I want to say a couple things about media coverage of Hands Off before it gets too small in the rearview mirror. Generally speaking, it…wasn’t great. Both the WashPost and the NYT did stories, focused on their local areas but fleshed out with details from other cities. USA Today, of all things, did a pretty good job, and I suspect got their local Gannett outfits in on it, because here in Detroit the Freep kicked the News’ butt, and that doesn’t happen all that often.
But there were notable missteps. A local TV station said “hundreds” attended the Detroit march, a laughable shortfall later changed for the web story. And both the News and TV felt the need to ring up the Michigan GOP chair for a whining quote.
I don’t recall this happening during the Tea Party protests. But the two situations, more than a decade apart, aren’t directly comparable, either.
If nothing else, the shitty coverage reflects how hollowed-out local media is today. Never chalk up to a grand conspiracy what can be more easily explained by: the weekend crew. Never the A-team in any outlet, it’s likely to be all the short-straw holders in the organization — the young and inexperienced, toiling for a similarly distracted and overworked supervisor, all charged with filling a newscast or a diminished Metro page with stuff like fatal accidents, fun runs and other weekend afterthoughts. If anyone was counting on the media to help us through this, that cavalry isn’t coming. Trust me on this: I rewatched “Spotlight” Friday night, and it was almost from another century. A fully staffed newsroom! An investigative team given time and resources to work! A supportive research team, with dusty archives in a library! It just doesn’t exist anymore except in rare, rare exceptions.
Two more signs, the first salty, the second very salty:
Finally, here’s a Substack column to read and tell me if I’m crazy because I think the guy is on to something:
After the fall of the USSR, America pressured Russia and other former Soviet republics to quickly privatize their public assets, allowing wealthy individuals from America and Europe to dramatically increase their fortunes. It seems evident that similar conspiratorial forces are now seeking to do the same to the United States, Shock Doctrine-style. To understand this, we must consider who will benefit — fantastically — from the collapse of American economic stability.
Trump’s tariffs aligns with a plan to transform the U.S. fully into a serf society ruled by tech and AI interests. To create a pliant population, you must first destroy the middle class.
…I understand why Krugman wants to view Donald Trump’s trade policy—especially his erratic, often self-defeating tariffs—as the bumbling chaos of a vicious bumbling orangutang motivated by ignorance, populist posturing for FOX, and petty vendettas. But these apparently stupid and erratic policies are, in fact, logical instruments, when seen from a different perspective. They are designed to destroy the American middle class so our country eventually becomes a serf society similar to Russia or, eventually, North Korea, with no free thinking allowed. This will give maximum freedom for billionaires but no freedom for those trapped under economic and legal obligations as the country goes down in flames.
It makes sense. Peter Thiel put JD Vance in the job for a reason. And JD Vance is one heartbeat away, and 40 years old.
Shudder.
Let’s hope the week unfolds well, shall we?
Sherri said on April 6, 2025 at 9:14 pm
I think that everyone is looking at the insanity of this administration and trying to see a method in the madness, but there may not be one. You have a couple of groups in the administration who want to destroy democracy for different ends, the techbros and the theobros, but you also have the demented malignant narcissist at the center. I don’t think the tech oligarchs want a trade war, even though they want to destroy democracy, but Trump thinks that a trade war will show that he is smart and tough and that the world will submit to America. Trump loves democracy, as long as he always wins, as he thinks he obviously always should.
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Deborah said on April 6, 2025 at 9:26 pm
I think it’s a little bit of both, well actually truth be told I’m more on the Krugman side of things but your link to the Substack guy was interesting, he has a point, maybe. Everyone is using Trump as a useful idiot, Putin, the tech overlords, the financial overlords etc. They see Trump as the guy who has popular appeal (lordy?) like those evangelical money grubbing cons, someone to take advantage of to get what THEY want. Trump doesn’t have a clue any which way, as long as they flatter him they think they can control him and to some degree they can for a while until he gets bored or feels slighted in some way. I do think it’s extremely dangerous and something needs to be done about it all pronto, whatever that is. Did the protests this weekend make a dent, probably not but it’s a start, along with a bunch of other things like what Booker did. I mean Tesla has fallen some, that’s a big deal, did it stop Musk, not yet. Will it eventually? Maybe, maybe not but we have to do something.
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linda said on April 6, 2025 at 10:35 pm
The coverage of Hands Off in Toledo by the Blade was worse. They sent no reporter, just a photographer who took one shot, and a wire (AP) story on the national events. When the Toledo crowd was between 3000-4000. The Blade and their owners, the Block family, have a paternalistic attitude towards this community, and decide who and what is important.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 1:07 am
That Substack column makes some sense, certainly. What I find alarming is how fragmented the media consumption has become on the left side of the divide. We’re abandoning the Times and Post, our local news outlets have turned to shit if they haven’t already folded, and we’re reading Krugman or Rubin or Cox-Richardson or Craven or Meidas but nobody has time for all of it, not even a retiree like me who can’t get away from the computer no matter how hard I try. The zone is flooded with chaos and even the most discerning of us can’t process it.
How do you get this message across to people who need to hear it?
I think it’s time people started talking seriously about invoking the 25th, and not just on Trump but Vance and the entire administration. What will it take? They’re criminals and they need to be shut down, pronto, and duly tried for their wrongdoing so that nothing like this ever happens again.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 8:50 am
To counter Pinchbeck a bit, I’m sharing today’s newsletter from Krugman.
Most of the filthy rich are not on board with the oligarchic conspiracy, obviously. It seems the many of them who helped Trump get elected the second time didn’t see any of this coming and now are having their worst buyer’s remorse ever.
Certainly, both an oligarchic plot and a plutocratic resistance aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s a positive sign that the Koch brothers and others who “own” the GOP are getting ready to call in their chits and try to make Congress get off its ass, which would be a positive first step.
I don’t believe that Krugman is completely blind to the oligarchic conspiracy; he’s just not focused on it. He’s more concerned with the immediacy of the threat posed by Trump tanking the economy and destroying international diplomacy. In his past columns, he has ascribed at least some method to Trump’s madness, namely that Trump is turning his administration into a mafia-like protection racket. The purpose of imposing tariffs is to give himself the power to suspend them for those who pay to play.
I’ve read conspiracy theories elsewhere that the wealthy really intend to have Vance doing their bidding and that they have intended all along to give Trump the boot in the middle of his term.
Anyway, there’s no shortage of theories about what’s happening, but here’s what Krugman has to say about the here and now: https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/political-styles-of-the-rich-and?r=43a8hi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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Suzanne said on April 7, 2025 at 9:45 am
The stock markets opened down even more. Cool. Making America Bankrupt Again.
Assuming the MAGA crowd is enjoying watching their retirement funds disappear as their prices go up and the world turns its back on the good old US of A.
I am more and more of the opinion that it ain’t going to get better in my lifetime.
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SusanG said on April 7, 2025 at 10:04 am
In the words of the Great Deana Carter, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzWOa8loCDI
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Mark P said on April 7, 2025 at 10:12 am
I wonder just how many retired MAGAts actually have retirement accounts in the stock market. I suspect that a lot of them are relying on Social Security alone. They may or may not be alarmed at the market going down, or care one way or the other. Losing their Social Security, on the other hand, will be literally life threatening.
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alex said on April 7, 2025 at 10:38 am
Mark P, while doubtless a fair share of MAGAts are at the low end of the income scale, there are plenty of middle- and upper-income Republicans (like some assholes I used to work for) who have fat investment portfolios and I can only hope that it’s making them reconsider their foolishness. Anecdotally, I’ve recently been told by several people that they’ve gotten burned investing in crypto, so there’s that too.
My take on the professional class is that a lot of them are so busy that they don’t pay much attention to news other than perhaps having Fox blaring in the background, so this should hit them where it hurts the most. I regret that it’s also hurting me, but them’s the breaks.
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Jeff Gill said on April 7, 2025 at 12:42 pm
I can’t say this for sure, but it’s hard to look at what Trump is doing and not think a big part of the whole chaotic program is simply to force the Fed to cut interest rates, which given his estimated $2 billion-with-a-B debt obligations, would be a huge benefit to him. If he can leverage Powell (or his replacement) to push rates down to 2 or even 1.75%, he could cut his payment schedule down by half.
Everything else is just collateral damage.
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Jeff Borden said on April 7, 2025 at 1:24 pm
There are substantial numbers of people who worship the wealthy. Consider the ringing defense of Elmo, who was born a billionaire and has never invented or engineered anything, just purchased the companies. The popularity of the “reality shows” focusing on wealthy housewives, the Shahs of Sunset, the Kardashians, even the oldie moldy “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” demonstrate a national fixation on the ruling class.
I prefer “Succession” or “White Lotus,” where the people are wealthier than King Midas, but utterly sad and miserable.
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