ethics

Judicial Watch and the techniques of deception

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics Judicial Watch psychology on by

I’ve written before on deceptive, demanding mailings and more of the same from Judicial Watch, an anti-immigrant organization. But they were mild compared to a truly evil one I received yesterday, painting Donald Trump as the innocent victim of the “deep state.” Evil isn’t news, but I’d like to use it to get some insight into just how it operates. To fight the enemies of American liberties, you have to know how they think.

The creator of the mailing, it says, is Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch. The central claim is that a list of prominent people, including three past presidents, “all knew that President Trump was innocent, but they smeared and spied on him anyway. It was worse than Watergate … far worse. President Trump was and is a Deep State crime victim, and all the perpetrators of this crime must be held accountable!” (Ellipses and emphasis in these quotations are from the original, unless otherwise indicated.)

The obvious question is, what is Trump innocent of? He has been accused of many things, often with strong evidence, sometimes with very little. However, the letter doesn’t name any charge against him. It gives some clues: “And as far as James Comey is concerned, the evidence is overwhelming that he violated the law, debased his high office and further corrupted the Federal Bureau of Investigation by deploying resources and personnel to pursue the leftist agenda of the ‘permanent government’ in Washington, DC.”

This refers to the 2017 FBI investigation of alleged Russian influence in the 2016 election. Comey was the head of the FBI at the time, before being fired by Trump later that year. He testified to Congress in 2020 about the investigation and was indicted in 2025 on claims of lying and obstruction. He testified that he didn’t authorize public disclosure of related information, although information had been leaked without his approval. The investigation concluded in 2019 and reported that while Russian operatives tried to support Trump’s campaign, it could not say that the Trump campaign knowingly helped the effort. It noted that a sitting president couldn’t be indicted anyway.

It’s possible Comey authorized the leak and then denied it, but the investigation didn’t make any accusations against Trump. The charges against Comey were dismissed.

Let’s look at how Judicial Watch covered this. A key technique was vagueness; it counted on readers not to remember these events in detail. (I had to do a lot of searches to get all that information.) It didn’t say what Comey was indicted for, nor that the charges were dismissed. Very likely it was counting on public confusion over the more recent and even more absurd indictment of Comey for taking a picture of seashells. It aims to make the reader think that Comey used the investigation to bring baseless accusations against Trump.

But the target of the mailing isn’t just Comey. It asks the recipients to “sign the enclosed citizen petition to the U.S. Attorney General demanding immediate investigations into all government officials implicated in the attempted ‘coup’ against President Donald Trump and our constitutional republic.” The names mentioned include Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and Peter Strzok. It claims that “I’m sure their names ring a bell with you.” They don’t with me, that’s for sure. Back to the research… Strzok got a $1.2 million settlement and Page $800,000 from the DoJ for violating their privacy rights. McCabe also received a settlement for being improperly fired as FBI deputy director.

Why would Judicial Watch hope the readers would remember that the Trump administration had to pay out for what it did? It’s counting on people feeling embarrassed that they don’t remember. That’s really the mailing’s basic technique: saying next to nothing and pushing the reader to invent details out of fear of feeling ignorant.

The mailing calls for investigation of “Deep State officials” for “baseless smear campaigns.” If these alleged campaigns are legally actionable, they must consist of intentionally false statements. No specific falsehoods, alleged or real, are cited. In fact, no specific accusations against Trump are cited!

It’s mentioned that government “departments and offices … even raided his [Trump’s] Mar-a-Logo home!” What isn’t mentioned is that he was illegally holding highly sensitive classified government documents after leaving office and was accused of concealing them to frustrate the investigation. Again, it’s counting on readers not to remember the details.

To be sure, sloppiness about details is endemic in journalism today. But when it’s this systematic and is part of an emotion-laden call to investigate alleged “crimes” by those who have crossed Trump, it’s hard to call it anything but deliberate deception. When you add in Judicial Watch’s record of dishonesty, it has no claim to the benefit of the doubt.

Most people don’t have the time to look up information. Vagueness avoids the risk of being caught in a straight-out lie. But occasional Freudian slips come through. “It was worse than Watergate … far worse. President Trump was and is a Deep State crime victim.” In the Watergate scandal, President Nixon was caught participating in a criminal scheme and forced to resign, so Judicial Watch seems to be saying that Trump is a greater victim than Nixon. Maybe it’s counting on readers to be vague about Watergate too, or maybe it really is painting Nixon as a victim.

This all leads up to the petition, which is custom-printed with the recipient’s name and address. It calls for “investigations into all past and current government politicians, appointed officials and bureaucrats who are credibly implicated in the well-documented corruption and abuse of power to prevent President Donald Trump from being elected and re-elected President of the United States.” That casts a huge net but maintains deniability with the phrase “credibly implicated.” The only person specifically named is Comey, and there’s a new accusation here; he’s called “a key player in the effort to rig a presidential election and undermine a duly elected president.” Election rigging is a serious accusation, but there’s no other mention of it in the mailing.

Now we come to the mailing’s real purpose. A third of the petition page is a request for an “urgent contribution.” The checkboxes run from $35 to $10,000. The mailing is all about panicking the reader into sending Judicial Watch money. Perhaps the petition is no more significant than the “census” JW has used in the past; it may be just a way to scare recipients into making contributions. It’s also possible that Judicial Watch gets favors from Trump in exchange for supporting his attacks on political enemies.

It isn’t just Judicial Watch or pro-Trump groups that does these things, of course. You can see such things daily on social media from both the left and the right. Any time you get a message with vague claims and emotional language, you need to be careful. If it’s asking for money, be triply cautious.

Flavors of populism

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics philosophy on by

Nailing down populism is difficult. Merriam-Webster says it’s “a political philosophy or movement that represents or is claimed to represent the interests of ordinary people especially against the Establishment.” The idea that “the people” should rule sounds left-wing, but we tend to think of populism as right-wing. It sounds like another way of saying “pro-democracy,” but that doesn’t get to its core.

Cas Mudde’s idea hits the target better. It’s as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite.” The elite isn’t necessarily the party in control of the government. The MAGA movement is populist, even though Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. What it sees as the corrupt elite is the academic institutions, the news media, the entertainment industry, all those who deal with information on a large scale. The “purity” of the people also plays an important role; immigrants and children of immigrants don’t count, at least until they’ve undergone a purification process of many years.

Another form of populism in the US comes from the left. It emphasizes “the people” above all else, stressing the first three words of the Constitution rather than the “inalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence. It sees the elite establishment as one of wealth, often claiming an “oligarchy” runs the country while the president and Congress are just their pawns.

Populism is opposed to liberalism because it takes the Will of the People (or what it claims is their will) as the highest standard. People have no rights that the People can’t legitimately take away. When populists succeed, they establish their own ruling elite, directing the economy, and above all controlling information. It’s called “socialism” or “fascism” depending on which side runs it, but there’s little difference. It’s almost always illiberal because it places the popular will ahead of individual rights. Liberal democracy regards the democratic process as a tool for keeping any single faction from dominating the government and suppressing minorities; populist democracy treats the will of the “pure people” as an end in itself, entitled to stomp on outsiders and minorities.

In principle, populists should yield if they think the majority opposes them. In practice, they think the majority always supports what they want. We’re all inclined to overestimate the number of people who agree with us, because we talk to such people so often. Populist leaders, though, need to shape the popular will to match their own. This means using their power to promote their views and suppress opposing ones. Populists are rarely big on free expression for anyone but themselves.

Today we’re caught in a battle between the left populists and right populists, and the liberal alternative often has a hard time getting heard. This doesn’t bode well if either side ultimately gains full power.

Speech limits on your property

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics SanityProject on by

The First Amendment applies only to governments. You are free to banish people from your property if you don’t like what they say, provided the law otherwise allows it. That doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea, though.

A few years ago, some stores posted announcements that they’d banish customers who expressed racist ideas. This was a bad idea, and it’s rare today. Untrained employees would have to eavesdrop on conversations, and they could easily misunderstand what they overheard. And once you start going down that road, is there any reason to stop with just one idea? Banning people for expressing socialist ideas would make as much (or little) sense. Best not to try to police people’s opinions. People can still be kicked out for being disruptive or harassing people, regardless of what opinions motivate them. It’s bad business to 86 customers for their ideas.

In your home, you have more leeway, but courtesy imposes some limits. If someone expressed ideas I strongly objected to, I might explain why I thought they were wrong, or I might say that I don’t want to have that discussion here. If the visitor persisted, I might have to say, “Drop it or take it outside,” and follow through if necessary. Be careful about debating such people. A well-prepared person with lots of memorized arguments can often out-debate a more reasonable person who doesn’t have a stock of comebacks and citations at hand.

I’d object less strongly to abstract ideas than to proposals for violence. Anyone who advocates direct violence except for defensive purposes will be lucky to get a warning from me. Supporting racial pseudo-science in the abstract would annoy me, but I’d be more polite about it.

On the Internet, I can block, mute, or ignore people who say disgusting things. I make frequent use of this option, though I try to remember that letting them see what I say may lead them to better thinking. My own peace of mind has to come first, though.

A murder cult

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In November, I wrote about people who advocate assaulting people they call Nazis. Bad as they are, they aren’t in the same league as people whose political views include endorsement of murder. This group is on the fringe, but it needs to be strongly repudiated.

A report that caught my attention recently says that “The man who allegedly opened fire at a country club in Nashua, N.H., last fall, killing a restaurant patron and wounding two other people, later confessed to the shooting and told investigators he wanted to kill the rich.” Many people on the left admire Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing insurance executive Brian Thompson in cold blood. Posts on social media express enthusiasm for France’s Reign of Terror, in which about 17,000 people were executed. The Chicago Teachers Union posted on pre-Musk Twitter applauding a death threat in the form of a mock guillotine.

I didn’t see much outright celebration of Charlie Kirk’s death, but the outburst of hatred following his death was far out of proportion to his views and inappropriate to the occasion. Last September, I posted about one aspect of that reaction.

These are people who believe individual human lives have no significance. If they can improve “society” by eliminating some of its members, they’re all for it. In previous generations, people with similar views cheered the killing of millions by Stalin and Mao.

These people have the right to express their views, so long as they aren’t directly threatening people. What they don’t have is the right to be considered anything better than human dirt. Teachers who applaud guillotines should be pariahs in educational communities. Talk show audiences who cheer for Mangione should be kicked out of the studio. People who post to social media advocating a new Reign of Terror should have their accounts suspended. People who believe in human rights in any form should make it clear they have nothing to do with admirers of murder.