Cleveland.com (Jarvis DeBerry):
We’ve all been there. We’re arguing a point, making a case for why we’re right and others are wrong when the person we’re debating raises a point that weakens our argument. How we respond to that inconvenient information says a lot about our honesty and our integrity, and it signals if we’re arguing in a real attempt to get at the truth or if we’re arguing merely to look better than our opponent.
When people are making honest arguments, they receive the information that doesn’t support their point of view and they appropriately deal with it. They may say something like, “Yes, that is true, but…” and then proceed to explain why that new information isn’t so important or why it doesn’t destroy their argument. And if the other information does destroy their argument, then they concede that they were wrong.
Remember those days? When debating came with the risk of being proved wrong? Today, cable networks feature shouting matches between adversaries who are guaranteed not to lose because they’re guaranteed not to concede any point that undermines their argument. These shouting matches can’t be won; nor can they be lost. Because getting at the truth isn’t the aim. Being unpersuadable is the game – even though being unpersuadable generally requires a willingness to look and sound ridiculous.
In a CNN appearance last week, Ohio’s own Rep. Jim Jordan insisted to host Jake Tapper that the summary transcript of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky doesn’t show what it obviously shows. “We have all seen the transcript,” Jordan said. “There’s nothing there.”
Of course, there’s something there. The document indicates that when Zelensky said Ukraine wanted to buy more anti-tank missiles to resist Russia, Trump, who’d been improperly withholding money for Ukraine that Congress had approved, asked for a favor. He wanted Zelensky to give his attention to a ridiculous conspiracy theory that claims that Russia didn’t hack the Democratic National Committee but was framed by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. And he wanted Zelensky to investigate the family of the Democrat he’s most likely to face in 2020 – even though there’s no evidence that Hunter Biden or Joe Biden did anything that warrants investigation.
During an interview with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the highest ranking Republican in the House, Scott Pelley of CBS’ “60 Minutes” accurately quoted Trump’s response to Zelensky’s mention of wanting weapons: “I’d like you to do us a favor, though.”
McCarthy: “You just added another word.”
Pelley: “No, it’s in the transcript.”
McCarthy: “He said, ‘I’d like you to do a favor though?” (Here, McCarthy inadvertently leaves out “us.” But the dispute is whether Trump said “though.”)
Pelley: “Yes, it’s in the White House transcript.”
Why would McCarthy go on national television to defend Trump without first familiarizing himself with the contents of the document the White House had released?
Because, like so many Republicans, he walks by Trump, not by sight.
In addition to the easily refuted claim that the transcript doesn’t show anything, Jordan and other leading Republicans are insisting that the whistleblower’s account of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky can be disregarded because the whistleblower says he didn’t himself hear the call but was told about it by people who did.
“He had no firsthand knowledge,” Jordan said.
If the whistleblower’s account is confirmed by the transcript summary the White House released – and it obviously is – what’s the point of arguing that the whistleblower information came secondhand? Besides, Trump and the whistleblower are saying the same thing: that Trump sought an investigation into the Bidens. But only the whistleblower says that was wrong.
Despite Trump’s admission that he did indeed ask a foreign government to investigate the family of the Democrat leading in the polls, a Monmouth University poll finds that only 40 percent of Republicans surveyed believe that he did. Maybe they’ve been under a rock. Let’s ask the Republicans who say they’ve been following the story. Half of them say Trump didn’t do what Trump says he did.
Is that what they really believe? Or are they afraid of where acknowledging the truth will take them?
Social scientists have done quite a bit of research trying to figure out if partisan disagreement on observable facts is a result of some people sincerely believing the wrong answers they provide or if the people giving obviously wrong answers are doing so to signal their politics.
In 2017, two researchers – one from the University of Massachusetts and the other from YouGov -- showed survey participants a photograph of the National Mall during Barack Obama’s inauguration and a photograph of the mall during Trump’s inauguration. They asked one group of people to say which photograph was Obama’s event and which one was Trump’s. They asked the other group, “Which photo has more people?”
Forty percent of Republican respondents answered the first question wrong, and 15 percent gave the wrong answer to the second one. Those researchers concluded that those wrong answers couldn’t possibly have come from people who were sincere – because who couldn’t tell which photo shows more people?
“I say, look at the transcript,” Jordan said on CNN. “And the transcript gives you no reason to impeach this president.”
Who are you going to believe, folks? Jordan et al.? Or your eyes?
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