The political calculus of creating poverty-stricken dependent slaves

Posted on by
Reply

Turn ’em into poverty-stricken dependent slaves and you will get their votes forever. Or what is known apparently as “The Curley Effect”. Apparently, Obama is a past master.

The Curley effect (named after its prototype, James Michael Curley, a four-time mayor of Boston in the first half of the 20th century) is a political strategy of “increasing the relative size of one’s political base through distortionary, wealth-reducing policies.” Translation: A politician or a political party can achieve long-term dominance by tipping the balance of votes in their direction through the implementation of policies that strangle and stifle economic growth. Counterintuitively, making a city poorer leads to political success for the engineers of that impoverishment.

It may only have been discovered by accident, but you do have to think this may well explain many things that are otherwise not all that clear. But it also requires a population that are happy to become poverty-stricken dependent slaves which does in many ways explain a good deal of otherwise inexplicable parts of policy, like the mass migration of millions of unskilled non-workers that is now found supported by every party of the left.

Party not for sale for the moment

Posted on by
Reply

I wonder if billionaires really do have their finger on the pulse of the electorate. This really is a strange, strange story: Furious GOP donors stew over Trump: At an exclusive Park City retreat, some of the Republican Party’s top financiers lashed out at their nominee. How likely is it that their interests coincide with the interests of most Americans?

On Friday afternoon, at an exclusive Republican donor retreat here hosted by Mitt Romney, frustration boiled over. During an off-the-record question-and-answer session with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Meg Whitman, the billionaire Hewlett Packard chief executive officer, confronted the speaker over his endorsement of Trump. Whitman, a major GOP giver who ran for California governor in 2010, compared Trump to historical demagogues like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and wanted to know how the speaker could get behind him.

At another discussion session during the day, which featured top Romney alumni Stuart Stevens and Matt Rhoades, Ana Navarro, a Republican contributor and ubiquitous cable news personality, called Trump a “racist” and a “vulgarian and a pig who has made disgusting comments about women for years.” (Neither Whitman nor Navarro would comment.)

Even Ryan, who has endorsed Trump despite criticizing his behavior, joked during his presentation on Friday that in a recent conversation with magician David Copperfield, he said that he wished he could make himself disappear.

The incidents, which were relayed by three sources who were present — one of whom described them as “shocking” — illustrates the intense anger coursing through the GOP donor community. Far from letting go of their white-knuckled opposition to Trump, they’re stewing in it. . . .

Some are convinced the situation is growing increasingly bleak. In an interview here, Spencer Zwick, Romney’s former finance chair and one of the most prominent fundraisers in Republican politics, said that some of Romney’s donors would stay on the sidelines — and that others would even give to his Democratic opponent.

Just what it is that Trump would do or wouldn’t do that upsets them – or why it would or should upset them – is hard to work out from the article. Values voters they are not. These are unlikely to be small-government types, opposed to a crony capitalist relationship between business and government. Getting money out of politics is an imperative in a Republican system far more than in a Parliamentary democracy, but it should be done everywhere it can. And it shows why this needs to be done in ways that you would think those with the money to spend ought to do their best to keep quiet.

Say’s Law – a short course

Posted on by
Reply

Steven Kates presents the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture at the 2010 Austrian Scholars Conference. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno. The ASC is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, and is for scholars interested or working in this intellectual tradition. Held at the Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 11-13, 2010.

Understanding the nature and importance of Say’s Law is the single most important issue in economics today. If you don’t understand it, you cannot understand what is wrong with modern macroeconomic theory and policy. Here is Keynes in 1936 explaining why Say’s Law is false and has to be replaced. Just because he doesn’t use the words “Say’s Law” should not distract you from what was his central point. Here he calls it “Ricardo’s doctrine” but it is to reject exactly this that is at the centre of The General Theory.

“The idea that we can safely neglect the aggregate demand function is fundamental to the Ricardian economics, which underlie what we have been taught for more than a century. Malthus, indeed, had vehemently opposed Ricardo’s doctrine that it was impossible for effective demand to be deficient; but vainly. For, since Malthus was unable to explain clearly (apart from an appeal to the facts of common observation) how and why effective demand could be deficient or excessive, he failed to furnish an alternative construction; and Ricardo conquered England as completely as the Holy Inquisition conquered Spain. Not only was his theory accepted by the city, by statesmen and by the academic world. But controversy ceased; the other point of view completely disappeared; it ceased to be discussed. The great puzzle of Effective Demand with which Malthus had wrestled vanished from economic literature. You will not find it mentioned even once in the whole works of Marshall, Edgeworth and Professor Pigou, from whose hands the classical theory has received its most mature embodiment. It could only live on furtively, below the surface, in the underworlds of Karl Marx, Silvio Gesell or Major Douglas.” (Keynes 1936: 32)

That is exactly right. No classical economist ever used the notion of deficient effective demand because every one of them thought of it as utterly fallacious. This is John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy trying to explain – in 1848 – how inane Keynesian economics is. The Keynesian fallacy was a very old story by the time it became mainstream economic theory, which it remains to this day.

The point is fundamental; any difference of opinion on it involves radically different conceptions of Political Economy, especially in its practical aspect. On the one view, we have only to consider how a sufficient production may be combined with the best possible distribution; but, on the other, there is a third thing to be considered—how a market can be created for produce. . . . A theory so essentially self-contradictory cannot intrude itself without carrying confusion into the very heart of the subject, and making it impossible even to conceive with any distinctness many of the more complicated economical workings of society. [Mill 1848: Book III – Chapter XIV – final para]

That is Keynesian theory, “how a market can be created for produce” which we now describe as raising aggregate demand. Every mainstream economist from the 1820s right through to the publication of The General Theory agreed with Mill, and with no exception. You have lived through the disaster of the stimulus packages that followed the GFC which have been a failure in every single instance. Isn’t it time you perhaps began to consider that Say’s Law is maybe after all a valid principle of economic theory and Keynesian economics is just as fallacious as Mill and every other classical economist thought it was?

I have a book coming out in August, What’s Wrong with Keynesian Economic Theory?, which includes six of the world’s greatest Austrian economists. They all know perfectly well that Keynesian economics is pure nonsense that will with certainty rot out your economy from the inside. But it required me to put together such a collection when such articles should have been flying off the presses from the very start of the stimulus in 2009. Why this has been left up to me remains a puzzle even for myself, but that is how things happen to be.

Austrian economics and Say’s Law – google search

Posted on by
Reply

These were the paltry results from a google search under the question: “do austrians understand say’s law?”

From Mises Daily: Say’s Law in Context

From these two basic truisms arises Say’s Law. If individuals wish to procure a good they must give something in return that is also desirable to individuals. Therefore in order for one to be a consumer one must first be a producer of a good in which others find utility. Thus individuals desire the commodity of money not as an end in itself,7 but rather as a means to procure more desirable goods. However, in order to acquire money one must first produce a good that will exchange for money.8

The most important point in Say’s formulation is that the individual must produce something that is desirable to others. It is from the erroneous statement “supply creates its own demand” where the notion comes that as long as something is produced it will readily find a market. This idea conjures connotations of Ricardo’s labor theory of value in which a product is endowed with value due to the exertion of labor in its production.

From the QJAE: SAY’S LAW AND THE AUSTRIAN THEORY OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE

ABSTRACT: Economists have tried to explain business cycles as well as fluctuations in the economy, but over the past two centuries, the explanations have fallen into two areas. The first area tries to explain business cycles as being the result of fluctuating aggregate demand; if overall demand for goods is strong (or to put it another way, consumers are confidently buying goods), then the economy is in a boom. However, if consumers choose not to spend,then the economy is in recession. The second area, as outlined by Sowell is that of seeing an economy as operating within internal proportions that are brought into imbalances. Say’s Law is found in this second category, and the Austrian theory of the business cycle (ATBC) also is a proportionality-based theory. However, most economists have failed to make the connection between Say’s Law and the ATBC.

From Steve Horwitz: Say’s Law of Markets: An Austrian Appreciation

Given the strong similarities between Say’s work and that of the Austrians, including their similar classical liberal outlook, one would expect to find a good deal of discussion of Say’s Law in the classic Austrian literature. In fact, there is almost none. A search through Mises and Hayek reveals but one mention of ‘Say’s Law’ and only two or three more mentions of Say. Nowhere in Hayek’s work on business cycles and macroeconomic issues is Say’s Law mentioned by name. It does not appear in Mises’ Human Action, nor in any of the collections of his essays on money and related issues. The only specific mention of the law of markets is in the final chapters of The Theory of Money and Credit that were added in the 1952 edition. Other than that, there appears to be no discussion of Say’s Law, at least by name, in the Austrian literature until the mid- 1970s.

With respect to both Austrian microeconomics and macroeconomics, Say’s Law is a natural fit. When we move beyond the colloquial ‘supply creates its own demand’ version of the Law, and attempt to understand it in all of its complexity, we see how Say’s Law is an explanatory principle of the spontaneous order of the market, and one that crucially extends Smith’s insight about the extent of the market limiting the division of labour. As such, it becomes part of the microfoundations of macroeconomics, particularly in an Austrian view that emphasises monetary exchange as the central act of an economic order. No understanding of the effect money (and, by implication, time) has on the market can be complete without coming to grips with the issues raised by Say’s Law.

Smiling Dave A New Misunderstanding of Say’s Law which is a critique of the above article. This is he heading for the blogsite, or at least for this post, which means he gets it:

SMILING DAVE ON AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS.
MEN ERR IN THEIR PRODUCTIONS. THERE IS NO DEFICIENCY OF DEMAND. RICARDO

Austrian Economics Wiki Say’s Law

Say’s Law or Say’s Law of Markets is a principle attributed to French businessman and economist Jean-Baptiste Say, stating that there can be no demand without supply.

Which also has this as the full list of articles:

Say’s law on Wikipedia
Say’s law
Say’s Law: Were (Are) The Critics Right (pdf), by William L. Anderson
Lord Keynes and Say’s Law by Ludwig von Mises
A Rehabilitation of Say’s Law (pdf), W.H.Hutt
Say’s Law in Context by Peter Anderson, July 2003
Understanding Say’s Law of Markets by Steven Horwitz, January 1997

Tom Woods: More on Keynes and Say’s Law – an interview with Steve Kates

Say’s Law is such an obscure topic and while understanding the point is, so far as I can see, the essential ingredient in understanding what is wrong with Keynesian economics, very few take it up because it is so fiddly and there are so many elements that you have to keep straight all the time. I hope you won’t mind, but I’d like to just add a couple of things on Say’s Law to round out what I was trying to get across during the interview.

The interesting and depressing part is that W.H. Hutt stated that Say’s Law was the single most important element in the refutation of Keynesian economics. Unfortunately, he did not come to dealing with these issues until the chapter that begins on page 387 of his Keynesianism: Retrospect and Prospect (Henry Regerny 1963).

Yet even so extreme a Keynesian as Sweezy has been rash enough (and right enough) to admit, in his obituary article on Keynes that the arguments of The General Theory “all fall to the ground if the validity of Say’s Law is assumed” (Hutt 1963: 389)

If Keynes made it his crucial issue I still don’t understand why opponents of Keynesian economics don’t do the same.

The usual news round of a Friday night in the US

Posted on by
Reply

You know. Walk in the house. Scan the net. Usual things.

HILLARY HUMILIATION: BILL BRAGGED ABOUT SLEEPING WITH 2,000 WOMEN!

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Iran’s Military Expansion

U.S. Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75 Percent of Islamic State Strikes: ‘We can’t get clearance even when we have a clear target in front of us’

Bill, White House staff lived in fear of Hillary: Ex-Secret Service officer

How Ayatollah Khomeini suckered Jimmy Carter

Emails in Clinton Probe Dealt With Planned Drone Strikes

Followed, of course, by this.

Paul Ryan under fire for Trump remarks…

Wants Him To Lose So He Can Run In 4 Years?

My very thought about Chris Christie in 2012. These GOPe types make you sick with fury. As Glenn Reynolds asks: The Democrats’ ability to goad the GOP into forming a circular firing squad is a major strength of theirs. Why does the GOP play along?

Is Austrian economics a form of supply-side theory?

Posted on by
Reply

I am finishing off a paper on supply-side economics, which I argue is only represented by classical economic theory, and is not fully embodied in Austrian theory since its focus is on marginal utility as the central driver of activity. It is also a problem – to me, anyway – that Austrian theory does not incorporate Say’s Law, again because it is demand-side driven. Your thoughts would be welcome on this, as well as on this passage from the paper:

In the modern versions of Austrian economics, the approach often taken is to reject all interventions in the market and to leave the market to fulfil its role in allocating resources without government involvement. This is not a necessity within the theory itself, but as noted by Holcombe, is to a large extent the political preferences of those who focus on Austrian economic theory.

“Economic purists might argue that Austrian economics and libertarian politics are completely separate, but casual observation confirms that self-proclaimed members of the Austrian school tend to have more libertarian political views than the general population. This connection follows from the idea that the economy and society more generally, is a self-regulating complex system that is the result of human action but not of human design, and that attempts to intervene in that system are likely to result in negative unintended consequences.” (Holcombe 2014: 108)

Yet this is not entirely consistent with the views of Mises himself, who was more “classical” in his approach, or at least was in some of his earlier writings.

“If government buys milk in the market in order to sell it inexpensively to destitute mothers or even to distribute it without charge, or if government subsidizes educational institutions, there is no intervention. However, the imposition of price ceilings for milk signifies intervention.” (Mises [1929] 1977: 20)

I completely agree with Mises [1929] on this, but I wonder if that would still be part of the approach of an Austrian economist today.

Trump replies – Man Up

Posted on by
Reply

They’re not used to fighting to win. From The New York Times: Donald Trump’s Advice to Panicked Republicans: Man Up.

Donald J. Trump has some advice for panicked Republicans in Washington who are melting down over his most incendiary statements: Man up.

“Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they can’t breathe,”Mr. Trump said in an interview Tuesday afternoon as fellow Republicans forcefully protested his ethnically charged criticism of a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against the defunct Trump University.

“The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine,” he said during an interlude in a day of exceptional stress in the Trump campaign. “It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths.”

Even as he chastised Washington’s political class for a lack of backbone, Mr. Trump exhibited modest signs later on Tuesday that he was getting the message that some remarks — such as questioning the fairness of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel because of his Mexican heritage — crossed a line.

While he did not apologize, he issued a statement that his comments on Judge Curiel had been “misconstrued.” In a final Republican primary night victory speech, he struck a more conventional tone — at least for him — giving a more disciplined address using the teleprompter he has mocked while promising to make the Republican Party proud in the general election campaign.

But anyone thinking that Mr. Trump is going to suddenly adopt a more cautious, strategic approach yearned for by election-conscious congressional Republicans is likely to be disappointed. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the mere mention of the word “pivot,” though he conceded he wants to get on to broader discussion of the economy.

In his view, it is clear that his way has worked and the establishment’s has failed. After all, he vanquished every senator, governor or former governor who challenged him for the party’s nomination.

“I disagree with a lot of things I’ve watched in politics over the years, that’s why I’m running,” Mr. Trump said over a meatball lunch he barely touched in the restaurant of Trump Tower. “And that may make me less popular with politicians. But I have to be honest. I didn’t get there by doing it the way a lot of these people do it.”

Interactive Feature | The Electoral Map Looks Challenging for Trump Current polls show an uphill battle for Donald Trump should he and Hillary Clinton face off in the general election.
Back in Washington, congressional Republicans were in a fever, with Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a reluctant Trump convert to begin with, calling Mr. Trump’s comments about the judge “the textbook definition” of racism. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, denounced Mr. Trump’s crusade against Judge Curiel as stupid and urged him to apologize. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois withdrew his endorsement, and others were pondering it.

Mr. Trump, arms crossed tightly across his chest during lunch, was aggrieved and considered some of the Republican pushback inappropriate and unhelpful — though he did not want to address specific critics. He insisted that he is anything but a racist and, with his usual rebuttal by the numbers, stressed that voters have rewarded his outspokenness with a record haul of primary votes while Washington is held in dismal regard.

“People want people to represent them who are going to stick up for what they believe in,” Mr. Trump said. “Politicians have been very weak and very ineffective over the last quite long period of time.”

Mr. Trump is also unhappy with the media, and noted that he is nearing the ability to reach 20 million people by himself through his personal Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, providing an alternative way to reach the public, even if it’s largely a one-way conversation.

His is a campaign like no other, conducted out of a luxury office tower in Manhattan named for its most prominent occupant, the presumptive nominee himself. A few floors below his personal office with a Trumpian view of Central Park is unfinished space being leased to his campaign team, a relatively skeleton crew of 80 or so running a national campaign.

He is flabbergasted by critiques that he is woefully undermanned compared to the hundreds working for Mrs. Clinton, many just over in Brooklyn.

“To me, that is smart,” Mr. Trump said about his lean team, though he says he will soon increase his work force.

As the primary season came to an odd close with him under Republican fire in the nation’s capital — an unheard-of spectacle in the last half century of presidential politics — Mr. Trump took some time to huddle with his campaign team. His daughter Ivanka, a trusted adviser, was close at hand, as was his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, his press secretary, Hope Hicks, and his special counsel, Michael Cohen.

As he headed to the Trump Grill for lunch, tourists and workers hailed him, congratulated him and urged him on as they lined up to take photos with their phones.

He posed with some women and looked back at a reporter to point at the women and boasted “Hispanics!” Afterward, he bragged: “They say ‘We love you, Mr. Trump. We’re from Mexico.’ ”

After he was seated, the Secret Service erected a temporary partition to shield him from other guests.

UPDATE: You cannot, of course, trust the American media on a single thing. According to this, NYT Frames Donald Trump’s Advice To Pearl Clutching DC Politicians As “Man Up”…, he didn’t say “Man Up”. Not that I would be upset if he had, but here’s the story:

Priceless. The only problem for the New York Times is, Trump never said: “Man Up”.

A recent Times article, which was transparently structured to present candidate Trump with gender references, outlines Donald Trump’s opinion of the weak-kneed professional political class. His position is essentially the same as Senator Jeff Sessions, get over it.

Will the Republicans nominate Trump?

Posted on by
Reply

Donald Trump is the Stephen Curry of Republican politics.


CONFIRMED=> Hillary Clinton Received 1.5 Million FEWER Votes in 2016 than in 2008 — Democrats Down 7 Million Votes
Trump Shatters Republican Primary Vote Record by 1.4 Million…
Historic 13M Vote Blowout…
Beats Own Campaign Prediction, Reaching 1,536 Delegates…

Too bad they’re not playing basketball but politics. This is close to the vibe I see everywhere across Republican websites. From Ace of Spades: “So, Who Is the GOP Going to Install as Its Nominee Instead of Trump?” First he says this:

Let me explain my entire political raison d’etre:
BEAT HILLARY CLINTON.
That’s it. That’s the ballgame.

But then he say this about the leadership of the Republican Party:

I happen to think the White Upper Middle Professional Class is silly and overproud — the status conscious bourgeoisie who are a bit too fashionable and frivolous in their political passions.

They’re just not good in a fight. They back down too quickly from the left’s threat of reducing their social status.

Yet the fact is, you can’t win an election without them. This group, which isn’t only white, but is Super White, is a core group of any GOP coalition. Including the losing ones, even.

He thinks they won’t allow Trump to be the nominee. Trump’s task was not just to win the votes but to make himself acceptable to the while upper middle class leaders of the party.

I do think the GOP is actually gearing up to do something drastic in three weeks.

I think all the shrieking you’re seeing right now is part of the battlespace preparation to prepare for that moment.

To justify it, to defend it. To show: “We had no other choice.”

To say, “We tried working with him. You saw how hard we tried working for him! But he’s just impossible. He’s an animal, and we can’t do anything to educate him.”

The question I’m asking myself isn’t whether they’ll do this (if Trump keeps sinking in the polls, and stinking up the reputation of the Upper Middle Class Professionals that make up the high ranks of the party, they will), but who they’ll replace him with.

The word is Paul Ryan. He denies that. He denies a lot of things.

I think he’s a sneaky little rat who would be flattered by it, and flattered by it, he’d leap at it.

I’d go berserk if they tried that, personally. I think a lot of people would. He’s already a proven electoral loser — he got beaten by the Imbecile Joe Biden in a debate, for god’s sake — but they may try it anyway.

And so we shall see. There are many who are walking away. A random sample from today:

Trump/La Raza Judge Row Blows Lid On GOP Establishment Plan: Sabotage His Campaign, Wait For 2020

Uh Oh: Scott Walker Now Backing Away from Pledge to Support Republican Nominee

GOP Tool Hugh Hewitt TURNS On BFF Trump, DEMANDS GOP Tell Him To QUIT Campaign!!

You get the idea. Meanwhile, Ann Coulter is not really surprised in spite of what the headline might make you think: Stunning New Development!!! Media Calls Trump Racist.

The effrontery of this double standard is so blinding, that the only way liberals can bluff their way through it is with indignation. DO I HEAR YOU RIGHT? ARE YOU SAYING A JUDGE’S ETHNICITY COULD INFLUENCE HIS DECISIONS? (Please, please, please don’t bring up everything we’ve said about white judges and juries for the past four decades.)

They’re betting they can intimidate Republicans — and boy, are they right!

The entire Republican Brain Trust has joined the media in their denunciations of Trump for his crazy idea that anyone other than white men can be biased. That’s right, Wolf, I don’t have any common sense. Would it help if the GOP donated to Hillary?

Attack is the best form of defence

Posted on by
Reply

Donald Trump is not of the opinion that absorbing punishment is a useful way to show one’s strength. He is, in fact, the first person in politics on my side of the fence who thinks attack is the best form of defence. The business with Trump University is almost a perfect example of how he goes about his business. The case has existed for quite some time, but the minute it was raised, he slammed the judge overseeing the case as hopelessly biased against him, the evidence being that he was a member of La Raza, a race-based group supporting illegal migration into the United States.

Hillary wants to argue that Trump represents a War on Women. Back he comes with an attack on Bill’s serially abusive relationships with women, for which Hillary has been the enabler.

And then there was the story of how Trump’s campaign manager had thrown reporter Michelle Fields to the ground that was reported as unvarnished truth across the media, even when the videos, they had not known existed, showed none of it was true. Trump just stared them down and would not give an inch. Admirable qualities I would say in a president who you want to be looking after your interests.

In every way, Trump has shown an amazing willingness to counter punch, to refuse to accept even minimally the premises of his opponents. He may yet lose the election because of the range of forces ranged against him – including many supposedly on his own side – but he is more likely than any of the other Republicans to win. And he is changing the debate. And here is how he is changing the debate and will be putting Hillary on the back foot: TRUMP Announces MAJOR SPEECH on Clinton Corruption and Scandal Next Week.

The Clintons have turned the politics of personal enrichment into an art form for themselves. . . .

Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into a private hedge fund.

All true, but no one else has said it. Attack, attack, and then attack some more. If he loses, it won’t be because the facts weren’t out there. As he asks, I wonder whether the press will be there to cover next week’s speech.

The media don’t even pretend any more

Posted on by
Reply

You don’t often find an honest reporter in the US, but here we have finally found one. She honestly explains how the media must distort the news every day in ensuring that Trump loses. Here is the full posting by John Hinderaker: Wapo Columnist: Let’s Gang Up on Trump.

The Washington Post’s media columnist, Margaret Sullivan, who is also a former Public Editor of the New York Times, has an idea that she claims is novel, but may sound familiar to Republicans: news outlets should coordinate their efforts to defeat Donald Trump! It really is an extraordinary column:

Media outlets have given the likely Republican presidential nominee something like $2 billion worth of free exposure and, in many cases, let him get away with blatant falsehoods — even about something as basic as whether he did or didn’t support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall liberal columnists objecting to Trump’s free publicity during the primary season, when it helped him defeat Republicans who would have been stronger general election candidates.

Fairness is of utmost importance, no doubt, whether the reporting is on Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. But what, exactly, does it mean in campaign coverage? It should mean keeping an open mind, not bringing preconceived ideas to one’s reporting, and listening seriously to candidates’ explanations.

It should never mean false equivalency, where equal time and emphasis are given to candidates or dissembling is allowed to go unchallenged. …

News outlets ought to rethink the purpose of their campaign coverage. It’s not to be equally nice to all candidates. It’s to provide Americans with the hard information they need to decide who is fit to lead the country.

In other words, the job of a reporter is to help win the election for Hillary Clinton. It isn’t long before this conclusion becomes explicit:

There have been encouraging moments: CNN’s Jake Tapper pushing Trump hard for clarity on an endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Fox’s Megyn Kelly (before she went all fan-girl) asking a searing question about Trump’s treatment of women in a Republican debate. The Times’s investigation into Trump’s hiring of foreign workers at his Florida club, Mar-a-Lago. The Post’s reporters pushing so hard for answers on Twitter about claimed charitable contributions to veterans that Trump found it necessary to hold a news conference.

We need much more of this in every medium. Every day, in every news cycle.

Every day, every news cycle, in every medium: beat up on Trump!

Rather than promoting the same treatment for each candidate, how about this: rigorous and sustained truth-telling in the public’s interest. Citizens deserve some fairness, too.

Don’t treat Trump the same way you would treat a Democrat!

It’s time for tough follow-up questions, time for TV news to pick up on some of the hard-hitting reporting being done elsewhere, and maybe — radical notion alert! — it’s even time for news organizations to get together and prepare to defend themselves.

So news organizations should form a cabal to smear Donald Trump. But, hey, it’s self-defense!

That won’t come naturally to these highly competitive outfits, but given the assault on press rights that surely would come with a Trump presidency, strength in numbers is a far better idea than providing even-handed, nonconfrontational coverage.

What is the “assault on press rights” that “surely” would accompany a Trump presidency? It’s hard to say. Maybe she is referring to Trump’s desire to liberalize defamation law, or maybe she imagines there is a press right not to be contradicted. In any event, it’s not every day you see a journalist come out openly against “even-handed coverage,” while advocating ganging up on a disfavored politician, i.e., “strength in numbers.” We always knew that this is how liberals think, but it is unusual to see one of them put it in writing.