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News broke overnight of President Trump’s plans to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, less than a week after Jeffrey Goldberg’s bombshell article in The Atlantic highlighted anonymous accusations of the president’s poor conduct toward American veterans. Sarah, Steve, and Jonah tackle some of the move’s political implications for Trump’s re-election campaign before launching into a lively debate over the ethics of using anonymous sources in journalism. “It is the case that reporters can pick and choose their anonymous sources to tell the story that their predetermined narrative would have them tell,” said Steve. “But I think you judge anonymous sources to a certain extent based on the amount of credence you give to the particular reporter who’s using them.”
The Dispatch Podcast also covers curveballs that could upset current polling favoring a handed Joe Biden victory—namely, the Hispanic vote and presidential debates. New data out of Florida reveals that the former VP might not have the Hispanic vote locked down, but as our hosts point out, assuming that a diverse group of people will vote as a monolithic bloc has always been a dangerous oversimplification. Steve, Sarah and Jonah also chat about the upcoming debates and how possible Biden blunders could either hurt him or paint him as a sympathetic figure, depending on how the president chooses to respond.
Show Notes:
-Jeffrey Goldberg’s controversial investigative journalism: Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
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Great show, as always. I’ve always wondered who defines “on background” and “anonymous sources”. I don’t really know the exact definition of “on background” but understand in general terms what it is used for. Another question, is ethical standards the only thing that keeps a journalist from reporting something as on the record that was anonymous or on background? I definitely appreciated Steve’s example of how he used sources to report. I don’t want to make sausage, but its fascinating to learn how its made.
Several observations about the latin segment.
- brown is not interchangeable with latin/hispanic. My family is a perfect example. My mom and sister are white, my dad, my brother and I are brown. I’m very good friends with a Chinese Costa Rican. The spanish speaking Caribbean countries have vibrant black populations (including non islands, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, etc.)
- Every time I hear latino/a/x i want to ask: what is wrong, dear people, with the inclusive ENGLISH word latin?! I use latino solamente cuando estoy hablando español. Just like i don’t say creo que ella es Asian when i speak spanish.
- Latinx, my family in mexico never uses this term. Without ever discussing it, I imagine it is for the reason Sarah asked, what do you do with the rest of the gendered nouns? I will never use it. This has been embraced with the progressive woke left in the US. Now that i think about it, typically woke Americans of European and African descent use it, i rarely hear an american of latin descent use it.
- There are non immigrant latins who have been here since Spain ruled. I.e., not all latins are immigrants. In this case the border crossed them, they didn’t cross the border. There’s never any discussion about how this block votes. Or that they even exist.
- Biden’s campaign outreach. I have absolutely no objection to not being outreached to beyond the general outreach. I’m a zero generation american (naturalized, not child of immigrants). That means i had to pass an exam in english proficiency. I do not understand multi-lingual ballots and certainly don’t support a candidate speaking any language while campaigning other than english. For what its worth, didn’t Eva Longoria host one of the evenings? Until now i thought of her as exactly the same as Julia Louis Dreyfus, didn’t consider the ethnicity of either.
- related to outreach, latins have the worst voter participation in California. I always thought this was a chicken/egg thing. Why invest in outreach to a block that doesn’t vote at rates that have a return on invest. Many say that republicans vote against their economic interest. I say that latins don’t vote against their interests. For latins who support trump, good on them. I’m thrilled they voted (don’t understand it, but i don’t need to).
The Latino vote is like the Asian vote. Japanese and Chinese are not a recognized single tribe by anyone except the skin tone experts who like to lump people together by color. Eventually the dems will figure this out. They have been betting on the brown people falling into the same voting habits as the black voters. That's what happens when you become over invested in color.