Biden “In Objective Terms…Quite Successful,” MIT Professor Insists
Plus, White House explains neurologist visits; antisemitism at Columbia
A recent social media thread by an MIT economist “provides a perfect illustration of what I find so troubling about” academia’s approach to the 2024 presidential elections.
The economist, Daron Acemoglu, sets himself up as a press critic, posting a picture of that very compelling Economist cover featuring a presidential seal affixed to the front of a walker.
“The Economist magazine provides a perfect illustration of what I find so troubling about the media’s coverage of US presidential elections,” Acemoglu writes (see what I did there?).
Acemoglu goes on: “Of course, people are right to be worried about Biden and wish that the Democrats had a younger, more energetic and more appealing presidential candidate. But to some extent this is beside the point. It was very unlikely from the beginning that Biden would step aside. This is especially true, since, in objective terms, Biden’s first term was quite successful: landmark legislations, good job numbers and declining inflation…Overall, covers like this and attacks on Biden are strengthening Trump’s hand. Taking into account that Trump is a veritable menace to democracy, this is reckless, unless the media thinks its only function is to amuse and sell newspapers.”
There are at least three troubling things here.
First, the declaration that, “in objective terms, Biden’s first term was quite successful: landmark legislations, good job numbers and declining inflation.”
The “in objective terms” part is so arrogant. It forecloses the possibility of reasoned discussion or disagreement, because it assumes an “objective” definition of “success” even though reasonable people may have different definitions of presidential success based on their different priorities and values.
Relatedly, winning passage of “landmark legislations” is only a “success” for voters if the voters care about the legislation or see some tangible benefit or improvement from it. In Biden’s case, the “legislation” was a government spending binge that fueled the inflation. The jobs story can be credited in part to a steep reduction in unemployment that began well before Biden took office.
And crediting Biden with “declining inflation” without mentioning that his first years—until the Republicans took over the House—were characterized by rising inflation seems not exactly “objective.”
Maybe credit for defeating inflation, if there is any such credit to be distributed, should go to the Federal Reserve or to congressional Republicans, rather than to Biden.
Acemoglu doesn’t mention the surge of asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants. He doesn’t mention the wars in Ukraine or the Middle East, the fall of Afghanistan, the anti-Israel encampments and violent protests on college campuses, the $2 trillion deficit on a $7 trillion budget, or any of the other many things that Trump has been criticizing Biden for on the campaign trail. Like money manager and philanthropist Seth Klarman declaring Biden “a truly great president,” Acemoglu declaring that “in objective terms, Biden’s first term was quite successful” fails to reckon with the arguments of Biden’s critics. Adverbs—”truly” great, “quite” successful —are no substitute for engaging the substance.
Second, beyond the flawed, tendentious, and unconvincing assessment of Biden’s first term is a similarly flawed view about the role of the press in the coverage of the election. “Attacks on Biden are strengthening Trump’s hand. Taking into account that Trump is a veritable menace to democracy, this is reckless, unless the media thinks its only function is to amuse and sell newspapers,” he writes. That implies that once Trump is declared a “menace to democracy,” the responsibility of the press becomes doing nothing that would strengthen Trump.
That’s a misguided rule of the role of the press. Acemoglu seems to think the press should shift from truth-telling mode to partisan booster mode. There are a lot of problems with such a shift. The readers often notice, rendering the partisan boosting less effective. Partisan boosting has a way of backfiring. If, out of a desire to help defeat Trump, the press suppresses the news that Biden has declined, a consequence is that fewer qualified candidates challenge Biden in the primary, and the Democrats wind up stuck with a doddering nominee. Also, once you turn the partisan booster mode on, it’s hard to toggle back to truth-telling mode. Long-earned credibility has been lost. And there’s no way to discover if you’ve made a mistake. How would anyone find out if the candidate declared a “menace to democracy” turned out to be not as much of a menace as had been feared, or that the “menace to democracy” stuff is just a partisan way to demonize a political opponent? I’m not saying that is the situation with Trump, but if the whole press corps has switched from truth-teller mode to partisan-booster mode, how are voters, or even editors, supposed to make informed decisions? Is the idea that ordinary people can’t be trusted with the truth, but it needs to be kept away from them by MIT professors and Economist editors? What’s the circle within which these secret suppressed truths are allowed to be circulated, and what’s to stop the emergence of a black market in trustworthy information that doesn’t fit the partisan-booster permission profile but is nonetheless accurate? Acemoglu’s attack on the Economist is reminiscent of Trump calling the press “the enemy of the people.”
Acemoglu is hardly the only one to express the view that with Trump, the press should throw normal rules of nonpartisanship aside and instead openly side against him. Various high-ranking New York Times editors and former editors have reported that some significant share of Times newsroom staffers, mostly younger and more tech-savvy folk, hold this view or held it. But the fact that Acemoglu isn’t the only one to think that way doesn’t make it any less problematic.
Implicit in Acemoglu’s claim is an argument about a journalist’s ethical obligation—to the country? to the world?—to prevent a “menace to democracy” from coming to power. Yet there’s another ethical obligation, which is to honor the contract with the paying readers, who presumably signed up expecting that the reporters would deliver their best approximation of the accurate truth. Acemoglu expresses thinly veiled contempt for this transaction— “sell newspapers”— but in fact it involves a voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange of money for trustworthy information and analysis.
If the paying customers had wanted to spend money on partisan boosterism, they could have donated to the Democratic National Committee or a superpac or the Biden presidential campaign. If the Economist is going to switch from truth-telling to partisan boosterism, it probably owes its existing customers a disclosure and a no-penalty refund offer. And the disclosure itself erodes the value of any post-disclosure partisan boosterism, leaving the journalists with the options of sticking to truth-telling or switching to boosterism without disclosing the transition, and thereby intentionally swindling the customers who were expecting truth-telling.
Finally, having someone out conveying this message using his platform as “Institute Professor” at MIT and the MIT economics department hurts the university’s reputation. Merely observing that will probably send the “academic freedom” professoriate to the ramparts. Contrary to their fears, I am not proposing that MIT punish the professor. But it wouldn’t be totally outlandish for a university to circulate an election-season reminder that when professors comment on politics or other current events-related matters that are outside their research expertise—and even when it is within their research expertise—they’d do well to keep in mind that ill-considered or excessively partisan comments risk reinforcing the perception that universities aren’t pursuing truth but are, instead, using tax-exempt endowments and government subsidies to pursue partisan political agendas. That the person making the comment believes he is offering up an analysis “in objective terms” does not make it so but rather is a marker of the stifling ideological conformity and lack of viewpoint diversity that, by failing to subject shoddy ideas to scrutiny, fuels mediocrity. If you are a bright young would-be doctoral student weighing multiple options, why pick the department where the star professor is out publicly advocating that the Economist quit truth-telling when it gets too close to the election?
Election stakes: If Professor Acemoglu is taken with the urgency of defeating Trump, he has plenty of company.
The chairman of the Washington State Democratic Party, Shasti Conrad, issued a statement saying, “over the last week we’ve seen grassroots organizers, labor, and community leaders unite to show their support for a Biden-Harris ticket – because we know this is how we defeat fascism and continue to build a movement for working families, small businesses, and safer communities.”
“Defeat fascism” sure is emphatic language.
Meanwhile, Biden himself sent a long letter to Democrats that concluded, “We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump….Any weakening or resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.”
That’s the closing of the letter—not “make America Great Again” or advance freedom or restore the soul of America but “defeat Donald Trump.” The main motivating rationale of the campaign seems to be a negative, preventative one: saving America from Trump.
It reminds me of Nixon’s farewell speech: “always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” The Democrats, with their hate of Trump, are veering toward self-destruction. That’s not the only thing happening, but it’s part of the dynamic.
Recent work: “Let Netanyahu, and Israel, Win,” is the headline over my latest New York Sun column. “A new prime minister would be no panacea, despite the argument of the Times’ Bret Stephens,” is the subheadline.
The last time I posted a Sun column of mine (after the debate) I got a complaint from a paying reader here that it was paywalled. I don’t get a lot of complaints from paying readers, so I wanted to take a moment to address this one. I link to other paywalled sites, such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, frequently. I have no ownership or profit interest in the New York Sun in its current incarnation; the money earned in fees from the Sun for supplying the paywalled column there winds up also supporting the work here at The Editors, from which the revenue is growing nicely but not at the point where it makes economic sense to drop the Sun column and the income it generates. If a Sun subscription is too much for your budget to bear, consider talking to your library about negotiating access.
White House explains neurologist visits: The Biden administration today put out new information trying to explain why a neurologist, Kevin Cannard, had visited the White House. A letter from the physician to the president, Kevin O’Connor, to the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, says Dr. Cannard sees patients regularly at the White House medical clinic and saw President Biden as part of Biden’s annual physical but that “President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical.” The natural follow up question might be, “well, why hasn’t he?” But the letter doesn’t get into that other than that the “extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy.”
Columbia unbecoming: Columbia University announced it was re-assigning three of the four college administrators caught by the Washington Free Beacon sending text messages that, Columbia said, “may call to mind antisemitic tropes.” The other administrator on the text chain—the highest ranking one, the dean of Columbia College, Josef Sorett, who is also a tenured faculty member—will keep his job.
One Columbia Jewish student leader, Elisha “Lishi” Baker, posted to social media: “The removal of these deans from their positions is a step in the right direction. But I am disappointed by what seems to be a continued inability to unequivocally call out antisemitism. I got an email saying that the texts ‘may call to mind antisemitic tropes.’ I’m struggling to understand why it is still so hard to just say what we all know to be true. Columbia has an antisemitism problem, and these deans perpetuated it. End of story. Call it out so that we can actually focus on fixing these problems rather than continuing to debate whether or not these texts ‘called to mind antisemitic tropes.’ The fact that we’re still at this point is sad.”
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It states the three staff members were removed from their positions and remain on leave at this time.
Paid leave is a slap on the wrist.
Excellent analysis! I was struck by the way Acemoglu contrasted his notion of a partisan press to one that is only out to "amuse." That word stuck out in my mind. Does Acemoglu really believe the only options are partisanship and amusement? It is as if the very idea of truth telling is foreign to him.