Recency bias in combination with ignorance

nyt opinion have a very normal and diverse one today. pic.twitter.com/Bw1XsbFrru

— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) October 29, 2020

A fractured howl of rage.  But his point is well taken.  Click to follow the thread.

The past four years have been one sustained experience of media recency bias  on a massive scale.  This example from the New York Times is merely one of many.  Recency Bias:

Recency bias is a cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones. A memory bias, recency bias gives "greater importance to the most recent event", such as the final lawyer's closing argument a jury hears before being dismissed to deliberate.

The media's is a very specific form of recency bias.  They fixate on some recent event and declare it to be worse than all precedent.  Ultimate Recency Bias, perhaps.

It is quite purposeful.  It is almost always directly or indirectly about Trump and always in the service of their idée fixe that he is the worst president to have ever served.  History will eventually pass a judgment on Trump as it does every president, deflating or recasting as necessary.  There are some historical firsts with Trump but few.  Almost everything he has done has numerous precedents.  

The New York Times' 1619 project, an alternate history project which rewrites American history in Critical Race Theory terms, is an example.  Because the New York Times repeatedly claims, "without evidence" as they like to say, that Trump is the most racist president ever, they sponsored the 1619 Project fiction writing in order to show just how outrageous that made Trump.

All nonsense of course, with scarcely a redeeming insight which even the most terrible claims or philosophies usually have.  

Anyone with the most basic knowledge of history can automatically discount the baseless claims of the media, so prone to recency bias and that is what we see with Beckett Adams' outburst. 

He is not wrong.

Think of some of the frequent claims made by the media in one form or another against Trump.

Most racist president ever - Really?  More racist than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant?  Slaveholders all.  More racist than Lyndon Johnson?  More racist than every Southern political leader from 1870-1970 era of KKK, lynching, Jim Crow, etc?  Woodrow Wilson anyone?  James Buchanan, anyone?  Democrats all, as an aside.

Most ignorant president ever - Really?  Including Andrew Johnson who never attended school, did not learn to read till taught by his wife, one of the most resolute presidents in opposition to federally guaranteed rights for black Americans and widely considered to a leading candidate as worst president ever?  

Most xenophobic president ever - Really?  More xenophobic than every president who enforced the Chinese Exclusion Act from 1875 to 1943?  More xenophobic than Franklin Roosevelt and the Japanese Internment Camps?  

Worst president ever - See Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan.  Woodrow Wilson is also a frequent candidate, not for his venality but for his narrow minded bigotry and frequent failures.

Most corrupt president ever - James Buchanan's administration was notable for its corruption as was Ulysses S. Grant.  Lyndon Johnson is also probably in the running, though perhaps more for electoral corruption than financial corruption.  Bill Clinton's Whitewater controversy?  Bill Clinton's pardoning of Marc Rich?  

Most scandalous president ever - Andrew Jackson's bigamy?  Ulysses S. Grant's Whiskey Ring?  Grover Cleveland's illegitimate son?  Richard Nixon's Watergate?  Bill Clinton's Lincoln Bedroom scandal?  

Most divisive president ever - Richard Nixon, Barack Obama, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, John Adams, John Tyler, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Pierce, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln are all candidates.  For slander and dirty tricks, you'd have to go with Adams, Jefferson, Nixon or Obama.   For personal divisiveness, probably Jackson, Johnson and Lincoln.  For incapacity to knit up national divisions, probably Tyler, Pierce, Polk, Buchanan.  

Most incompetent foreign relations president ever - Well, virtually every president involved in starting or escalating foreign wars would be on this list.   Indeed, one of Trump's distinctive accomplishments has been to produce more peace treaties (4) and reduce military action (3) than he has started wars (0).  In terms of relationships with allies, among the worst have been Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Lindon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy.

Most sexually scandalous president ever - In the recent past we have Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky involving sexual escapades in the White House itself but not ignoring multiple affairs and allegations of rape.  Then there is John Kennedy's well documented record of affairs in the White House as well as sexual assault allegations.  In the pantheon of shame should also be considered Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Dwight Eisenhower, Thomas Jefferson, Grover Cleveland, 

The point is not to argue relative merits, prove one president better than another or justify Trump's actions.

Some of the presidents mentioned among worsts had extraordinary offsetting accomplishments for which they are held in high esteem.

The point is that even if all claims against Trump were actually true, they usually pale into insignificance against past presidents.  Presidents of whom pundit accusers seem completely ignorant, owing to a profound recency bias.  Most accusations against Trump (or any current president) being the worst whatever president ever are simply political attacks, ungrounded in history.