Going Over Their Heads

This week in my “Tricky Dick: Richard Nixon, Poker, and Politics” course the assignments include a viewing of Nixon’s televised resignation speech, delivered on the evening of August 8, 1974.

Nixon begins the speech saying “This is the 37th time I’ve spoken to you from this office,” an opening move designed to suggest a kind of “transparency” that contrasted sharply with the whole idea of a “cover-up” which had led to the offenses listed in the articles of impeachment that had already been recommended by the House Judiciary Committee (obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress).

There is conflicting information out there regarding just how many times Nixon delivered televised speeches from the Oval Office -- some places agree with him and say 37 times, others list fewer. Most agree, though, of all the presidents of the television age, Nixon used the medium as much or more than anyone else, with Ronald Reagan the only one to challenge him for such a title.

Nixon considered such speeches a way for him to communicate directly with American citizens without having his words or ideas filtered through the interpretive lens of those reporting on him. Doing so enabled him to have more control over the response, or so he believed, and not have to rely on a press with whom he was on increasingly antagonistic terms as his career went along -- not to mention his steadfast belief in a bias against him shared by most media.

A few of these speeches represented examples of Nixon’s greatest political triumphs, going back to the “Checkers” speech of September 1952 on up through the famous “Silent Majority” address on Vietnam in early November 1969. They also now retrospectively appear as some of his most ignominious moments, such as the three Watergate speeches (given in April 1973, August 1973, and April 1974), each of which present evidence of Nixon delivering what were later conclusively shown to be blatant lies and intentionally deceptive statements.

In any case, Nixon always valued the idea of having what felt like a “direct” line of address to the American public. Writing about the “Checkers” speech and the role of television in politics in general in his 1990 book In the Arena, Nixon told of reporters then having “naturally found it very difficult to accept that by going over their heads to the country on TV, I had proved them wrong.”

That’s how Nixon viewed such televised addresses -- a way of reducing the power of the press by “going over their heads” and getting his message to the people without any interference.

Yesterday I couldn’t help but think of this notion of a president speaking “directly” to the people when reading president-elect Donald Trump’s barrage of tweets strangely calling into question the legitimacy of the election he won nearly three weeks ago.

You’ve no doubt seen or heard about the tweets. The most wild-eyed and crazed of them refers to how Trump believes he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” (Trump won the Electoral College, but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over 2.2 million, according to the most updated counts.) In another he specifies Virginia, New Hampshire, and California (three states won by Clinton) as sites of “serious voter fraud.”

“Why isn’t the media reporting on this?” asks Trump in the latter tweet. “Serious bias - big problem!”

Trump provides no evidence to support such claims, nor does he refer to any sources that do. From the reporting of others it sounds as though Trump is repeating some unsubstantiated claims made shortly after the election by a conservative activist named Gregg Phillips (also delivered via Twitter) that were subsequently promoted on the conspiracy site InfoWars.

InfoWars is a site identified with conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones and has provided a means for him to advance various fictions about historical events -- e.g., that the Oklahoma City attack, 9/11, and the Boston Marathon bombing were all “false flag” operations conducted by the government to increase its power; that the Sandy Hook school shootings didn’t even happen, nor did the moon landing in 1969; that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States (an idea Trump promoted and used as a gateway for his entry national politics); that global warming is a fiction invented by the Chinese and Muslims in New Jersey publicly celebrated on 9/11 (ideas Trump has also repeated); and so on. Jones even argued Mitt Romney really won the 2012 presidential election.

Like Nixon, Trump’s antagonism toward media and its “serious bias” inspires his “going over their heads” to communicate directly with the public, although Trump appears to favor Twitter over television as a preferred medium. In his 60 Minutes interview the Sunday after the election, Trump described Twitter as “a method of fighting back” against “bad” or “inaccurate” reporting on him. (He also said he would be “restrained” -- or, rather, “do very restrained” -- when using it going forward.)

But what Trump is presenting as his own, “unfiltered” message about what he thinks to be true is itself a kind of reporting being presented by sources that aren’t just biased in favor of a particular ideology, but seemingly unbound by reality, free to manufacture “info” out of whole cloth.

Nixon lied and covered up and did all sorts of things an elected official -- never mind a president -- should never do. He often claimed he rarely bluffed as a poker player, but he bluffed a lot as a politician, including repeatedly at the very end when he was called down and went busto.

But as paranoid and delusional as Nixon could be, he at least operated within a largely recognizable, shared actuality with others. These aren’t even “bluffs” Trump is tweeting out -- they don’t even meet the minimum standard of credibility to be characterized as such.

I suppose some believe there’s a method to the madness, though that would be even scarier than what is more likely the case. It’s an instinctive response to Trump, I think, wanting to impose some kind of order on what seems utterly chaotic (and frightening, given the stakes in play).

Tim Murphy tweeted an interesting comment yesterday. He’s a writer for Mother Jones, I’ll hasten to add, so as not to sound like some who simply tweet “I hear” and leave it at that.

“People act like Trump’s playing like eight-dimensional wizard chess with his tweets,” began Murphy. In other words, for those who don’t understand the president-elect’s intentions, he is communicating “over their heads,” perhaps only to those who for whatever reason can follow what he’s doing.

“But the much more obvious explanation,” added Murphy, “is he’s unstable.”

Image: “Donald Trump” (adapted), Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Second Guessing and the Media

Gearing up here for this NCAA Final tonight between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Villanova Wildcats. I actually had Villanova making it this far in my bracket -- which is otherwise a dumpster fire -- although I didn’t think my Heels would be there, too.

I can say “my” Heels as an alum and lifelong fan. Perhaps I was too close this year to recognize UNC’s strengths -- namely a deeper roster than most as well as a big size advantage that here at the end of the season has routinely translated into a big edge on the boards. Of course, ‘Nova has shot lights out over the last three weeks, a trend that tends to make rebounding less important. I’m leaning toward thinking the Wildcats have a small edge as tip-off nears, but who knows?

Amid the lead-up came a diverting quote from UNC head coach Roy Williams, something that gave the sports talk shows something to focus on today. It came after the win versus Syracuse on Saturday night during the postgame presser, and it kind of reminded me of some of the poker-related jibber jabber from last week.

Williams actually started the press conference in a bit of an ornery mood, early on cutting off any questions about whether or not the 65-year-old coach plans to retire any time soon. (The answer is no.) Later, after the players took their questions, it was Williams’s turn, and the first question came from John McCann of the Durham-based newspaper The Herald Sun.

McCann began by saying “we love to second guess you, coach,” then asked kind of a pointed question that if you think about it more or less challenged the idea that the coach has has any idea at all about the decisions he makes.

Noting how Williams had “stuck to [his] guns” as far as line-up choices went this year, McCann asked “How much of that during the season was total confidence in your guys versus a coach hoping that his guys would get it together?”

“Well, John, take this the way it’s intended,” Williams began. “Not to be as critical, but I’m a hell of a lot smarter about basketball than you guys are. I mean, I’m serious. What do you do after basketball season’s over with? You cover baseball. What do you do after baseball’s over with? You cover football. I don’t take any breaks.”

From there Williams stepped back to add a more general observation about the media’s relationship to the sports they cover, in particular with regard to college hoops.

“This year more than ever I heard announcers and writers question things... more than I’ve ever heard. And one of the other guys said ‘you know, we’re not in the locker room, we’re not at practice every day....’ If you asked me if I’m as smart a sports fan as you, I’d say probably not, ’cause I don’t work on those other sports. But I do see our guys in the locker room every single day....”

From there Williams pointed out how the team has had 98 practices this year, and after polling the room he determined a couple of the reporters had each been to one of them. “I would never criticize somebody about something that they know a heck of a lot more about.... But it is, it’s journalism to a certain degree today.”

“So it wasn’t stubbornness,” he concluded, alluding back to the larger question about line-up decisions. “It was intelligence.”

As a UNC fan, I find myself questioning Williams’s coaching decisions plenty of times. A lot, even, and certainly a lot more than I questioned Dean Smith when he was on the Heels’ bench. But all fans do that, especially when it comes to the teams for which they root and therefore (likely) have a kind of inherent bias affecting their judgment. It’s part of what makes following sports fun to do.

I do like his point, though, about the sports media tending toward “hot takes” and angrily forwarded criticisms that more often than not aren’t based in well intentioned argument supported by good reasoning and supporting evidence, but rather just designed to “stir the pot” (and perhaps gets some extra clicks online).

I say Williams’s response got me thinking a little of some of the back-and-forthing from last week regarding the so-called “poker media” and its relationship to those they cover. That’s a discussion I couldn’t care less about, really, and not just because I consider myself a guy who writes about people who play cards (to again evoke Benjo DiMeo’s line) and not full-fledged “media.”

No, I don’t find the topic that meaningful because I instinctively adopt the position of humility being recommended by Williams, at least when it comes to reporting on poker players and what they do at the tables. One of the detours in last week’s convo had to do with the relative poker knowledge among those reporting on tourneys. I’d agree it’s a requisite. I’d also agree that possessing something less than the knowledge of those being reported about should automatically suppress the impulse to “second guess.”

Not only do I not second guess, I don’t guess anything at all. Doing so would be more akin to reporting on yourself than someone else.

Photo: “Roy Williams at a Press Conference for the University of North Carolina Tarheels” (adapted), Zeke Smith. CC BY-SA 2.0.