Why the baseball cap controversy actually matters

It seems like just a minor outrage under the circumstances, but it reinforces something very troubling about Trump

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

There is clearly no one around Trump who dares to tell him no

Of all the offenses against civility and decorum committed by Donald Trump in his life and during his presidency, wearing a baseball cap to the Dignified Transfer ceremony Saturday at Dover Air Force Base for six fallen US service members killed in his war against Iran does not rank particularly high. Even when you consider that his choice of headgear was a form of product placement for a item on sale at the Trump Store —

— it’s easy to think of far more egregious violations of the former dignity of the office he holds.

Yet it signaled — or at least reinforced — something I suppose we’re all mostly aware of by now: That there is no one around Trump who can curb his crudest, dumbest instincts; no one to say, “Hey, yeah, boss, you know, this is not a good idea. Let’s rethink.”

Or if there is such a person, he doesn’t listen to him or her.

You don’t wear a baseball cap to a Dignified Transfer ceremony. It’s disrespectful. It’s juvenile. It draws attention away from the fallen soldiers.

“This fool has ABSOLUTELY no sense of dignity or appreciation for the moment,” wrote former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele. “It is called the Dignified Transfer for a reason. Take your damn hat off!!"

Republicans who threw 57 fits when a photograph showed former President Joe Biden checking his watch during such a ceremony, have been conspicuously silent about this (again, admittedly minor) breach of etiquette.

During his first term, Trump appeared at times to be listening to the more reasonable members of his cabinet who dissuaded him from, for example, assassinating Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller and invoking the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests.

Wearing his own gaudy merch to a Dignified Transfer ceremony was a signal that there are no bumpers on Trump’s bowling alley anymore, even for trivial matters of taste and decency where a gentle admonition ought to have done the trick.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

It’s just war, but is it a just war?

Phillip Seeberg —Not to speak on the merits of the current war, but many presidents have watched other countries massacring their own people. Do we act as world police? Or do we let them do what they want? I don’t have the answer, and I’m not president, so I don’t have to have the answer.

Mark K. — Recent history shows that bombing a place to kingdom come ain’t the answer.

Jake H. — I have no problem assuming that Trump is acting out of the worst motivations. But that doesn’t make it the wrong thing to do. What do we actually think about it? It seems like a big deal!

I found this New York Times column by Thomas Friedman (gift link) persuasive:

In the Middle East the opposite of autocracy is not necessarily democracy. Often it is disorder. Because when Middle East dictatorships are decapitated, one of two things happens. They either implode, like Libya did, or they explode, like Syria did.

Also this New York Times column by Bret Stephens (gift link):

There is at least a reasonable chance that a sustained military operation that not only further degrades the regime’s nuclear, missile and military capabilities — a desirable outcome in its own right — but also targets its apparatus of domestic repression could embolden the type of sustained mass protests that could finally bring the regime down.

Joanie Wimmer — Colonialism still infects American thinking. In the 1940s, the oil fields in Iran, then controlled by western corporations, were nationalized by the Iranian government under prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had the support of the Iranian parliament to do so. Mosaddegh was overthrown in a 1953 Iranian coup d’état, which was carried out by the Iranian military under the aegis of the United Kingdom (MI6) and the United States (CIA).

Subsequently, the Iranian government, installed by MI6 and the CIA, centralized power under Shah Mohammad Rezi Pahlavi, and brought foreign oil companies back into the country’s industry through what is called the Consortium Agreement of 1954. The Shah, installed by the U.K. and the U.S. for the benefit of multinational corporations, was a brutal dictator who employed secret police, torture, and executions to stifle political dissent.

Not surprisingly, the people of Iran revolted in 1979, the Islamic fundamentalists came to power, and said things like, “Death to America!”

So we had been, essentially, stealing their wealth after installing a brutally repressive and corrupt regime. We had done that throughout the Middle East. And George W. Bush asked, “Why do they hate us?”

Janet — We somehow think that every country loves democracy (and understands how hard it is to keep it going) and that those who live there will rise up and say, "Gee, thanks, America! We'll be just fine now!"

Zorn — Yep. As noted, great masses of people are content to live under theocratic, authoritarian rule, especially when the laws reinforce their religious notions of right and wrong. Assuming that all people want to live in a Western-style democracy with all its attendant freedoms is often an error.

Is ranked-choice voting the best option in multi-candidate races?

Phillip Seeberg —Three comments on Ranked Choice Voting:

1) Harold Washington would never have been elected president with RCV.

2) People don’t like when it takes a day or two to determine winners in elections. With RCV it could take days for each candidate elimination, stretching the process for weeks. Each recount would require all subsequent layers of the counting to be redone.

3) it’s not just the closeness of the leading candidates that matters, but the closeness of the last place candidates that matters.

Rick Weiland — If ballots are machine readable, I don’t understand why it would take more than four seconds for the rank choice voting process to take place. And even if they were hand processed, it would be quicker than having a runoff election between the top two contenders.

Zorn — I have never understood why it takes so long in the digital age for election returns to come in. I would think 90% of precincts could report within 10 minutes of the final votes being cast. As for the Harold Washington problem, which I have previously identified, yes, that’s a drawback. But so is having candidates elected with narrow pluralities, and so is conducting costly run off elections. No system is perfect for reflecting the overall will of the electorate.

Reader recommendation

Mark K. — For a reprieve from the ongoing insanity, I'll give a green light to the recent Paul McCartney documentary "Man on the Run", currently on Prime Video there is a trailer here:

It covers the decade or so of Sir Paul's career following the breakup of the Beatles and until the death of John Lennon. There is rare behind the scenes footage of his life with Linda on the sheep farm, putting together the various incarnations of Wings, in general trying to figure out a direction in life and an identity after the Beatles. In any case, I really enjoyed it.

What Tribune subscribers are paying, continued

Are you paying the same price that others are paying? Since the newspaper’s pricing practices are both predatory and opaque, I’ve been asking readers to consult their statements or postcards from the Tribune to report what they’re being charged for eight weeks of seven-day a week home delivery:

• $56

• $83.20

• $120

• $210.47

• $231.92

Last week’s price-range report is here.

Meanwhile, reader Robert P. reported paying $91 for 13 weeks of digital access plus Sunday home delivery. That’s the plan I’m on, and I pay just $29 for it (talked them down from $41.47 when they tried to jack up the price on me).

And reader Tom J. reported getting an email from the Tribune doubling the price of his digital-only subscription in exchange for “unlimited ad-free access to the website, e-edition and mobile apps,” and framing this as a reward for being a “loyal reader.”

Jon Guiney — I enjoy your take on many topics, but I wish your obsession with Tribune subscription pricing would stop. I hung on forever to my subscription until the pricing game just got to be too convoluted, time consuming and ridiculous. The day finally came when I realized that it was a dying medium with nothing to offer but summaries of what I got online yesterday. It was only made worse by the Alden vultures who kept picking away at the carcass, so I cut the cord. To use a hackneyed phrase, please put a fork in it. It’s done.

Zorn — I disagree that the daily newspaper is a dying medium — though perhaps the print product isn’t long for this world. Tribune reporters, editors and photographers provide good coverage of issues that only a news organization of its size can offer, and it’s vital that the institution, along with the Sun-Times and other legacy news operations, continue. But Alden’s predatory, exploitive approach to pricing is not only wrong, but also counterproductive. It’s a big mistake to treat your most loyal customers like marks. Charge similarly situated long-term subscribers the same fair price, don’t try to ding them obscene amounts of money for “premium” issues they haven’t asked for and stop frustrating your customers by showing you don’t respect them. How’s that for a business model?

Jake H. — Home delivery newspaper subscriptions are sticky, especially for, I’m assuming, the largely older folks that have long maintained one out of habit and who don’t love the (notably crappy) online experience. The business model, to be blunt, is to steal hundreds and thousands from little old ladies. There’s a special place in hell, if not prison, for such people. They are worse than the worst used car dealers. If I perceive myself to be in an adversarial relationship with a seller, it prompts me to act like an adversary.

They are absolute crooks, and I think that all the fine and good people who still work there and still heroically make the skeletal product as good as it remains — Editorial Board editor Chris Jones, say — should raise a high, holy stink about it on the conviction that they don’t want to be associated with thieves and conmen. I don’t know. One feels impotent. One wants to support local journalism, but when the business end is so disgusting, so disdainful and abusive of customers, it’s really, really hard.

Zorn — It would be very hard for any employee to make a public stink about the paper’s business practices unless they had union protections (which editors don’t have).

Unpopular opinions?

WGN’s nightly newscast is now using a single-anchor format instead of an anchor team, and, as a viewer, I’m there for it. I was sorry to see co-anchor Ray Cortopassi lose his job in the recent round of cutbacks at the station — he was solid and I hate to see good people lose their livelihoods during corporate belt-tightening — but Micah Materre now helms the broadcast on her own without any loss of quality or content.

News anchor teams have long felt phony and unnecessary. Enthusiasts of the format can point to some successful pairings — among them Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC’s network newscast from 1956 to 1970; Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson on WBBM-Ch. 2 off and on from 1973 to 2013; Carol Marin and Ron Magers at WMAQ-Ch. 5 from 1985-1997 — and I have no doubt that the anchor team concept opened the door for female and minority anchors.

The “trusted male voice” exemplified for my generation by Walter Cronkite was an entrenched tradition. It wasn’t until 1976, when Barbara Walters teamed with Harry Reasoner on ABC’s evening newscast, that a big-three network featured a woman as co-anchor. And it wasn’t until 2006, when Katie Couric began a four-and-a-half year run helming the CBS evening newscast, that a solo woman sat daily in a network’s nightly anchor chair.

Similarly, it wasn’t until 1978, when Max Robinson was teamed with Peter Jennings and Frank Reynolds for a tri-anchor experiment, that a Black person was a regular network anchor on the evening news. And it wasn’t until 2015, when Lester Holt became the permanent solo anchor at NBC, that a Black person held such a position.

You’ll notice that, today, the networks’ nightly newscasts are all solo anchored, which keeps the focus on the news itself and not the chemistry between two people doing the exact same job side by side. My preference for solo anchors is limited to straight news broadcasts and doesn’t apply to opinion-based news-talk programs where various perspectives are useful.

But unless the audience research is off base, some of you — many? most? — are more comfortable with two anchors alternating introducing stories than you are with a solo anchor.

But you tell me …

Last week’s result

499 votes

Some of you wrote to suggest that instead the city should choose one of the many major numbered streets on the South Side — 59th, 63rd, 67th, 73rd and so on — and name one of them for Jesse Jackson. Yes, there is already a Jackson Boulevard running through the Loop, named for the problematic 7th US president. But we could adapt. This is shown by the fact that Chicago has a Wells Street — named for William Wells, the U.S. Army captain who was killed in the Battle of Fort Dearborn in 1812 — and Ida B. Wells Drive — named for the pioneering civil rights leader and journalist — and it doesn’t seem to be a problem even though the two Wellses actually intersect.

Officially renaming streets is often unpopular, though. It requires all business owners and residents along the way to change their addresses on stationery, business cards, return labels and other forms, and the new name can invite confusion. In the digital age however, when most business is done electronically and websites can be updated easily, it seems like it would be less of a problem.

Skeptic — I have never been a fan of Jesse Jackson, but if they are going to name something after him, I like Jackson Park so we can just keep calling it that. They should have honored Ida B Wells by declaring that the existing Wells Street was now in her honor. When I am giving directions, I don’t have time to say a first and last name of the person it is named after, let alone a middle initial.

Zorn — Who gives directions anymore?

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. The solution at the bottom of the newsletter includes a link to a related, explanatory news story.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

Thanks to reader Jeff Couch for submitting some of these nominees

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

Thanks to paid subscribers for supporting the Picayune Sentinel. To help this publication grow, please consider spreading the word to friends, family, associates, neighbors and agreeable strangers.

Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

KHAMENEI