Never Letting a TrivialDetail Go to Waste

It’s been one of those weeks where all kinds of dishearteningstories have leapt, in rapid succession, to the front of thenational news cycle. Included have been acts of policebrutality, rioting and looting that are destroying people’slives and livelihoods, and multiple counts of shamelesspolitical theater put on by our “leaders” in government (aseverything burns to the ground behind them). And oh yeah, didyou forget about that global pandemic that’s still going on?

In other words, there are plenty of topics for a politicalcolumnist to delve into. But frankly, it’s been a trying weekfor me personally, topped off by my elderly parents gettinginto a car accident up in the mountains the other day. Don’tworry, they’re okay other than some scrapes and soreness(thank God), but I’ve had a tough time focusing on writingthis week. So, today, instead of getting into a terriblyserious topic, I figured I’d wrap up some thoughts I’d beenjotting down on a strain of today’s political discourse thatI’ve been seeing more and more examples lately.

I’ll begin… with a metaphor.

One of my all-time favorite television shows is NYPD Blue. The1990’s police drama was edgy, extremely well written andacted, and well ahead of its time. Those who’ve read my novelsmay have even picked up on some influences from the show.

There’s a particular episode I sometimes think about whenobserving today’s political debates. It guest-starred actorZack Ward. Ward’s name wouldn’t ring a bell for most people,but you’ve almost assuredly seen (and enjoyed) at least alittle bit of his work. As a youngster, he played the red-haired, raccoon-hat wearing school bully who torments Ralphieand his friends in the film classic, A Christmas Story.

In NYPD Blue, a grown-up Ward portrays a not-so-bright guynamed Jerry. In the episode, Jerry gets upset with a buddy ofhis named Howie over an unpaid debt. Specifically, Howie losta bet to him and didn’t pay up. The bet was over how longHowie’s petite girlfriend could last inside one of those biglaundromat dryers… while it’s running.

Howie’s a real catch, ladies.

Anyway, the girlfriend didn’t hold up as well as Howie hadhoped. After just a couple minutes, she could no longer bearthe heat and her body being tossed around in circles. Shedemanded to be let out, and the contest ended. Howie lost. Butagain, he refused to settle up with Jerry.

Well, this ticked off Jerry — so much that he quickly wenthome, grabbed his gun, returned to the laundromat, and fired ashot at Howie. Only, the bullet missed Howie and hit someoneelse inside the laundromat… who ended up dying from the wound.

It wasn’t a great day for anyone, when you think about it. Andeveryone involved in the incident fled the scene… Well,everyone except the girlfriend who was still too dizzy andsick to pull off an effective getaway.

Enter pop-culture icon Andy Sipowicz (played by the greatDennis Franz). Once he and other Precinct 15 detectivesfigured out what had happened (the girlfriend wasn’tparticularly helpful), they snatched up Jerry and brought himdown to the station to be interrogated. To their surprise,Jerry was pretty upfront about what happened. Only, accordingto him, there was a much bigger fish to fry than the issue ofa dead man on a laundromat floor.

Jerry said that the man detectives should really be looking atwas Howie. After all, Howie was the guy who “welshed” on thebet, and put the entire series of events in motion. So it wasHowie, not Jerry, who should be going to prison.

To be clear, Jerry’s defense wasn’t just some lame, Hail Marypass to save his own rear. He genuinely believed that he wasmaking a compelling point, that he was in the right, and thatthe detectives — once they understood that details — wouldkick him loose.

Jerry clearly didn’t appreciate the magnitude of the situationhe was in, nor the glaring asymmetry in his argument. To him,the key issue everyone should have been focused on was themonetary debt that hadn’t been paid. Even after Jerry wasarrested for murder, and was being taken away, he spottedHowie at the police station and scolded him for being awelsher.

Needless to say, Jerry’s reasoning was absurd (albeitentertaining). It was indicative of an individual who lacksmoral perspective, and has a very warped sense of societalaccountability.

But I’m not convinced that would be the general take amongobservers in the realm of today’s politics. Because, truth betold, Jerry is actually quite representative of our politicaldiscourse, whether it be on cable-news, the Internet, or evenin casual discussion.

Whenever there’s a controversial, incontrovertible issue orincident that draws national headlines and challenges (orreflects poorly on) the inclinations of a political tribe, acertain defense mechanism kicks in. Members of that tribequickly focus on some minute detail of the story, and acceptand promote it not only as the conclusive takeaway, but alsoas a wholesale discrediting of the larger controversy.

We saw this a few weeks ago when President Trump stronglyimplied that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (non-coincidentally aprominent Trump critic) murdered a former aide. The youngwoman, in reality, died after fainting and hitting her head.Trump’s accusation was a big story, as it should be when asitting president advances a thoroughly debunked conspiracytheory that desecrates the memory of an innocent woman, whilebringing needless pain and suffering to her family. By anyobjective standard of decency, what the president did was anutter disgrace.

But no so fast… Trump defenders (including the White HousePress Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany) latched onto an old radiointerview Scarborough did with Don Imus. It took place acouple years after the aide’s untimely death. In the last fewseconds of that interview (which was lighthearted and jovial),Imus — a shock jock — said something shocking. He made adistasteful joke about Scarborough sleeping with an intern andthen killing her. Scarborough laughed off the comment, andkind of rolled with it as the interview ended.

Somehow, in the minds of the Trump faithful, this hurried,seconds-long exchange from 17 years ago became the real story.As far as they were concerned, it not only negated Trump’scontroversial statements and put the burden on Scarborough tohave to answer for his insensitivity, but even bolsteredTrump’s case that police investigators should be looking intoScarborough.

We saw something similar just a few days ago, after Trump’s

widely panned photo-op in front St. John’s Episcopal Church.Protesters were cleared out of the area beforehand by U.S.Park Police and Secret Service who used, by their ownadmission, smoke canisters and pepper balls. Then, Trump andmembers of his cabinet walked to the nearby church, video crewin tote, where the president posed in front of the buildingholding up a Bible. They all then returned to the White Housewhere the video was edited, dubbed with dramatic music, andposted on the White House’s social media accounts.

The stunt was pretty clearly designed to convey strengthfollowing some media heckling Trump took from his criticsabout “hiding out” in the White House bunker the night before,when vandals from a George Floyd protest set part of thechurch on fire.

The real story, by any objective standard, was protestersbeing forcibly removed with smoke and chemicals in order for aPresident of the United States to, as the AmericanConservative’s Ron Dreher editorialized, “stand in front of achurch flashing a Bible like a gang sign to get conservativeChristians in line.”

Those inclined to defend Trump, however, chose to focus on aspecific detail in the media’s reporting of the incident:reporters’ use of the term “tear gas” in their descriptions ofhow the protesters were pushed back by authorities.

Media pro-Trumpers like The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway ledthe charge, insisting that tear gas was never used, and thatthe media was spreading “fake news.” Trump himself retweetedthe piece and others like it, and soon that’s all anyone wastalking about.

There’s just one problem: pepper spray (which the USPP admitsthey used on the crowd) is actually a form of tear gas (whichis a colloquial term). Even if one is inclined to engage in asemantics battle over the type of eye-irritating chemical

agents that were used against the crowd, that doesn’t changethe fact that chemical agents were used against the crowd… toclear a path for a political photo op.

Of course, it’s not just the political right that employs thistechnique. But as I’ve written in the past, people on the leftare far more inclined to commit an almost inverse offense:trivializing or even omitting important details of a story inorder to bolster a much larger societal narrative that thefacts themselves just don’t warrant. This too perverts ourpolitical discourse.

A good example came this week from NBC News and Vice News,where journalists tried to compare the killing of George Floydto a transgender black man named Tony McDade who was shot andkilled by police in Florida that same week.

The aim was clearly to shove the McDade shooting into the“Black Lives Matter” theme of police brutality, and callouspolice officers unjustly killing black suspects. The problemis that both outlets seriously downplayed, and in some casesentirely omitted, some key details of the incident:

McDade had just been released from prisonHe killed his 21-year-old neighbor just 15 minutesbefore the confrontation with policeOn Facebook earlier that day, he posted that he wasplanning to kill people, and then be killed himself tokeep from going back to prisonHe had a gun that he threatened the officer with, priorto being shot

These are details that obviously matter, and shouldeffectively disqualify comparisons to what happened to GeorgeFloyd.

Both of these partisan practices constitute an abuse ofdetails that focus angst in a direction unsupported by thestories themselves. It’s done purely (and instinctively) out

of internalized tribal interest, and it’s unhealthy to ourpolitical discourse, as well as our capacity to interpretissues rationally and with perspective. So, when people(especially politicians and members of the media) play thisgame, they should be called out.

But unfortunately, I’m not convinced that calling it out wouldserve as a deterrent. It’s become too natural of a responsefor far too many people. In other words, there are just toomany Jerrys out there.

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