- Trump trusts only TV;
- Heather Cox Richardson on how Republicans are digging into positions that are contradicted by facts;
- How the Trump administration’s “Juan Crow” echoes “John Crow”;
- More nonexistent things that can be banned;
- Short items about disabling hurricane satellites, passing weather control bills, a CBS bias monitor, and revoking greenhouse regulations;
- Alfred Schnittke’s Trio Sonata.
Well, we already know he doesn’t read. Or attend daily briefings.
The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 28 Jul 2025: The Only Information Source Trump Trusts, subtitled “The president responds more to mass media than to the substance of underlying events.” [gift link]
(Note how the URL embeds an alternate title: “How TV Warps Trump’s Worldview”)
The case in point is how Trump saw TV coverage in Gaza and was convinced, despite Netanyahu saying otherwise, that there is indeed starvation in Gaza. Then:
As president, Trump has access to the most powerful information-gathering network in the world, yet he takes his cues from what he watches on television. This helps him see the news from the same perspective as the general public, which has enabled his political success. But it also narrows his understanding, and it makes him highly susceptible to manipulation.
How does this square with his demonization of the TV networks? Just the other day he threatened to take down a couple of them. Perhaps, as in the photo here, he only watches Fox News.
Trump’s reverence of television interacts dangerously with his skepticism of anyone who represents independent expertise. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” he said in 2015. Former aides say he doesn’t read or pay attention during briefings, and he particularly distrusts the intelligence community, to the point that he has repeatedly taken Vladimir Putin’s word instead. This means that despite access to high-quality information about what’s going on in Gaza, he seems to really perk up only once it’s on the tube.
Such a narrow information stream is a problem, because TV is not a good source of information on its own; it should be consumed as part of a balanced news diet. That’s especially true for the television channel that Trump seems to consume most, Fox News. (The liberal researcher Matt Gertz painstakingly documented the direct connection between Fox News segments and Trump tweets during his first term.) Various research over many years has found that Fox viewers are less informed than other news consumers.
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A recurring theme among conservatives, and Republicans.
Today’s theme seems to be Republican leadership digging into positions that are directly contradicted by facts.
Heather Cox Richardson, July 28, 2025
Quoting just two examples:
On Sunday, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that the price tag for renovating the “free” Boeing 747-8 President Donald J. Trump accepted from Qatar appears to be close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money. The reporters explored a “mysterious, $934 million transfer of funds” from a program to modernize the country’s ground-based nuclear missiles to an unnamed classified project. Air Force officials told them privately that the transfer is for upgrading the plane for use as Air Force One.
Yale historian Joanne Freeman posted: “He’s using our money to buy himself a gift. A billion dollar gift.”
Over the weekend, Trump called for musician Beyoncé to be prosecuted for breaking the law by taking $11 million for endorsing Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024, and for Harris to be prosecuted for paying that sum. But this simply never happened.
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale explained yesterday that this is a made-up story Trump apparently got from social media. The Harris campaign covered $165,000 of the costs connected to Beyoncé’s appearance, as required by law, but a spokesperson said they did not pay celebrity endorsers (although there is no federal law prohibiting such payments). Dale says there is no evidence for Trump’s $11 million claim.
Further examples: claims about Jeffrey Epstein; about health insurance; about tax cuts.
Since the 1980s, Republicans have relied on their voters believing the worldview leaders projected, even when the facts told a different story. It is not clear they can continue to rely on that blind loyalty.
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History may not repeat, but it rhymes. (Because human nature doesn’t change, or does so only very slowly.)
NY Times, guest essay by Soraya Nadia McDonald, 29 Jul 2025: There’s a Name for What Trump Is Doing. Juan Crow. [gift link]
In its merciless pursuit of people without papers — most of them Latino — and its demonization of asylum seekers, refugees, holders of temporary protected status, Muslims and Palestinian-rights activists, the Trump administration is accelerating toward a new, modern nadir of Juan Crow, just downstream of Jim and Jane.
When a sitting U.S. senator refers to New York immigrants as “inner-city rats,” when a Florida governor waxes rapturously about the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center, when a presidential administration takes two months to dismantle decades of civil rights law, we must admit that these are acts in a feature presentation of neo-Confederate revanchism targeting brown and Black people. The targeting of the undocumented has a name, after all, based in ugly history and shameful tradition: Juan Crow.
(The terms is a play on the Jim Crow laws of the early 20th century, in the South, to enforce racial segregation.)
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As I’ve been saying.
The Atlantic, Alexandra Petri, 29 Jul 2025: Let’s Ban More Nonexistent Things, subtitled “Some notes for the Clear Skies Act, which seeks to ban weather modification” [gift link]
As long as we are applying this “let’s ban nonexistent things” approach to legislation, I have some notes for the Clear Skies Act as it seeks to ban weather modification. This term, the bill notes, “includes (i) geoengineering (ii) cloud seeding (iii) solar radiation modification and management (iv) a release of an aerosol into the atmosphere to influence temperature, precipitation, or the intensity of sunlight.” Why not cast a wider net?
A sample of her 27 suggestions.
(xii) butterflies flapping their wings even a single time (this is how you make hurricanes)
(xiii) the demigod Maui insofar as he is doing things with the breeze
(xiv) caterpillars growing suspiciously thick winter coats (this is how we get blizzards)
(xv) any and all frozen treats with names like Blizzard, McFlurry, Frosty, ICEE (could their intention be any clearer?)
(xvi) fairies, fae, Fair Folk, sprites of all kinds
(xvii) Prospero from The Tempest, specifically (known to use weather for revenge)
(xviii) Storm from X-Men (ditto)
(xix) Magneto (I don’t understand how electromagnetism affects weather so we had better ban him just in case)
(xx) Gandalf the Grey (Gandalf the White is okay, according to Stephen Miller)
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And quick takes from my favorite aggregate site.
JMG, 29 Jul 2025: Pentagon To Disable Hurricane Satellites This Week
We’ve already cancelled the insurance policies, now let’s disable the smoke alarms!
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JMG, 29 Jul 2025: Nearly 20 States Are Facing GOP Weather Control Bills
This goes with the piece above. One of the co-sponsors of the bill “also claims that alien civilizations are operating underwater bases in the Earth’s oceans.”
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JMG, from Ars Technica, 29 Jul 2025: New CBS News “Bias Monitor” Will Report To Trump
Control of the media: another item on the totalitarian checklist.
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JMG, from NYT, 29 Jul 2025: EPA To Revoke Legal Basis For Greenhouse Regulations
What is the difference between the Trump administration and alien invaders bent on enabling humanity to destroy itself?
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Yesterday’s post about Arvo Pärt inspired me to pick up this CD from 1997, which likely first introduced me both to Vasks and Schnittke. Here is the latter’s Trio Sonata, as orchestrated by Yuri Bashmet; it seems to be on YouTube in two pieces. Weird and beautiful.
And here.
Here’s Wikipedia about Schnittke. I’ve also acquired a bunch of his CDs over the years, as I’ve done with Pärt. I’ll gradually work my way through them again.
