When Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks joined PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff for their Friday recap of the week’s news, the natural topic of conversation was the election results. Capehart’s big takeaway was that things other than the economy, like abortion, saved Democrats while Brooks cheered the demise of populism inspired by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump.
After being asked by Woodruff what voters were saying on Tuesday, Capehart replied, “Simple message. Voters are trying to say, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We are more nuanced than you give us credit for. Yes, the economy is bad. We're not happy about it. But we're also not happy about the potential of a national abortion ban.”
Capehart does not view his job on this panel to inform viewers, but to scare them. There was never a nationwide abortion ban on the table, only Sen. Lindsey Graham’s 15-week ban which Democrats and Capehart cynically portrayed as a total ban.
The election was also a victory for democracy itself, “We're not happy about the threats to democracy I think that the American electorate chose democracy in this election. And I think the candidates who ran in their respective races ran the races that they needed to run in order to be successful. And in order for them to be successful, they had to pay attention to the people they wanted to represent.”
Woodruff then asked the same question to Brooks, “What do you think the voters were saying?”
Brooks replied, “Yeah, and I — over the last, I don't know how long, 10 years, we have seen a rise of global populism, both across Europe, I think in the form of Vladimir Putin and maybe Xi Jinping, and in this country in the form of Donald Trump. And I think what we have saw Tuesday night was the emergence of an anti-authoritarian populism majority.”
There is so much wrong there it can be difficult to know where to begin. Putin and Xi aren’t populists, they’re elites who kill and who, unlike Trump, do not face real elections. If Brooks meant populists who have affinity for those two, he ignores that despite warnings about new populist-conservative coalition governments in Italy and Sweden, both have continued or even increased aid to Ukraine, while Trump was the first president to give them lethal aid.
This segment was sponsored by viewers like you.
Here is a transcript for the November 11 show:
PBS NewsHour
11/11/2022
7:35 PM ET
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Simple message. Voters are trying to say, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We are more nuanced than you give us credit for. Yes, the economy is bad. We're not happy about it. But we're also not happy about the potential of a national abortion ban. We're not happy about the threats to democracy.
I think that the American electorate chose democracy in this election. And I think the candidates who ran in their respective races ran the races that they needed to run in order to be successful. And in order for them to be successful, they had to pay attention to the people they wanted to represent.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think the voters were saying
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, and I — over the last, I don't know how long, 10 years, we have seen a rise of global populism, both across Europe, I think in the form of Vladimir Putin and maybe Xi Jinping, and in this country in the form of Donald Trump.
And I think what we have saw Tuesday night was the emergence of an anti-authoritarian populism majority; 60 percent of voters, roughly 60 percent said they have a low opinion of Donald Trump; 58 percent said they think MAGA is a threat to democracy. And so we now have a group. There's still going to be that MAGA movement, but in my view the electorate has built a wall around them and one hopes with the effect of making sure they’ll never get the kind of power they enjoyed under Donald Trump when he was in the White House.
