The Long Game Jon Ward

John Fetterman is the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, and the former mayor of Braddock, PA, which is just outside Pittsburgh. He and his wife Gisele and he have long been involved in community work, helping those who are in need, and that ethic characterized their time in Braddock, where they still live.


Fetterman stands out, and always has. He's 6'8", bald, goateed, tatooed, and usually wears Carhart jackets and shirts -- the kind of clothing more often seen on those who work in construction and the like. Go google his wikipedia page. His official portrait shows him in a gray open-collar shirt with pockets on both sides -- he looks more like a skateboarder than a politician.


As mayor of Braddock, Fetterman drew attention for his focus on revitalizing the dying town of Braddock, which had been hollowed out by the death of the steel industry, much like vast parts of that region. Now, Fetterman has become a regular fixture on MSNBC by virtue of his clever and forceful criticisms of President Trump's attempts to overturn the election. Much like Trump, a good bit of Fetterman's persona is playing out on Twitter.


We talked here about the way that the Republican party in Pennsylvania made sure that it would take days to count mail ballots, giving Trump cover to make baseless claims about cheating. Fetterman called that "orchestrated." But he also surprised me by sort of defending Republican leaders in the legislature. Instead, he pointed the finger at the president and at his supporters.


The most telling moment, to me, was Fetterman's comment that we are entering a post-truth era in our politics. Trump is making incredibly serious charges without any facts to back him up. Fetterman is very frank that this is just the beginning of a period where people can say or believe anything, regardless of what the facts are.


That's the most serious problem now as we leave the Trump presidency behind. And in fact, we start our conversation in a back and forth over why it's been reported, falsely, that Fetterman calls himself a Democratic socialist. This is also on his Wikipedia page. And it's an example of why it's important to check these things, and verify them.


Outro music: The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Theme
 
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The purpose of this episode is to help us think about how do we talk to people who are either confused by conspiracy theories or committed to them. How do we interact with family members who are in one of these categories.


In just the last week I’ve had confronted these circumstances in my own life. I don't think I did very well. One of my biggest mistakes was trying to argue over text and email rather than in person or over the phone.


And I talk here with Marianna Spring, who in March was assigned by the BBC in the UK to start reporting full time on the issue of disinformation and conspiracy theories.


We discuss how to know the difference between a real conspiracy and a conspiracy theory, what the distinguishing hallmarks are of a conspiracy theory, and how to talk to people in these two groups: those confused by conspiracy theories and those committed to them.


There are real conspiracies that have been uncovered in the past, like the Watergate scandal, or the CIA’s domestic spying program during the in the late 60’s and early 70’s, or the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, or the use of extraodinary rendition and torture of military detainees by the U.S. government after 9/11, or the tobacco industry’s deceit of the public about the health effects of smoking.
 
All came to light through investigative journalism, the courage of whistle-blowers working with the press, or state-sponsored inquiries. Tools like Freedom of Information requests have been crucial as well. 


None of these things were uncovered by people who believe in the kind of conspiracy theories that are defined by the following characteristics:
- Negative evidence - the absence of evidence is the first tell-tale sign. It is the first chess move of a conspiracy theory, because it serves to prompt the obvious retort from a skeptic: “Where is the evidence?” This response is then used to paint the skeptic as close-minded and potentially even part of the plot to suppress the truth.
- “Errant data” - conspiracy theories will often rely on obscure and complex analyses, many times of the statistical or analytical variety, that offer a veneer of sophistication but which are usually hot air. 
- A highly effective master plan. A conspiracy theory asserts that there are no accidents. Everything is intended. Of course, that’s not how reality works. 
- There is a shadowy, often nameless villain or group of bad guys pulling the strings.
- Circular reasoning, or contradictory claims, are often part of a conspiracy theory
- Knowability skepticism - if you hear someone saying that we can’t actually know for sure what happened, that’s a hallmark of conspiracy theories. 
- And finally, conspiracy theories are self-reinforcing or self-insulating. Reality itself -- the existence of a plausible explanation, even if there’s evidence for it -- is part of the plot, because that’s “what they want you to believe.”


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About that Giuliani press conference. Andrew McCarthy at National Review explained this the day before the Giuliani press conference in a column published Wednesday:


"Realistically speaking, the legal battle over the 2020 election is over. As I explained over the weekend, from President Trump’s perspective, that battle is beset by a fatal mismatch between (a) what his campaign is in a position to allege and prove, and (b) the remedy — i.e., the potential number of votes that could swing from Biden to Trump. That problem was already apparent last week, when the campaign filed its original complaint in the Williamsport federal court. It became insurmountable Sunday, when the campaign amended its complaint, stripping out the main fraud claims," McCarthy writes.


"Over what may be just a relative handful of ballots, the Trump campaign seeks to prevent the state from certifying its election result, whic

Cass, 37, is an up and coming conservative thinker who got his start in politics on Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Cass was an associate at Bain and Company, where Romney had worked before starting Bain Capital. Cass held a senior policy adviser position in 2012, when Romney became the GOP nominee.
 
Since then, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, has credited Cass with inspiring some of his proposals on reducing poverty. Cass was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, before starting American Compass. His 2018 book, “The Once and Future Worker,” has received praise from conservatives and from some on the left as well.


Cass says that many on the right have been "lazy" in relying on tax cuts as a one-size-fits-all solution, and that Republicans should do more to align themselves with organized labor.


"I think there are huge problems with the way labor unions operate in America but the idea of labor unions, the idea that we should want workers to be able to organize, to have collective representation, to bargain on an equal footing with their employers, conservatives should love that," he said.


Outro music: "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life," by Monty Python.






 
 
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We talk about what comes next for the Republican party in the wake of an election where it showed promising trends for the future, but in which the party's leader and the sitting president told lie after lie about the integrity of the election, dragging some of the leading figures in the party with him.
 
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Mindy Belz has been with World Magazine since its founding in 1986. It’s a publication aimed at evangelical Christians, started by her brother in law, Joel Belz. Emily Belz, Mindy’s daughter, is also at World now, and has worked at the New York Daily News and The Indianapolis Star.


Mindy has spent 20 years covering the plight of Christians in Iraq and Syria. This is a story that truly did get overlooked: before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, there were about 1 million Christians in Iraq, living out a version of the faith with incredibly ancient roots. Many Christians in that region still speak Aramaic, the tongue that Christ himself spoke. 


But 17 years later, the Christian community in Iraq has been decimated by violence and intimidation. Only about 100,000 Christians remain there. The faith there has almost become extinct in terms of sheer population size. Mindy and I discuss a little bit how much decisions made, or not made, by the Bush administration, are responsible for that. 


Mindy’s book on this topic, “They Say We are Infidels: On the Run from from ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East,” came out in 2015. I recommend it. The suffering of this community there, and in Syria, is tough to comprehend. 


I first thought of interviewing Mindy when I saw her tweet something last May. It was in response to protests against COVID restrictions. "For 6 yrs I've reported on Christians chased from their homes & churches by ISIS, seen their testimony, steadiness, care for one another. How utterly disheartening to watch the American church come apart in a 10-wk shutdown. They shall be known by their demand for their rights,” she wrote. 


So, I read her book, we talked about that issue, and then we discussed why her experience in the Middle East led her to make the comment. And we get into the contrasts she sees between Christians who have truly endured suffering and persecution, and those in America who claim to be persecuted because of restrictions on church gatherings, and in the article I wrote for Yahoo News, I get more into that, and there’s some very relevant commentary from David French, who says that religious liberty is up for debate in this. But he has some interesting criticisms of people who have charged out and disregarded public health guidance, like the gatherings organized by Sean Feucht, and contrasts it with churches who have gone out of their way to comply with public health guidance and have sued, and won, only when that was their last option, like Capitol Hill Baptist in DC. 


Mindy’s bigger critique of American Christians is two fold: they have no idea what real religious persecution looks like is one part of it. But she also notes the narrowness of demanding rights to do whatever one wants while disregarding the impact of not wearing masks and distancing on those who are most vulnerable — which is not just the older but also people who are poor and on the margins, those without health insurance who are going to avoid going to the doctor or ER if they get sick until it’s too late. And she contrasts this with a vision of the common good that characterizes Middle East Christians. 


Now, part of the reason people dismiss masks and distancing is because they are following Trump’s lead, but also because they are listening to those who dismiss scientific consensus. And this gets to the matter of critical thinking, and that’s where Emily comes in. Emily wrote a cover story for World over the summer about Qanon, which I’ve discussed on here before. Some of the characteristics that make people vulnerable to Qanon are weakness in critical thinking, a lack of media literacy, and a distrust of the establishment media.


Outro song: "Save It For Me" by Jeff Tweedy
 
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Charlie Camosy is a professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, and has written several books on the issue of abortion and the politics of abortion. What I appreciate about Charlie is that his main theme, or one of them, is that there is nowhere near as much disagreement among a broad majority of Americans on what to do about abortion politically as we think. 


Charlie was on the board of Democrats for Life until February, when he left the group, and the party, saying it has become too inhospitable to those who oppose abortion, or those who just want to reduce it. We talk about that decision, and also about why he is deeply opposed to joining the Republican Party or supporting Donald Trump. 


We talk about how Europe is a model for how America should approach abortion, and what it might look like for the pro-life cause — if that’s what it should be called — could build a coalition that’s not captive to any one political party. 


Camosy's books include "Resisting Throwaway Culture," "Beyond the Abortion Wars," and "For Love of Animals."


Outro Song: "Can I Believe You," by Fleet Foxes
 
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