Julia Ioffe serves up the GOP's latest authoritarian tropes in a recent "The Beat" TV appearance. Don't buy into them.

She should have read my Jan. 7 posting! Tsk tsk...

Early this week, while indulging my usual habit of watching MSNBC’S “The Beat” with host Ari Melber, I sat rigidly upright in rapt attention.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from one of the guests.

Reporter Julia Ioffe seemed to buy into the recent spate of Republican propaganda and was spouting it as gospel–the kind of outright surrender I called out in “Exposing Trump speech for signs of a dictator-led America,” my most recent posting (Jan. 7) on this platform.   

The Jan. 7 post revealed how authoritarians speak in ways that demean institutions and people who dare go up against them. Dictator speech is riddled with grandiose statements devoid of evidence and full of dire “fait accompli”-like predictions designed to create a sense of doom and inevitability–that nothing can be done to thwart their diabolical strong-man aims. The posting suggested ways not to buy in and fall into their traps. To me, this was exactly what Ioffe did.

At issue on “The Beat” was Congressman Jim Jordan’s refusal to honor a subpoena issued by the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and the involvement of Trump, cabinet officials, and others in government like Jordan in planning and carrying out the coup. 

First up was Michael Steele, a former head of the Republican Party and “Beat” regular, and next was Ioffe, a writer at various times for The New Republic, The New Yorker, theAtlantic magazine, and Politico with a special concentration on Russian-American issues. She now writes for Puck News. 

Borrowings from the authoritarian playbook
Ioffe’s tone was dour as she said the work of the committee would soon be rendered meaningless. Her sources were Republicans who were looking forward to a midterm victory of “historical proportions.” And the outcome would essentially end what the select committee has accomplished between July 1, 2021 and for the next 11 months.

Ioffe went on to say Americans “don’t really know about or care” about the investigation. She offered no independent evidence, but referred again only to what her Republican sources were saying. And she volunteered no counterclaims that might challenge the GOP’s version of events.

Following is an account on the Melber/Ioffe back and forth:

Melber began with Michael Steele whose part of the Q and A focused on what difference Jordan’s stonewalling would or not make for the committee,
and him.

Then Melber led into Ioffe with visuals on the so-called “cable cabinet” of Fox prime time hosts who texted Trump before and during the insurrection. Melber asked Ioffe, broadly, what Ioffe made of the Fox involvement.  Ioffe responded by first making a joke, asking Melber, “When are we going to find your text messages?” and then said, vaguely, that “she agreed with Michael,” but then quickly pivoted to a bulleted list of three items intended to provide a framework for her response. These served to drag down the meat of her answer more than if she had delivered a crisp, clear summary of her three points, and so immediately cast an overall, forlorn nature to her remarks.

Plodding start
IOFFE: The answer to that question involves three meta questions that have to do with what this investigation is for.

One, does it have a political purpose–to gain a political edge for the midterms or 2024?

Two, to get consequences for people in the (House) chamber who helped foment the insurrection?

Three, to set down a(n) historical marker and put down a first brick of a historical narrative that gets filled out over time?  I think it’s that.

If it’s for the political one, does it really matter in a country where such a significant part doesn’t really know or care about what the committee is doing? Or if they do know, they’ll explain it away somehow or they believe the January 6 protestors were just defiant in their cause or just peaceful
freedom fighters?

Backbone rejoinder
MELBER:  I see your three meta questions and raise you a fourth. Can this co-equal branch of government calcify the backbones of our democracy and body politic so as to prevent the next coup?
IOFFE: Hmmm…I don’t think so because it (the committee) doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And even if it did, they (sic) have a razor-thin majority that is about to go away in less than a year. Um, in fact, in 11 months. 
Every Republican I’m speaking to in Washington is counting on not just flipping the House but getting a historical majority the likes of which (haven’t been seen) in a generation of two.  And then, what happens to
this investigation?

What does that matter if the voters of this country don’t even punish this party for trying to overturn a free and fair election but, instead, reward them handsomely for it? Um, this investigation kind of feels like a bandaid on a hole in the dike.

MELBER: (ending the segment) I appreciate that.  We’ve gone from idealism (of Steele) to informed skepticism, which is sort of the role of a
journalist, sometimes.

Melber chose not to challenge Ioffe further, perhaps sensitive to her famously uncomfortable 2013 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,” after which Ioffe accused O’Donnell of “mansplaining” and constantly interrupting her.

Not having The Last Word…
Ioffe got into trouble with O’Donnell in their discussion about Russia’s involvement with the asylum arrangements of Edward Snowden, the NSA analyst who as a contractor there in 2013 leaked a trove of classified documents on U.S.-allied global surveillance programs.

O’Donnell believed Russia was an active player in Snowden’s escape and eventual asylum in that country, while Ioffe argued Russia was merely a passive participant in Snowden’s scheme, allowing him to land and stay in Russia out of a concern, in her words, for sending Snowden back to the U.S. to face harsh punishment, like the death penalty, in the U.S. Justice system.

O’DONNELL: You aren’t seriously suggesting that the Russian government didn’t have total control of that (Snowden’s plane being allowed to land at Moscow’s airport)? Or that Putin doesn't have complete power over his (Snowden’s) every breath?  They control that airport. They could have sent him on his way. Russia controls that airport completely.

IOFFE (interrupts):  Not every second…

O’DONNELL: So they could not violate the trope (about the death penalty) that they created.

IOFFE: No, the Kremlin owns them (the media), but we can’t say that Putin whispers in their ear (sic). He (Snowden) would face the death penalty in
the U.S…

O’DONNELL: So you’re saying that, within the shape of Russia’s own propaganda, the propaganda myth they created, that Putin chose to create…

IOFFE: (Interrupting) I don’t think Putin is the one creating that. Putin doesn’t sit there, you know, and write the scripts for the news anchors.  Putin sends a certain signal, that the system then interprets, as it does.  Just like Obama doesn’t control everything in the U.S., Putin doesn’t control everything
in Russia.

O'DONNELL: (clearly exasperated) Very different….Putin does indeed control news anchors. 

IOFFE:  Does he? Have you ever reported from Russia? No, the Kremlin controls….

O'DONNELL: (raises hands to head)  No, the Kremlin owns them, owns
them, Julia. We’re getting absurd, now….(Cuts the interview short)

Forced apology
In October 2019, Ioffe got into trouble on CNN when, appearing as a panelist on Jake Tapper’s Sunday program “The Lead,” Ioffe claimed Trump had been responsible for “more anti-semitic incidents than ISIS.” 

In light of Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, tiffs about the degree of Trump’s anti-semiticism seem almost quaint by today’s standards, given what Trump would do to harm not just Jewish citizens, but all Americans by triggering a coup against the United States.  

Two panelists, one a Republican strategist and another a moderate, lobbied Tapper during the break for an apology.  Ioffe complied, citing emotional stress for being Jewish and suffering anti-semitic threats that had grown under Trump.

Fired for the f word
And then there was Politico’s firing Ioffe in December 2016 just before the start of Trump’s presidency. Following the November election Trump announced he was hiring his daughter Ivanka as a top adviser and, rumor had it, would offer the entire east wing (traditionally reserved for the First Lady’s staff) as her office space. Ioffe Tweeted:

            “Either Trump is f***ing his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws. 
            Which is worse?”

Perhaps Ioffe should have thought better of using the F word in a Tweet, especially having just started a new, high-profile job as a Washington journalist. But the incidents illustrate a recurring pattern: Ioffe sometimes playing a bit too fast and loose with the facts and not consistently living up to a journalist’s responsibilities–for seriousness, scholarship (for lack of a better term), and credibility. To me, equating Obama and the free and independent news media in this country with Putin and the state-controlled media in Russia, for example, is especially troubling and makes me wonder where she’s coming from.

Reality, and expectations
To be fair, it’s not like any of us haven’t heard dire election forecasts before from a variety of sources. But the expectation is that they be qualified as Republican beliefs, and early predictions, etc. as a signal to their audience to take them for what they’re worth and not as gospel, just yet.  After all, we’re 10 months away, and circumstances can change and things happen.  Just ask Presidents Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Jeb Bush if expectations are not capable of changing within the course of a year.

The other thing that bothers me is Ioffe’s bleak assessment of the work of the Jan. 6 committee as unpopular, not of interest, and likely to fall down into the black hole of history. And that assessment appears to be flat out wrong based on data that Ioffe failed to mention in her dispiriting appearance on “The Beat.”

According to Ioffe’s former employer, Politico, the committee’s work is popular across the political spectrum, although more so with Democrats and Independents. A  Jan. 2, 2022 Politico report based on polling done in concert with Morning Consult said that, although House Republicans, the source of Ioffe’s prophecies of despair, overwhelmingly opposed the select committee, GOP voters are more supportive than are their Congressional representatives of the committee's work:

According to the Politico-Morning Consult poll 40 percent of Republicans said they either strongly support or somewhat support the Jan. 6 select committee. Another 44 percent said they oppose the committee to some degree while the remaining 16 percent said they had no opinion on it.

Among Democrats, 82 percent said they supported the committee, 12 percent said the opposed it and 6 percent had no opinion. A majority of independents also said they supported the Jan. 6 panel, with 58 percent supporting and 27 percent opposing the commission.

Ioffe also implied that the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s, and by extension, the GOP’S role, in fomenting it was fading from American concern and consciousness, which would also help Republicans. But the Politico/Morning Consult research says the Jan. 6 insurrection is still very much top-of-mind for the vast majority of voters.

“A solid majority of all voters — 62 percent — characterized those who stormed the Capitol as supporters of then-President Donald Trump, although only 43 percent of Republican-identified voters expressed that belief.”

A recent ABC News say its recent polling places blame squarely on Trump’s shoulders—not Antifa or any other group, as Fox pundits have posited.
”Overall, in this poll, 58% of Americans think Trump bears a ‘great deal’ or a ‘good amount’ of responsibility for the events, unchanged from an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted on Jan. 13, 2021, in which 57% of Americans said he was responsible.

The reason why the especially high and ongoing Democratic and Independent interest in the insurrection and the committee matters in the midterms is that Democrats are by far the largest political party in the U.S. and Independents come in a close third to Republicans, translating into a larger pool of potential voters than the GOP can muster on its own.

Rosy GOP prognostications must be tempered by the reality that Republicans enjoy a smaller share of the electorate, barely ranking in the number 2 spot.

Us v. them
According to the highly regarded Cook Partisan Voting Index of December 2020, 49 million registered voters identified themselves as Democrats.  Republicans came in a distant second with 36 million, barely surpassing Independents with their 35 million registered voters.  

Democrats’ edge is what’s making the GOP increasingly terrified about future prospects, which functions as the impetus for 20 primarily red state legislatures either having passed or in the process of passing laws to suppress and nullify (decide for themselves who’s the winner) all aspects of the voting process, thus essentially ending American democracy.

Additionally, if GOP House and Senate members are relying on voters to forget about the insurrection by the time of the November elections (and the early voting that begins weeks to months earlier) the committee plans to hold televised prime-time sessions where key players testify in dramatic and disgusting detail about the extent of Trump’s involvement in planning, carrying out, and lying about who won the election along with the other Republican officials who abetted him.  Such hearings can be tremendously impactful to voter decisions, as the Watergate and Iron-Contra hearings were, despite their likely being ignored by Fox News and its ilk.

But Ioffe conveniently failed to mention any of these exigencies–the bare minimum of which even the lamest of journalists should be prepared to include in their on-air appearances as knowledgeable sources.

Julia downer
My last criticism concerns the dour, detached mien Ioffe brings to her reporting–one that suggests she’s not particularly enamored with of or even respectful of America, her adopted country where she earned a college education at Princeton and succeeded in making a name for herself, although one that seems vulnerable to self-inflicted wounds.

In a Jan. 19, 2017 article written in theAtlantic magazine, Ioffe describes coming to this country with her family as a 7-year-old girl from her native Russia where Jews suffered a litany of persecutions in employment, education, and civic life. It’s a heartbreaking story with very few victories until the end when she talks about her parents’ ultimately successful struggle to re-educate themselves, as her mother did to become a doctor here, or become a valued employee as her father worked at his government computer job and seemed to not find ready recognition for his contributions or his patriotism, as Ioffe describes:

These people do not see that, if maybe I am a worthless journalist, my father’s work building databases for the Social Security Administration makes sure they get their very non-abstract checks on time, that he has made going to disability court easier and smoother, that he has helped the U.S. government find deadbeat dads and make them provide for their kids, and that, for him, paying his taxes is a moment of civic pride.

As I read on, I also sensed resentment over how earlier immigrants to America had it easier than her family, who arrived in an age when their immigrant status stood out more, and from a country that is, to many, the biggest enemy of the U.S.  I didn’t get the sense Ioffe buys into the “romance of democracy,” as former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson described America’s special appeal, until Trump, here and around the world.

Bleak House
For Ioffe, America has been an imperfect obstacle to be overcome, not a haven or refuge, as this gloomy passage from her Jan. 29, 2017 biography story in theAtlantic suggests as she compares her immigrant experiences to
earlier ones.

“Most were not vetted, not extremely, not at all. But they do not see it, because their family lore is an abstraction too, and these ancestors, who were once tangible humans, have become their own abstractions of patriotism that makes everyone different an abstraction, because abstractions are not human, and cannot suffer. But abstractions have a way of coalescing into symbols, into piles of shoes and toddlers dead on the beach, symbols that will haunt your good name, no matter how much you rant in self-righteous justification. They will hang over you, for everyone to see, finally.

Ioffe’s bleak assessments of America’s past, present, and future may be rooted in the darkness of her own arrival, and all the disappointment that seemed to go with it as witnessed in a young Russian girl’s eyes. Maybe Republican strong man assurances offer a strangely familiar and reassuring brand of political attachment, who knows? 

At least, do this
Nevertheless, The Resistant Grandmother believes that, as a journalist, Ioffe should report the facts from a variety of sources–not just GOPers salivating at the thought of taking over the government they don’t deserve. And at least be fair, if being on Team U.S.A. is too big a stretch.