I will be speaking today in Colorado on the “Rise and Fall of the American Fourth Estate.” The speech explores the legal and political history of the free press in our democracy — and its rapid decline in the age of advocacy journalism. This week, a poll was released that shows just how much ground has been lost by this generation of journalists. Gallup and the Knight Foundation found that 50% of Americans believe that the news media lies in order to promote an agenda. Only 25% of Americans reject that premise.
The view of bias and untrustworthiness increased across the political spectrum, including among Democrats who usually favor the media given the liberal bent of the coverage.
It is also striking that the media is losing young viewers and readers with its current approach to journalism.
I have written for newspapers as a columnist for over 40 years and I have worked as a legal analyst for NBC, CBS, BBC, and Fox for over 20 years. I have watched the industry change each year as open advocacy moves from opinion pages to news reporting.
This latest poll is consistent with other polls showing that people are rejecting mainstream media in growing numbers. In 2021, a survey by the global communications firm Edelman (via Axios) found only 46 percent of Americans trust traditional media. That mirrors earlier polls by Gallup showing an even lower level of trust. Now this poll shows overwhelming distrust in the media.
I wrote a column a couple years ago asking how the media expects to survive while rejecting half of the country with overwhelmingly liberal coverage. Most news outlets seem to have written off conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans.
We have often discussed the increasing bias and advocacy in major media in the United States. While cable networks have long catered to political audiences on the left or right, mainstream newspapers and networks now openly frame news to fit a political narrative. With the exception of Fox and a couple of other smaller news outlets, that slant is heavily to the left. What is most striking about this universal shift toward advocacy journalism (including at journalism schools) is that there is no evidence that it is a sustainable approach for the media as an industry. While outfits like NPR allow reporters to actually participate in protests and the New York Times sheds conservative opinions, the new poll shows a sharp and worrisome division in trust in the media. Not surprisingly given the heavy slant of American media, Democrats are largely happy with and trusting of the media. Conversely, Republicans and independents are not. The question is whether the mainstream media can survive and flourish by writing off over half of the country.
A 2021 study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center showed a massive decline in trust among Republicans. Five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that trust was down to just 35 percent. Conversely, and not surprisingly, 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the media. When you just ask liberal Democrats, it jumps to 83 percent.
This latest poll shows that the problem is only getting more acute for the media. Yet, publishers and editors are still pandering to the mob in calling for more advocacy and less objectivity. For individual media figures, these woke policies protect them personally from backlash or criticism even as they undermine their respective publications or media outlets.
For example, we recently discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view is now dismissed as “bothsidesism.” Done. No need to give credence to opposing views. It is a familiar reality for those of us in higher education, which has been increasingly intolerant of opposing or dissenting views.
Downie recounts how news leaders today
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
There was a time when all journalists shared a common “identity” as professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the news.
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
This move away from objectivity has gained steam even as Bob Woodward and others have finally admitted that the Russian collusion coverage lacked objectivity and resulted in false reporting. Yet, media figures are pushing even harder against objectivity as a core value in journalism.
This movement has been building for years.
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.
Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.” Her 1619 Project has been challenged as deeply flawed and she has a long record as a journalist of intolerance, controversial positions on rioting, and fostering conspiracy theories. Hannah-Jones would later help lead the effort at the Times to get rid of an editor and apologize for publishing a column from Sen. Tom Cotton as inaccurate and inflammatory.
Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin has also called for the media to abandon balance and impartiality. Rubin has become notorious due to her screeds against Republicans and even calling for the Republican Party to be burned to the ground. I have previously written about how her work has lacked not just of objectivity but accuracy.
All of these voices show a complete disconnect from readers and viewers who do not want advocacy journalism and no longer trust what they are reading in the media. Yet, these calls remain personally popular for writers and editors alike. It is reminiscent of how executives at companies like Disney have pursued woke policies to the detriment of their shareholders and the alienation of many of their customers. The same is true for the push for censorship on social media despite the clear preference of users for more free speech and fewer speech controls.
That is why the latest poll is unlikely to deter the movement of “new journalism” in abandoning objectivity and impartiality. As Downie explained “objectivity” is
“keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.” So they will do their job even when viewers and readers no longer are interested in their work. Perhaps the new media can find a way to exist not only without conservatives but customers in general. That type of vanity press will require increasing subsidies from billionaires like Jeff Bezos, but they may balk at a media that is increasing writing for itself.
Some things just have to be learned the hard way. Apparently this is one of them. News and Media outlets will go out of business one after another. The Left cannot exist without the Right. And the inverse is also true. Ignore one over the other at your peril. This is true in the Media as it is in real life. Simply look at the liberal paradises of Chicago, NY, LA, San Fran.
Rush Limbaugh was one of the greatest journalists and way ahead of his time.
He was a pundit, not a journalist. Hannity, Carlson, Lemon, Ingrahm are all political pundits not journalists.
As traditional journalism is dead and punditry is the norm, there are no longer any real journalists remaining so one could say, “we are all journalists now”.
I agree and don’t have a problem with pundits writing or speaking from a particular point of view. But in what category do you place network anchors David Muir, Norah O’Donnell, and Lester Holt? They and their producers frequently show progressive bias in the stories they choose to cover, the amount of time they allot to stories, and to the words chosen to report those stories.
I guess 50% of people forgot “Trump is a Russian Agent” “Kavanaugh is a Racist” “Jussie Smollet is not lying” “That Ukrainian Persecutor Biden Got Fired was Corrupt” “Hunters laptop is Russian Disinformation” “The Vaccine Works” “Ivermectin is only for horses” Just proves that you really can fool some of the people all the time. Check out Tony Slamoni’s Substack for more.
It’s been said…. it’s easier to fool someone than to convince them they’ve been fooled…..
Yes, isn’t it interesting how those who strongly and vociferously accuse others of “disinformation” are the ones who thrive on it?
Here was an exchange on the Usenet newsgroup alt.rush-limbaugh back in 1994.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.rush-limbaugh/c/gZg_XyptjyU/m/NiPCvQIctwUJ
– Darryl Hamilton
– Christopher Charles Morton
Is it any wonder that Chris greatly influenced my own political views for twenty-five years!
While the corrupt old media dies, new independent media flourishes despite the best efforts of the gatekeepers in Silicon Valley.
Amen
Ultimately news is about Trust.
The failure of old media is driven primarily by their loss of trust.
Fox News just proved they can’t be trusted. They knowingly peddled Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. They chose to keep pushing known false claims so they wouldn’t lose ratings and viewers to another news organizations doing the same thing. It turns out the rest were more accurately reporting the news than Fox News.
What planet do you live on? There is plenty of evidence that you commited fraud during the 2020 election. Because the biased courts won’t listen to it doesn’t make it false. Does it JO?
He will also tell you Russia blew up Nordstream and Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election
And probably tell you “masks save lives”
Totally credible
You think there is no voter fraud?
May I suppose you are double masked and double vaxxed too?
@ svelaz so you admit only Fox admitted that there was massive organized cheating. But they still resorted to bothsidism instead of taking Trump’s side as they morally should have. We despise you cheaters and we will shout in joy when your kind vanish into maggot mounds.
These left nit wits do not understand how all the lies and misconduct undermine their trastworthyness.
I thought at the time that the odds of Sidney Powells claims of rigged voting machines was not likely – getting caught would be absolutely disasterous.
At the same time I understood how Sideny Powel could beleive this – She was defending Flynn – and Mueller and even the Judge and the full court of appeals pulled every trick in the book to “get Flynn”.
That is ONE of many many reasons that these people can not be trusted regarding ANYTHING.
If Svelaz said the sun will rise tomorow – I would wonder what he was hiding.
We have has SOOO MANY LIES.
Those on the left rant that Trump lies. Abought WHAT ?
Please name a consequential lie.
With respect to the left – our media, our institutions – tell me something they have told the truth about ?
Anything ?
Between the collusion delusion, The Biden Syndicate, Twitter files, and oh so much more,
Why would anyone beleive these people would NOT rig an election ?
Given that the courts have not held anyone accountable for ANY of this
Why would anyone trust the courts ?
We have people in jail doe almost a decade for marching through the capital
Why an ACTUAL attempt at rigging the election by the FBI various alphabet agencies, the media, the DNC, Congressional democrats,
goes unpubished and mostly uninvestigated.
Which is worse – some guy in a Viking helmet sitting in Pelosi’s chair – or myriads of members of the Government rigging an election ?
Russia collusion hoax was sedition of a sitting President. Spying on a campaign was seditious and illegal. Withholding evidence of criminal activity by a candidate prior to an election was election interference and fraud. It is reported 32% of voters would not have voted Biden if that information had been disclosed. Dominion software is laughable and its ties to the nefarious leftists are glaring. FOX is guilty of not digging deeper to expose the fraud and corruption.
Except that is not what the revalations say.
The assorted hosts and management who were skeptical, were skeptical of a specific claim – that DVS equipment had deliberately rigged the election.
To this day that claim has NOT actually been universally proven false. Only 3 counties in the entire US did investigations sufficient to examine that Claim – Antrim County Michigan, Windham County NH, and Maricopa county AZ.
Antrim found problems – and thousands of missing Trump votes, but no evidence of deliberate fraud by DVS equipment.
Windham found a very serious problem with Older DVS equipment that miscounted hundreds of ballots, but the erorr did not effect the Presidential election. The Massive Maricopa County audit found that the DVS equipment was insecure beyond beleif.
However the manual vote count was not significantly different from the count from the equipment.
To my knowledge there has been no other actual examination of DVS equipement anywhere in the US to determine whether Powels claims are true of false.
Regardless, the claim that DVS tipped the election – a claim that was not unreasonable to make given the insecurity of their equipment AND public statements by their managment that they would make sure that Trump did not win, remains unsubstantiated, but not disproven.
While other claims of Election fraud have significant evidence.
We know there was massive and illegal ballot harvesting – Democrats have admitted that.
We do not know whether the harvested ballots were legal ballots, coerced ballots or manufactured ballots – the recent testimony before the AZ senate regarding signatures on AZ 2020 mailin ballots strongly suggests there were hundreds of thousands of MANUFACTURED ballots.
The number of ballots with no signature, the same SS signature of Signatures that do not even start with the same first letter, is that large.
But AZ is the only place in the country where there was large scale examination of the election.
GA found similiar evidence of problems with Mailin Ballots – but only a single random sample of 5000 mailin ballots was done in a afluent democratic county unlikely to have much fraud. And even there – 6% of ballots had less than a 20% signature match and 0.5% – almost 3 times Biden’s margin of victory were obviously fraudulent.
What we do know – either becuase the twitter files exposed it – or because Democrats have admitted and bragged about it, is the massive extent to which Democrats were willing ot break the rules, and act immorally and unethically to win the 2020 election.
Even 37% of democrats now beleive the 2020 election was rigged in some way.
If you want people to trust you – do not act in an untrustworthy fashion.
When you censor people – that means YOU do not trust people, and that also means YOU can not be trusted.
Worse when you censor people who are telling the truth – you are reprehensible and untrustworthy.
The standard for censorship is NOT whether something is True or not.
But if that were the actual standard – YOU FAILED.
When you are CAUGHT constantly censoring the truth – no one should trust you.
Even the basis for your election meddling has all been thoroughly destroyed.
There is absolutely nothing that Government did or was able to do regarding Covid that was beneficial.
There may have been an emergency – but as is often the norm in emergencies – Government is not the answer.
Government botched Covid. You broke the economy, you caused massinve unemplyment, increased drug abouse, overdoses, suicides, violence, destroyed education. All to accomplish nothing.
Masks do nto work – we knew that at the start.
Closing schools was a massive and stupid mistake.
Lockdowns were a mistake.
Keeping people at home was a mistake.
The most effective preventative measures for Covid were excercise and getting outside as much as possible.
It is likely that Voters were SAFER outside in lines waiting to vote – that with Ballot harvestors coming to their homes.
Basically everything you did was a LIE.
You are ranting that some guy in a bearskin cape and viking hat needs jailed for a decade for sitting in Pelosi’s chair.
What about those who Lied about Russian election meddling – either in 2016 or 2020 ?
What about those who claimed Trusth was misinformation ?
What about the ORGANIZED efforts – within government and within the democratic party to SILENCE people who were telling the Truth – about Covid, about Politics, About Government, about the Bidens ?
You rant about overturning an election – but isn’t that EXACTLY what you did ?
Further YOUR efforts were ORGANIZED – PLANNED – COORDINATED.
Why isn’t DOJ looking throught the communications of FBI agents (and DOJ) and all the other alphabet agencies – arre3sting people for “insurection”.
How is marching through the capitol to protest
YOUR misconduct worse that YOUR Misconduct.
You have Cheated, and you have been caught.
What is NOT fully known is how many different ways that you cheated.
Svelaz;
You are not a moral person.
Why should anyone care about your judgements of others ?
News is news! Just the facts. Nothing more and nothing less. Personal opinions/agendas have no place in The NEWS.
Absent gathering your own news you must ultimately trust that whatever source you rely on that sources is gtiving you the facts nor a narative, and that they are curating the news without an agenda.
What I find shocking is that it is that low.
This can’t really be a new trend. I’m almost 80 and I remember when I first learned to read my father told me not to believe what I read in the newspaper. That feeling has to go back a few centuries not five years
As it’s been said many times, “There is nothing new under the sun.” When a people allow lies, deception and deceit to become normative its a sign that they are on a collision course with God’s judgment. We are seriously in trouble. As it is written:
Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men. They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the Lord. Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: “Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do, because of my people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceitfully; with his mouth each speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he plans an ambush for him. Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the Lord, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?
Jeremiah 9:2-9 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/jer.9.2-9.ESV
Good night to all, even the nony mice.
>”…journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”
What’s moral about promoting US proxy wars, as the media has routinely done, that kill and displace millions across the globe? What’s moral about remaining silent about our war crimes so the perps remain free and those who bring the crimes to the public’s attention are punished and terrorized?
Everything’s related.
James Lindsay o f NewDiscourses.com recently summarized a Progressive Marxist tactic called demoralization, which is being done to children. You need to understand it in order to defeat it. Link to original talk is here… https://newdiscourses.com/2023/02/demoralization/
This is all from his analysis.
In his talk he states that Demoralization recently came to mind after a long phone call with someone describing something happening in elementary schools, in grades three, four and five (eight, nine and ten years old), primarily here in the United States.
Lindsay received a call from Tiffany Justice of Moms for Liberty. She wanted to know what she’s dealing with. Moms all over the country are calling her and telling the same story about a weird, dystopian, dark curriculum.
She asked, “Why would they be doing this? Is it conditioning? Are they trying to condition the kids to see this kind of world?” Lindsay said, “No, they are inducing a hopeless outlook in these children. They need the children to believe the world is bleak and scary and hopeless.”
Demoralization gained Fame in a 1984 interview of Soviet Defector Yuri Besmanov, who said it is a process to change the perception of reality to such an extent that despite an abundance of information it is impossible for one to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending oneself, one’s family, one’s community, or country.
Besmanov said the Soviet method of demoralization targets:
* The ability to understand morality and right from wrong,
* trust in media
* trust in other people
* trust in institutions
* trust in your own ability to discern knowledge
Lindsay said he would add to that list hopelessness, and dependence on authoritative experts to know what is true.
Demoralization is a totalitarian tactic that destroys the ability of people to resist. It is a long slow process that intentionally destroys the ability of people to understand the world and respond to the world in a healthy objective way.
The true purpose of propaganda is not to mislead. It is to make it so that people can’t tell what’s real. It confuses, humiliates, and prevents people from being able to extract truth from available evidence.
People who are demoralized are programmed to think and react in patterns where they cannot change their minds even if exposed to authentic believable information. You cannot prove to them that white is white and black is black. You cannot change their basic perception and logic. Bezmenov claims it is irreversible. Lindsay is more optimistic.
The idea behind the Soviet project of demoralization is to slowly condition people so they can no longer tell true from false. it’s also the to make it so they cannot understand the world around them. They don’t know up from down, left from right, and more importantly they don’t understand good from bad, and much more importantly they can’t tell real from fake
When demoralized, morale has been destroyed, so it’s a hopeless State. Hopelessness is very useful.
In an academic sense demoralization is the discernible purpose of a Critical Theory.
Demoralization is the process of breaking somebody down so they enter a totalitarian cult. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. Facts, even with abundant information and authentic proof, do not inform them.
Herbert Marcus, the leading Critical Theorist of the 1960s, writes very clearly in 1969 in Essay on Liberation the first chapter, A Biological Foundation for Socialism, that to get a socialist West and liberate the West from itself, its capitalism, its consumerism, and its one-dimensional circumstance, one must create a fundamental change at the biological level. In footnotes he states we’re going to change the individual’s fundamental needs so that he needs to live in a different kind of world, which he will then demand.
From this you can derive that Critical Theory is designed to induce mental disorders and dependence. The dependence is on experts and Critical Theororists to tell you what is true.
Lindsay gave an example of Katenji Brown Jackson on the stand being asked by Marsha Blackburn to define what is a woman. She said, “I’m not a biologist.” What she was really saying is I’m not the relevant kind of expert.
She really shouldn’t have said “biologist” and should instead have said, “I would have to ask a Critical Theorist of gender to tell us.” She’s ultimately saying we have to defer to an expert to possibly know the answer to basic questions about reality.
That’s induced dependence, and it’s also the inability to perceive reality. That’s a disordered mental state that’s severe enough to interfere with your ability to cope or act in day-to-day life. That’s the clinical definition of psychopathology
So a Critical Theory is meant to make you enter a disordered mental state, severe enough to interfere with your ability to interact in day-to-day life, so that you’ll become dependent. This state is done to you by the process of demoralization. Critical Theory is a tool to subtly demoralize people.
Critical Theory started to take over our university system in the 1960s. By the 1990s we have Critical Pedagogy – The Critical theory of Education. Critical Education Theory had already conquered schools of education by 1992, so our entire education system has been bent toward this project for a minimum of 30 years.
Millennials are a demoralized generation, and we now have a second demoralized generation that’s been deranged through demoralization, Gen Z, and they can’t deal with what is confronting them in the real world.
There are at least five key aspects to demoralization, and there might be more. I’ll try and put them in the order of how they unfold.
1. Morality demoralization is a fundamental first step.
You get people to a place where they cannot define the difference between right and wrong. To do this you have them enter into a Post-Modern weird idea of, “Is that wrong, and who’s to say?”
I understand there are morally difficult gray areas, and there is a lot of individualism. Post-Modern thinking causes people to fundamentally be unable to distinguish the difference between right and wrong, and believe there is no bigger picture to morality than whatever works for you.
2. A second facet of demoralization is Perceptual Demoralization, where you can’t tell real from fake.
This process causes you to be unable to tell when something is artificial versus when it’s authentic. You can’t tell when somebody is pretending, versus when they are being genuine. You can’t tell when the news is real or propaganda. This is what Bezumov was talking about.
You are leading people toward not being able to tell true information from false, or derive truth from evidence. You can’t tell real from fake. It becomes very easy to start accusing everything you see of being propaganda and not real, and thus disinformation or misinformation.
There are legitimate questions of who benefits. However, Critical Theory demoralizes perception explicitly by going much further than the question of who benefits. Critical Theories actually say, “You know who designed this system, and who benefits from this system, and why they designed this system so they benefit.”
You get to the point where if someone tells you such and such happened with, for instance Donald Trump, you have to assess who told you that before you can decide whether or not it might be true. There’s no way to figure out the information on its own.
You have to assess if a particular piece of information has a political valence toward a particular politic before you can assess whether or not it may be true. In other words, everything gains a political veneer of hyper-reality. Everything has a political layer of falseness attached to it that can have a kernel of truth, but it isn’t real. You start to lose the ability to tell real from fake. That’s Perceptual Demoralization
3. That naturally leads into a third form, Social Demoralization.
With Social Demoralization you can’t know who to trust. You don’t know who is working against you. You don’t know who is going to rat you out. You don’t know if your kids are being told by their teachers to tattle on the way people are behaving at home with regard to masks or vaccines.
You don’t know whether you can trust your neighbor, or people at the store. You don’t know who is an informant, or which of your friends or allies is actually working for an organization. You don’t know who is a mole trying to figure out what you’re up to.
This circle of trust shrinks and shrinks and we end up going from a high trust society to a low trust society.
In a high trust Society a young woman can, in theory, walk down the street at night with a high degree of trust that the society is not going to take advantage of you, and that police will come and take care of you.
In a low trust society you can’t do any of that. You have to act much differently. You don’t know who’s going to take advantage of you. You don’t know if the police were called upon would they take advantage of you as well. You don’t know who you can trust.
Social Demoralization follows from believing that you can’t tell real from fake because there’s a layer of propaganda and political valence to everything. This idea is explicitly written into the structure of all Critical Theories.
4. Finally we get to Intellectual (epistemic) Demoralization.
This is the point Besmenov was making. Since you can’t tell true from false your information is uncertain. Your information depends on who said it, it depends on how it feels for you. It’s your truth vs my truth, liberal truth vs conservative truth, and so on. This is what Bezmenov is talking about when he says you can show people the concentration camp and they won’t believe you.
Bezmenev says that until the evidence becomes undeniable, when a Soviet boot kicks you, only then will you finally be able to see the truth, and not before. You are completely unable to analyze the world around you. This is the goal of Critical Theory, to create a psychopathology. Psychopathology is a disordered mental state severe enough to interfere with day-to-day life.
When you can’t trust anybody, and you can’t tell real from fake, that could manifest as a functionally paranoid personality disorder. When you can’t tell true from false, or real from fake, it becomes impossible for you to interact with daily life in a meaningful way. That fosters induced dependency, where instead of knowing what a woman is you have to ask an expert.
You don’t know how to tell true from false so you have to ask an expert.
Can I cross the street here? I don’t know, I have to ask somebody.
Can I go to the bathroom now? I don’t know, I can ask somebody.
What is a man? I don’t know, I have to ask somebody.
What color is the light? I don’t know, I have to ask somebody.
How many lights are there, are there four lights? I don’t know I have to ask somebody.
That’s the state of full demoralization.
I think there’s a fifth level that’s far deeper and more important. That’s the effort to induce a hopeless outlook.
I think this is what people are telling me about in elementary schools, I think this is what is happening there. It wasn’t about right and wrong, or real and fake, or trust, or inability to tell true from false. It wasn’t moral perception, or social, or the ability to know knowledge.
It’s literally the destruction of morale. It’s the destruction of the ability to believe there is a better future and the ability to have hope.
Why would you do that if you’re already nourishing dysfunctionality and dependency? Because you can then set yourself up as the only hope in a hopeless world. You can get complete cult adherence and following.
What these parents were actually discussing is a curriculum that is under the umbrella of Social-Emotional Learning. In many states it is under the brand name Wit and Wisdom. The children are eight to ten years old and are being guided through a series of dystopian novels. I need to review those materials to make sure I get the information straight. What’s happening is children are coming home depressed and talking about very dystopian and dark views.
Because they are children, they’re not processing the difference between fantasy and reality the way that adults do.
The people behind this need children to believe they face a crisis, whether environmental, systemic racism, a gender situation, or the two biggest buzzwords now– sustainability and inclusivity.
As the United Nations and the World Economic Forum make a massive push they weave this into everything. They need to make children believe these are existential crises and the world will not be here in 12 years. As Greta Thunberg said — You stole my life. You stole my childhood. How dare you.
They plan to make children believe this is an existential hopeless crisis, and then set themselves up as the one hope — the government and the administrateive state. The institution will be your hope. Your parents can’t do it. And we can’t do it either unless we all do it together, and the only way we can do it together is through the government, which is the only thing that actually understands, and we need your help.
They have to inculcate this hopeless, dark, depressed. anxious mode of pure demoralization. They want to destroy the morale, spiritual demoralization, so they can fill it with the fake program of the state.
These demoralizers not only understand what they are doing, but they understand that when people are bleak, depressed, and anxious it creates a self-fulfilling spiral of more demoralization, and it damages families, communities, and individuals.
It creates people who are desperate for guidance, especially if you can make them believe all the problems are outside of their ability to control it, and the only control they have is to be able to join the movement that’s being pushed by the party apparatus.
It’s actually a cult indoctrination method, using demoralization by preying upon someone’s vulnerability. This is so much worse when doing it to eight and nine-year-olds, and actually younger too. They’re feeding them this dark, hopeless curriculum
I just went through a National Education Association document connected to UNESCO. The National Education Association Foundation put out a curriculum guide for K-12, for educating about their sustainable development goals. The curriculum explicitly turns education into a project to turn children into activists for the United Nations agenda 2030 sustainable development goals.
The United Nations gets tied in, and it explicitly states the reason is because of the crises that are being identified by the World Economic Forum, and the need to have the solutions come down from the United Nations. Therefore, we have to do this to everyone’s children.
What is the kindergarten curriculum for five-year-olds? It’s world hunger, and that other people are hungry, What are the major themes in these dystopian novels for grades three, four, and five? Also hunger; there is not enough food, certain people can’t get food.
Children are coming home and acting weird about what they eat, how they eat and how much they eat, all because they’re thinking about fictional characters and thinking what if our life becomes like that.
This is Spiritual Demoralization, hopelessness. So there are five key aspects to the demoralization process, and there might be more.
1. Moral demoralization–getting people so that they can’t define right from wrong.
2. Perceptual demoralization — you can’t tell real from fake
3. Social demoralization — you can’t tell who you can trust and who you cannot
4. epistemic (knowldege) demoralization — you cannot tell true from false
That’s what Yuri beznamov said it actually boils down to
5. Spiritual Demoralization makes it go to hopelessness, where the only thing that has any hope is the apparatus of the institution. The state is going to have the solution if we all come together collectively to solve it.
What can you do about demoralization? You must look for ways to raise morale.
First you have to unplug from the poison. if it’s your children, you have to protect them.
You need to nourish your relationships. You need to talk through these things.You need to actually protect them from what’s happening in the schools in the name of Social-Emotional Learning.
That might mean taking them out of the schools and homeschooling for a few years. You have to engage, especially with your children, and help them know how to figure out what’s true and false, how to figure out what’s right and wrong, how to tell who to trust and who not to trust, identify who’s trying to separate you away from your parents. Don’t trust those people. You need to teach them how to determine what’s artificial versus what’s real.
You have to do these things for yourself, and you have to gain confidence. How do you do that? go outside and touch grass, interact with physics, do real things to remoralize yourself
Stop interacting so much in a digital environment and interact in real environments. Try to gather true information. Don’t make assumptions and guesses about politics without being extremely cautious. Spend a lot of time dealing with the real world, doing real world things, where true and false are much less ambiguous.
Build up confidence and an ability to discern information. These are key steps you must do to remoralize yourself to the degree that you have been demoralized.
Do not black pill — that’s spiritual demoralization. Do not give up hope; you must resist this. You must help your children who are extremely vulnerable resist it. Unfortunately, the school is unlikely to be helping you, it’s very likely to be working against you.
You need to know about demoralization, and you need to be ready to combat it.
Great copy and paste. Lay off the koolaide.
Never mind Wally, Sheila. I remember the interview with Besmanov. I believe you are correct. Good post.
“That’s the effort to induce a hopeless outlook.”
This is a very, very important issue. It’s called the malevolent universe perspective — where reality is, allegedly, chaotic and bleak, and where thinking and personal happiness are impossible. One can see that suffocating universe all over children’s literature and in modern literature (e.g., Kafka). Psychologically, a malevolent perspective leads to chronic despair, which can be seen all over the West, and tragically among young people. (Alcoholism and drug addiction are an attempt to escape from that nightmare universe.)
If you do not mind a suggestion: Next time, provide an essentialized summary of the ideas, in your own words, with a link to the original work.
Sheila,
That was interesting.
The CDC released a report about the state of young minds. The mental health of young female teens was not good.
Putz. Copying and pasting an entire book. You may have a point but your assholiness prevents me from appreciating it
Delete this post. Its obnoxious and you know it
You are blind to the fact that what you describe is exactly what the Left has been doing in America today, demoralizing America. In an educated society, all citizens are capable of critical thinking and research, in an educated society you don’t need activist “experts” and “elites” to turn long established and proven scientific tenets on their head without any scientific proof and claim those experts hold some unique insight as to what is truth. Your “Onesideism” is not about getting to the truth, it’s about clouding, hiding and preventing it by shutting down one side, precisely what the Left has been famous for throughout history. The pursuit of truth is only valid with the free and open exchange of ideas, not by silencing dissent. The intolerance of Leftist totalitarians of dissent in an effort to claim monopoly on the truth has corrupted our schools and institutions by dumbing down and casting aside traditional education and replacing it with indoctrination movements meant to impose extremist ideologies that are far from legitimate for the sole purpose of destroying American culture, society and institutions and transform it into a weak nation that will heel to world totalitarians and elites. The so-called “Critical Theorists” of whom you speak are merely present day Hitler jackbooted Brownshirts, Democrat’s KKK, Stalin’s and Mao’s cultural reeducation thugs who lie about everything and intimidate, silence and punish those who refuse to follow the will of their leaders. Wake up!
This will tell you everything you need to know about George.
Virgil Kane is the name
And I served on the Danville train
‘Till Stoneman’s cavalry came
And tore up the tracks again
In the winter of ’65
We were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It’s a time I remember, oh so well
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
George presents us with a view of America, from the view of the South, before the Civil War. It is intruiging and refreshing. Whereas Lincoln has been routinely beatified, George shows us a different view. We all believe in diversity, right?
David B Benson wrote at 4:02 that conservatives, libertarians and Republicans are divorced from reality. Well Mr. David B Benson what you are actually saying is that the majority of Americans do not possess your all knowing wisdom. According to the following information it is David B Benson who is divorced from reality. https://www.statista.com/statistics/373814/cable-news-network-viewership-usa/. I hate to break it to you David B Benson but the people in America who do have a grasp on reality don’t think the same way that you think.
Tucker Carlson let Sidney Powell lie to his audience to keep his ratings up.
Carlson, privately: “Sidney Powell is lying.” “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” “It’s unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it.” But it wasn’t so offensive to him that he’d tell his audience that she was lying. He let them continue believing it.
https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/D8File/2023/02/16/2023-02-16-redacted-dominion-opening-sj-brief.pdf
More accurately stated: on an important subject, where the facts of the manipulation of the 2020 election was then (and is even now) not fully clear, he let the “Giuliani team” present their case. This is called “freedom of the press”. When they could not prove their case, he expressed his private opinion, which has been accepted by most conservatives. If you were reasonable, you would compare his behavior favorably with that of the blind robots at MSNBC and CNN.
Do you understand why Fox is facing a huge defamation suit, and that a key to Dominion proving defamation is that Fox knew the statement was false or had a reckless disregard re: whether it was false?
Hard to get clearer proof that Carlson knew it was false than “Sidney Powell is lying.” “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.” And there’s evidence in the suit that the reason Fox let her lie on air was because they thought it was good for business.
I look forward to the trial.
“Tucker Carlson let Sidney Powell lie to his audience to keep his ratings up.”
“Do you understand why Fox is facing a huge defamation suit”
The Stalinist mind is again trying to censor speech. He doesn’t want other opinions heard. Based on what is known, Sidney Powell had an opinion. Everyone has a right to one. Other people had opinions and the right to them, along with a right to permit Sidney Powell to express her opinion.
Until someone comes along with solid facts traced to libel, one should not draw any conclusions. I believe Powell had some good points. I don’t know if she or her points were correct, but the question is whether she based them on erroneous facts or if she knew those facts were lies.
To date, we have heard you spin as you did on the Russia Hoax and a dozen other things where you were wrong, but you never provide a clear line of connected facts that lead to libel. I don’t know the answer, but to date, that line is not established. Yet you prematurely drew your conclusions, based on your ideology, not your knowledge of the facts.
Again, you can read the discovery for yourself: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf
As I said: I doubt that the judge will grant the MSJ and I look forward to all of the Fox hosts being questioned under oath during the trial.
In other words, ATS, you can’t make the linkage required to prove your case. All you can do is shoot your mouth off.
” I look forward to all of the Fox hosts being questioned “
We know that. You approve of Stalinist tactics and do not require the rule of law to question anyone until they confess. Thank you for the admission.
That you consider being questioned under oath in a court case to be “Stalinist” tells us how poorly you understand the word you so frequently use.
ATS, you are an idiot. Stalin started with the end; you are guilty, and then created the beginning by the charge. That is your playbook.
I don’t know if Powell went over the line. I don’t think so because she believed what she said, and I am not sure that Dominion was honest or that someone used Dominion for corrupt purposes. Without the intent to libel or gross negligence, she is not guilty.
To date, you demonstrate rampancy, not a clear mind, and the occasional links that lead nowhere show a mind-blown skeleton lacking humanity.
Eventually, I believe she will be found innocent of the charges. Years ago, I might have left out the word, eventually. In today’s world, where the leftist mind replaces the psyche of justice, we sometimes have to wait a little longer.
As far as Tucker’s responsibility, his job is to provide all points of view. That is something you find offensive. The scenario in your mind goes something like this, ‘imagine views that oppose my own, intolerable … arrest him … throw him in jail… arrest his family … his friends. Tell the teachers to spy on the children and the children to spy on their parents.’ That is your mindset. You are sick and depraved.
Your continued ad hom shows that you cannot control your desire to insult.
” shows that you ”
ATS, the first thing this proves is that you are ATS. You have already admitted to your proven behavior of deceit and lying.
I have no desire to insult, but when dealing with you, one has few choices. I am merely telling the truth.
And that shows that you cannot control your desire to lie.
ATS, you are a giant gap. You build a bridge of conviction for Powell with an end and a beginning but no road covering the river in the middle. You fall into it and then blame someone else.
Naw, you are a lib. You think there is more than 2 genders, that ivernmectin is dangerous and that Russia blew up Nordstream…and now you KNOW that there was ZERO voter fraud?
sorry bruh
You think there is no voter fraud?
Do you also think the vax prevents transmission, that masks saves lives and that Putin blew up Nordstream? Please, tell us more about this world you are from
Carlson devoted this long monologue calling into question Powell’s claims a few days after the election. I don’t have the exact date but I’m certain it aired during the month of November, 2020 – probably around two weeks after the election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BspHzH6RRxo
During the long segment Carlson explicitly raises doubt about Powell’s claims. He invites her to appear on his show to provide evidence to support them. She declined.
I do not watch much Fox. The only show I watch is Carlson’s and that’s only, on average, a couple of nights a week. So I have no idea how the rest of Fox programming treated the claims raised by the voting machine companies. But based on how Carlson responded, it is clear to me a fair and impartial jury can not find that he defamed the plaintiffs.
Now, that in no way suggests the jury will do the right thing.
We saw with the Sussman trial that the minds of many Democrat voters are now so poisoned by partisanship that they can not be trusted to render a fair and impartial verdict in cases that remotely touch on politics.
None of the leaked information is consequential.
It is irrelevant whether Murdock or others in Fox beleived all or parts of the Election fraud claims.
What is relevant is whether DVS was factually defamed based on what was known at the time.
That standard is impossibly high to meet.
The prior Maddow and Carlson cases should have made DVS drop this long ago.
If Maddow calling a person “Litterally a Russian agent” who0 by Facts know to her at the time was not a russian agent is not defamation,
Then questions about DVS – especially given the very troubling public remarks of key DVS people, is more than enough to provide Cover for Fox.
We need our news agencies to do a far better job of vetting what they put on the news.
But the Fox reporting on DVS and the election is FAR from the most significant example of bad journalism.
Pretty much anything in the NY Times today meets that standard.
Dominion’s suit addresses that broadcast: https://jonathanturley.org/2023/02/18/gallup-fifty-percent-of-american-believe-media-lies-to-promote-agenda/comment-page-2/#comment-2264283
As usual, a link because ATS cannot present his argument.
The US lied to the world that Russia blew up Nordstream. The world knows we lied. Now US wants us to believe Russia committed war crimes. Thanks to the US the Ukraine continues to fight after losing 100k soldiers. We are the baddies this time. Thanks Libs
Thinkitthrough, I assure you that I have a suburb grasp on reality, far above and beyond the average, especially the average American.
David B. Benson thank you for confirming my statement saying that you think your superior to other people. I didn’t think that you would admit it but here we are. Please tell us exactly what percentage of all the knowledge in the world you posses. Thanks Mr. Superior.
Thinkitthrough, I am a 156 pound weakling with failing vision and hearing. My hair is falling out.
What do you conceive of as “all the knowledge in the world”?
Emergency Saturday Broadcast: Alex Jones & Special Guests Lay Out Past, Present & Future of the New World Order
11,149 views
Feb 18, 2023
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The Alex Jones Show
The Alex Jones Show
Jay Dyer and wife Jamie Hanshaw join Alex Jones to lay out the Illuminati master plan to enslave and depopulate majority of humans using next generation technology and methods – tune in and share this important link
https://banned.video/watch?id=63f1383339c15439216f89ed
👆🏽 👆🏽 👆🏽
completely nucken futs
Is it nuts to hide behind your anonymous moniker?
Yes it is nuts to hide like a coward behind your anonymous moniker.
Alex Jones? Good God.
Have you people not been paying attention?
Alex Jones, Infowars, Banned.Video, 100’s of direct & indirect websites, employees & all of 30 to 100 million supporters, yes, at least 30 mil!!, have come under withering attacks by Lawfair or Illegal attacks. Damn few if any abandoned him & his outfits.
The American Hating Trash thought they had him, his outfits & supporters down & out then he/they/we stood back up with the help of America Supporters.
Are you not entertained? Are You Not Entertained? Is that not why You’ve come here?
Alex Jones & the people around him have already proven we are Champions for the USA.
If you’re not a rotten piece of American Hating Trash shouldn’t you cheap B*astards send him an extra $100, $500, a $1000 or more, go to his/their store & buy a product to continue to fight & help secure your prodigy’s future?
And even if you are American Hating Scum you too should send him extra cash just to keep the battle raging, Peacefully of course.
There’s only two sides, Team America the good guys or you can join the Demonic Satan Worshiping Pedophiles or LGBPedo Supporters, pick a side, your chose.
****
Gladiator (4/8) Movie CLIP – Are You Not Entertained?
Olly: Great comment and gripping reminder. I am most concerned with the selling off of real property, especially farmland.
Whether the CCP is buying up acres of farmland, establishing their own police stations, stealing technology, conducting surveillance, or inserting Confucius Institutes in university/college campuses, this multi-pronged infiltration into the American culture is designed to demoralize our culture and undermine our governing institutions. The media are merely playing their role in the destruction of our western culture.
Regardless of their brand, reports Peterson, Confucius Institutes will fulfill the Chinese government’s goal of maintaining outposts on American college campuses “where they can disseminate propaganda, conduct espionage, monitor overseas Chinese students, and advance the [government’s] agenda to ‘make the foreign serve China.’”
In acknowledgement of the Institutes’ threat to academic freedom and opposition to telling the truth about China’s persistent violation of human rights, the Trump administration proposed that American colleges and universities be required to disclose any financial ties with Confucius Institutes. (Some schools accept as much as $1.7 million annually.) Despite the bi-partisan criticism of the Institutes, the Biden administration withdrew the Trump proposal—sending a global signal that, in Peterson’s words, “the Biden administration will not take Confucius Institutes seriously.” The Biden White House should talk to FBI Director Wray, who takes the Institutes very seriously.
Over 2,000 years ago, besieging Greeks tricked their way into the city of Troy with the gift of a giant wooden horse within which they hid solders who, while the Trojans were celebrating a victory, opened the gates and let in the rest of the Greek army. Ever since, we have been told, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The Confucius Institutes are the modern equivalent of a Trojan horse, seemingly benign and apolitical, but committed to shaping our understanding of an authoritarian adversary out to undermine America’s leading role in Asia and around the world.
https://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/commentary/confucius-institutes-chinas-trojan-horse
The trouble is, Jonathan Turley, that so-called conservatives, libertarians and Republicans are increasingly divorced from reality. As surely you know “reality has a liberal bias.”
David, on any given week, Turley is completely disconnected from real news.
That’s why you rely on personal ad hominem attacks, instead of focusing on the topic at hand.
(OT)
Sad news ….
“After a series of short hospital stays, former US President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.”
He did more good as a former President than any I can think of.
He was (and still is) a good man, but was not a good President.
Political contributions are an indicator of the intensity of support for a person or party. People put money where their heart is. For 1996, it was reported that 96% of journalists who made political contributions to the major party candidates favored Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/ articles/2016-10-18/hillary-clinton-gets-more-donations-from-the-media-than-donald-trump-study-says This is impresssive, but they still have a little way to go. In the 1937 national elections in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party managed to get 100% of the vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Soviet_Union_legislative _election From an mental point of view, we already have a one-party state in Washington DC. The question for the near future is whether this mental one-party state will be able to sweep away structural impediments and establish an actual one-party state.
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
That was meant as a reply to George, who cannot deal with the Amendments to the Constitution, despite the process having been spelled out in Article V.
REGARDING ABOVE:
George is just an annoyance to this blog. Most of the crap he posts is only for the purpose of taking up as much thread space as possible. Even the Trumpers know he’s nuts.
He is indeed nuts, but you’d think that if conservatives disliked racism and misogyny, they’d try to distance themselves from it by refuting him.
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
– Blaise Pascal
_____________
“The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail.”
– Abraham Lincoln
_______________
Thank you so much…for reading the words and intent of the American Founders and Framers.
I don’t find the illegal seizure of power, martial law, the wanton, unconstitutional deployment of heinous military force or the murder of 1 million Americans in Article 5.
I do find that fundamental law is to be supported and that proposed amendments are not to “injure” the Constitution.
To wit,
__________________________________________________________________________________________
”And if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens; the friends of the federal government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished.”
– James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution, June 8, 1789
____________________________________________________________
The Constitution has been, not only injured but replaced to perhaps 75% by the principles of the Communist Manifesto.
It may be the case that you’re not even supposed to be here or to receive “free stuff” and free status according to those who created and established this nation; your opposition is legible.
After assuming office with a 38.9% mandate, everything Lincoln did after his wholly antithetical, illegal and unconstitutional denial of secession was similarly illicit, illegal and unconstitutional and remains invalid and illegitimate to this day.
No consequence of an illegal act is legal.
The Supreme Court recently and finally acted retroactively by 50 years to correct the unconstitutional Roe v. Wade which was imposed by the corrupt and impeachable Supreme Court of 1973.
The Supreme Court must now act retroactively by 150 years to correct the actions and consequences of the eminently antithetical and corrupt Lincoln.
To wit,
“The clause in the Constitution which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is in the ninth section of the first article. This article is devoted to the Legislative Department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the Executive Department.”
“I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the President in any emergency or in any state of things can authorize the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or arrest a citizen except in aid of the judicial power.”
“I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome.”
– Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, May 28, 1861
“Gallup: Fifty Percent of Americans Believe Media Lies to Promote Agenda”
– Professor Turley
______________
88.4 Percent of Americans Did Not Vote in the First Election, by Design.
Turnout was 11.6% in 1788.
The vote was solemn, crucial and of existential consequence.
The Constitution held dominion, most certainly not disputable polling data derived of mobs of plebeian everymen.
America was established under a Constitution adopted for the benefit of all who sought freedom through self-reliance and endeavored to pursue their own perception of happiness.
The average IQ is 100.
Never was America intended to be a one man, one vote democrazy.
______________________________________________________
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
_______________________________________
Good men, captains of industry on brief hiatus, were elected to simply assure that the few actions of infinitesimal government comported with the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution.
The vast majority of American dynamics were to transpire in the free markets of the private sector – both operation and regulation – charity was a free market virtue.
The Supreme Court was established to assure that actions comported with statutory and fundamental law, and the Supreme Court was provided no authority to usurp the power of the executive and/or legislative branches, or to amend the Constitution, legislate, modify legislation or modify legislation through “interpretation.”
Ben Franklin gave Americans a severely restricted-vote republic.
They couldn’t keep it.