully.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1832155922245746818
@MarkedMan: My thoughts exactly. If The Donald’s gibberish meant anything at all, it meant he favored a federal government-funded childcare scheme that would reduce the cost to parents. That would put him in the same policy camp as Bernie Sanders and AOC, which would, as you say, be a huge news story. If the “debate” moderators next week are any good at their jobs, they’ll make this one of the issues they ask both candidates about.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Even Lounsbury?
you can profitably write as any proper economist sees – the structural confusion you all consistently have between anyone not echoing your echo-chambre and being pro-opposition is quite
@charontwo:
Oh personal anectdote! Wonderfully probative. While I have lived and worked for decades in countries developing – my literal work this past decade is in renewable energy and energy efficiency in industrial sectors and in infrastructure, all these past decades in developing countries. I am more than personally familiar with the subjects, plus indeed being a proper grands ecoles economist.
Of course personal anectdote on a comment board has no data value and is merely entertainment.
As I blandly noted before, triggering your frothingly incoherent lash out about economists not being infallible gods, there is broad economic agreement that tariffs are a bad tool in modern economies – although as you show, rather the popular one amongst the Populists (particularly Lefty but not solely) and the protectionists.
Lashing out rather makes the point, hardly condescending, a factual observation nothing said changes the echo-chambre.
@Scott F.: how strangely thin-skinned you lot are. I merely disagreed with your dismissal to Bernius of structural. Well the echo-chambre carry on.
@Gavin:
This is just utter nonsense. The NYT, especially, has a very liberal readership and both DC and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs are very, very blue. The overwhelming number of NYT and WaPo reporters are to the left of Kamala Harris. The ownership of the papers is likely more conservative.
@Lounsbury:
Thank you for the clarification. I find your reasoning very persuasive and thus am now thoroughly enlightened.
@Lounsbury: As you have noted in the past, some of what I write is for my own entertainment. Goading you seems to have been a bonus this time. SCORE!