Citations Needed Ep 229: Sociopathic 'You Got To Hand it To 'Em' Punditry and the Rise of Politics as Sport
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Oct 1, 2025 Jack Mirkinson, a senior editor at The Nation and co-founder of Discourse Blog, tackles the trend of political punditry reducing serious issues to a game-like analysis. They explore how praising tactical skills, like those of Robert E. Lee, sanitizes harmful legacies while framing politicians like Ron DeSantis as visionaries despite their controversial actions. The conversation dives into the moral consequences of treating politics as sport, emphasizing the privilege that allows pundits to ignore real-world impacts, and critiques the euphemisms that sterilize violence in media.
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Politics Treated As A Sporting Event
- Elite punditry often treats politics like sport, celebrating 'winners' while ignoring moral stakes.
- That framing neutralizes responsibility and promotes spectator detachment from real human harms.
Competence Praised To Sanitize Harm
- Praising competence without moral context becomes a backdoor normative endorsement.
- Language like "you've got to hand it to him" sanitizes cruelty by celebrating 'competency' and 'winning.'
Lee's Military Praise Masked Slavery
- The New York Times historically lauded Robert E. Lee's military skill while downplaying his defense of slavery.
- W.E.B. Du Bois directly challenged that sanitized narrative in 1928, emphasizing Lee fought to perpetuate slavery.