Taking a news breather.

 

Lucian3D | Deposit Photos

Adweek reported on Friday that for the week prior, according to Nielsen, the three top cable news channels -- Fox, CNN, and MSNBC -- continued to see a drop in viewership compared to prior to the election early last month. While Fox News is still blowing away its rivals (as it has done for the past two decades) with a 72% share of the prime-time audience, Adweek says, "MSNBC and CNN received below 20% of the share across both dayparts, a trend that has remained constant since Election Night." Among adults ages 25-54, CNN attracted 79,000 sets of eyeballs during prime time to 60,000 for MSNBC.  

If the ratings news held a bright spot for MSNBC, it was that viewership dropped way less during the week of November 18th than it had the previous week, after morning hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski admitted they'd gone down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's ring. But overall, MSNBC viewership during prime time has dropped by 52 percent since November 5th.

Those dismal figures came on the heels of a report that Comcast is thinking of selling MSNBC (and Elon Musk has trolled that he's interested in buying it).

What's going on? It could just be a post-election ratings dip for the losing side. It's happened in previous elections, to both left- and right-leaning media. And this election loss was particularly disheartening to folks on the left. We'd seen this farce before, and we were sure the American people wouldn't want to live through it again -- and yet, here we are.

So folks are turning off the news on their TVs and the notifications on their phones -- for a couple of reasons. The Washington Post (free article at the link) quoted one MSNBC viewer as saying he thought the Monday-morning quarterbacking -- "the finger-pointing and bashing of the Democratic party" -- started way too soon. 

Another viewer told WaPo that she's not interested in revisiting the Trump-as-president horror show right now: "'I just don't even want to know what kind of outrageous thing he's going to do,' she says. 'I'm resigned to, "He's going to do outrageous things, and we'll deal with it when he's gone."'"

I hear that. It seemed to me like the media pivoted way too easily, post-election, to listicles of reasons why Harris didn't win. I was not ready for that. I'm still not ready. And having lived through one Trump freak show, it's been hard for me to gin up more than an eyeroll over his Cabinet picks. I know he's going to do outrageous things. Do I need to know the particulars in breathless detail right now?

After all, the holidays are upon us. That means gift shopping and wrapping, cookie baking, holiday concerts, and all the rest. As for TV viewing, well, there's a lot of comfort TV on offer: Christmas rom-coms, Charlie Brown, and the Grinch. And hey, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is celebrating its 60th anniversary by coming back to NBC this Friday. That sounds like must-see TV to me!

Does all that seem like escapism? I dunno. To me, it feels more like taking a breather. 

Joe Biden is still president. The country's safe for another seven weeks. Anything can happen in seven weeks. 

Not to say it will. But it could. 'Tis the season for miracles, after all.

***

It seems unlikely to me that I was six years old (technically, a day shy of seven) when ol' Rudolph first flew on NBC. I've always thought I was a year or two younger than that. But I'm trusting the people who actually keep track of such things.

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These moments of bloggy denialism -- er, I mean news-breather blogginess -- have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

What is gratitude? Part 2.

(American) Thanksgiving is bearing down upon us, and this time of year always encourages people to make public lists of the things they're grateful for. But hardly anyone talks about toxic gratitude. That's what I'd like to tackle in this week's post.

My posts this week and last week were prompted by a post in a private, Pagan Facebook group. Last week's post is here. I'm not naming the original poster because it's a private group. 

***

So: toxic gratitude.

I thought I'd made this phrase up all by myself, but as ever, the internet has beaten me to it. Google's AI stole its definition from this Times of India article, in which toxic gratitude is defined as "expressing thanks without truly meaning it". 

AsierRomeroCarballo | Deposit Photos

The article says you can spot toxic gratitude when it's prompted by social pressure (or, I would add, religious pressure); the result of either being manipulated by someone or by your attempt to manipulate someone; and over-apologizing or over-thanking someone. 

Manipulation is kind of a side trip into gaslighting, which I've talked about before. Go check out those links if you're interested. Today, what I want to look at are social pressure and over-apologizing/over-thanking.

Let's take on over-apologizing/over-thanking first. There's nothing wrong with thanking someone who has done you a favor -- we're all supposed to do that, right? But there's a line. To me, it ought to be a one-and-done. Well, maybe a two-and-done. But thanking me over and over -- or apologizing more than once -- puts the onus on me: I'm constantly being forced to express my gratitude to you for the favor/support/whatever, or to forgive you even if, by your actions, you've done nothing to earn it. (I get in trouble every time I link to that post about forgiveness. Fair warning: my take on the subject is very different from the Christian viewpoint.)

Look, it's not my job to constantly reassure you that you did a good thing or I still love you or whatever. To me, that sounds very much like a you problem. It feels to me like your boundaries aren't stable, and you need for me to reinforce them for you. Not a sign of a healthy relationship. Plus I'm not going to do it.

It's a short step from there to manipulation of the "Say to me this exact thing in this exact way!" variety, which I have no patience for. Or the "Believe everything I believe and hate all the things I hate, or you're part of the problem!" variety, which I also have no patience for (and to be honest, I thought we'd all left that cliqueish crap behind in junior high).

I'm not talking about instances where, for example, a person is spewing hatred and lies and expecting everyone around them to show their loyalty by kissing his ring; of course, that's wrong (not to mention dangerous for our country). I'm talking about interpersonal relationships on a smaller scale: If you want to gather like-minded people around you, you have to accept that some of those people will have opinions that differ from yours. In fact, one sure way to push your friends away is to demand that they behave exactly the way you want them to. That's your insecurity talking. It's a you problem, and one I can't solve for you.

Since we've sort of segued into the topic of social pressure anyhow, let's talk about gratitude journaling. As I said at the outset, 'tis the season to profess what you're grateful for to everyone you know. 

There's a benefit, for sure, in recognizing the good things in your life. But I see a danger in pressuring people to post online a list of stuff they're grateful for. For one thing, most people aren't going to post negative stuff on social media, for obvious reasons. But if you don't express those negative feelings somehow, even privately, or if you're determined to put a positive spin on everything, then you're gaslighting yourself with toxic positivity: "Even the bad stuff has its upside!" And it's a short step from there to... well, selling yourself short. Keeping your light under a bushel basket. Making it your business to make everyone else happy at the expense of your authentic self.

If your life sucks right now, own it. I think there's a lot of wisdom in this quote by a therapist: "When my clients can't summon a genuine feeling for gratitude in their lives and the activity of gratitude journaling feels superficial and dismissive of their real experiences, I invite them to appreciate the crap for what it is -- crap."

Sometimes life is crap. Sugar-coating it just gives you sugar-coated crap. The only healthy way out is through. 

***

These moments of bloggy gratitude for those who read this post all the way to the end have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy Thanksgiving!

What is gratitude? Part 1.

trombax | Deposit Photos

In a Pagan group on Facebook this week, another member (I'm not using her name because it's a private group) posted some questions meant to get at the heart of this topic: "What is gratitude?" She said she's not looking for reasons why gratitude is important; she's more interested in delving into the things that we call gratitude. More of a deconstruction; less of an admonishment.

Here we are in mid November, and gratitude season -- aka Thanksgiving -- is nearly upon us. So I told her I would tackle a few of her questions here on the blog.

One of the problems she sees -- and I see it, too -- is that the concept of gratitude has been infiltrated by what she calls "unhealthy impostors". Here's an example: What if you're giving something out of the goodness of your heart, but the person you're giving the thing to says they don't want it? 

Let's say your workplace or church has a food drive for the poor, or you attend an event where the admission price is a can of something for the local food pantry. So you do what a lot of us do: You bring a box or two of Kraft Mac & Cheese and a couple of cans of tuna and throw them in the collection box. You've done a good thing, right?

Maybe; maybe not. What if the person who gets your donation is diabetic? Lactose intolerant? Has celiac disease? Those are all legitimate health issues. But if the person you're donating to says "no thank you" to your offering -- for whatever reason -- do you think of them as ungrateful?

We haven't even gotten into how someone is supposed to make blue-box mac and cheese without milk and butter. Butter's tough without refrigeration, but dry milk is definitely a thing.

Then, too, poor people are people, with likes and dislikes. When I worked at the big DC law firm, we had partner offices overlooking Murrow Park on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. One late afternoon, one of the partners said to me, "It's funny, isn't it? There's always a flock of seagulls that show up and fly around the park every day at about this time."

"Maybe that's why," I said, pointing out his window and down. A van from one of the charities that feed the homeless was parked at the curb, and volunteers inside were handing out sandwiches to street people -- and some of the street people were sharing their sandwiches with the birds. 

Say what you will about seagulls, but they know a meal ticket when they see one.

It wasn't just the partner's cluelessness that has stuck with me about that scene. It was seeing people who had little or nothing themselves sharing their dinner with birds. I wondered why. Were they not hungry? Seemed unlikely. Did they not like the sandwiches? We were about ten floors up, so I couldn't tell what they were made from, but there was definitely white bread involved. No idea what the filling was, or whether they came with any condiments. A slice of cheese? A piece of wilted lettuce? Maybe a wan tomato slice? I didn't know. Maybe they were just bologna and bread.

Maybe people were tired of bologna and bread. 

How did the volunteers in the van feel about seeing their hard work going to the seagulls? I don't know the answer to that, either.

But I could understand the feelings of everyone involved: The volunteers, who were doing their best with whatever donations, both food and cash, they received; the street people, who were probably hungry, but maybe not for that; the birds, who were doing bird things; and maybe even the partner, who I'm sure donated to charities of his choice. (As do I.)

Is it necessary to expect gratitude when you gift someone something they didn't ask for? I don't think it is. I think it's better to ask what the person needs or wants. Even if they're poor.

And I think it's important to not fault a person who doesn't want what you're offering. Even if they're poor.

Because that makes the giving more about you than it does about the people you're trying to help.

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These moments of bloggy gratitude have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

All political careers end in failure. His will, too.

Effective immediately, I am hanging up my hat as a prognosticator. Back in August, I predicted that Trump would never be president again. Oh haha. 

I mean, we have a bit of time until January 20; he could still be sent to jail or choke on a hamberder or something, but I'm not counting on it.

Since my comeuppance on Tuesday, I've mostly been laying low on social media. I've been reading comments from my friends, though, and the occasional news story when I have the stomach for it. (When John Dickerson said on CBS Tuesday night, as the returns looked increasingly dismal for Vice President Harris, that he wanted to talk about what an amazing comeback Trump had made -- "amazing comeback", forsooth! -- I turned off the TV and went to bed.) 

I have seen a lot of anguish from our side, of course, and fear about what will happen now. I've also seen some comments along the lines of, "They'll be sorry they elected him!" I've read some uncorroborated stories about that happening already; there was a memorable one by some poster somewhere who said their cousin's sister's uncle (or something) was shocked when the boss said they'd have to forgo their Christmas bonuses this year because the company needed to buy a bunch of manufacturing supplies now, before Trump's Chinese tariffs go into effect. Then the boss explained to them that tariffs don't work the way Trump said they do. There's no way for me to prove any of that, but it sure makes a great story.

There has also been an avalanche of news stories covering the nuts and bolts of how we were all mistaken when we thought the Harris/Walz campaign had it in the bag. Mostly it's been lots of finger pointing. I have been ignoring that junk, mainly because I ran into some revisionist history a while back about the reason some other Democratic candidate for president failed to win (I said it was this; others said no, scholars dug into it years later and discovered it was actually that). I don't remember now which election it was about, but it doesn't matter; my point is that the cause will be found out in due time, and it's likely that whatever the pundits are feverishly saying right now won't be it.

***

In counterpoint to these dour postmortems, I ran across this dose of encouragement today.

Andy Borowitz, who wrote a humor column for The New Yorker before they fired him, now publishes his work on Substack. He made today's blog post there free, and in it, he uses history to puncture a bunch of the doom-and-gloom that's been so pervasive on social media this week. I recommend this post to everybody. Pay attention in particular to what he says about Nixon and Reagan, who both won second terms in honest-to-goodness landslides that didn't turn out so well for them. You've heard of Watergate and Iran-Contra, I trust.

Anyway, the title of my post comes from Borowitz's post. It's a paraphrase of a quote by Enoch Powell, a British Conservative politician who died in 1918. Here's the quote in full: 

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

Here's hoping.

***

On Friday, Robert Reich, who was Labor Secretary under President Clinton and who seems to have repudiated Clinton's neoliberalism since then, posted an essay on his Substack that he called "The Lesson". It's a listicle of six of those "what happened" reasons I alluded to above, along with his critique of each one and his assessment of what really did happen (TL;DR: It's the economy, stupid. Biden made great strides in four years, but not enough to break through the right-wing punditry noise).

I want to touch on the third point in his listicle: Republicans won because of misinformation and right-wing propaganda... The answer is for Democrats to cultivate an equivalent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built. He rates this as mostly true. I partly agree. But I disagree with the second sentence, and here I refer you, Gentle Reader, to my post on media bias from a couple of weeks ago. My point then, which I probably should have hammered harder, is that liberals and progressives have already built an equivalent media ecosystem to Fox News and the rest, and a whole lot of us are already siloing ourselves in it: MSNBC, CNN, and so on. Moreover, many are fleeing from sources of factual news like the major newspapers because they're not telling the story the way you want it to be told. 

Folks, that's pretty much the definition of "biased information". Just because you want a thing to be true doesn't make it so. Just because a liberal politician or a left-wing pundit or a political hanger-on tells you a thing, it's not necessarily the truth. We are all supposed to practice discernment -- not just the people on the other side.

Here's something to think about: Maybe you were shocked and surprised that Trump won because you'd siloed yourself from all information to the contrary. 

I am not saying everybody should stop watching Rachel Maddow and switch to Fox and Friends. I'm saying to take a step back. If something seems too good to be true, it's likely not. That's as true for statements from pundits and talk show hosts as it is for emails from Nigerian princes.

This goes for me, too. There were times over the past few months when I read something that pinged my ol' journalistic skepticism. I should have listened to it. But damn, it was comfortable in my silo, surrounded by like-minded friends, y'know?

***

One more thing -- this one from Jay Kuo. Not sure where he's getting his numbers (the AP's are different), but when Trump says he won in a landslide (as he inevitably will), at least we know it's not so: 

It won't stop Trump from lying about the election outcome, and it won't matter to his fans. There's only so much we can do.

***

Because the algorithm needs an illustration: I went to a wine-and-painting class last night, and this guy was the result. He seems wild-eyed in his spacy universe. Full of hope, maybe? 

Lynne Cantwell 2024

For now, I'm calling him Space Raven. Feel free to suggest a better name.

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These moments of bloggy wishes for a happy juncture have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Resist!