John Dickerson

John Dickerson is co-anchor of "CBS Evening News" and anchor of "CBS Evening News Plus." He is also a Contributing Writer to The Atlantic and is co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest.

  • 04/08/2023: Chat GPT and checking yourself

    When your words don’t land as you intend it can be because a) you were unclear b) the people listening misunderstood your point or c) some members of the audience are willfully misunderstanding what you say.

    I was recently asked about the Tennessee lawmakers kicked out of the body.

    So I asked Chat GPT to interpret my response:

    QUESTION:

    What conclusions should one draw from this: “JOHN DICKERSON: Well, politics needs some cartilage. It needs some give. It can’t be totally brittle. So when you have a situation in here where, okay, Republican lawmakers thought these Democrats broke decorum, stepped out of line, there are a series of steps to punish. But when you go to the maximalist, when you kick them out, that’s brittle. There’s no give. When there’s no give, the only way the other side gets to respond is by punching back. And so when you lose those interim steps, all you get is response and response and response. And that is not only — you know where that leads. Right? That leads to violence. And it takes us back to this previous conversation which is the reason this question of democracy is so important. And the reason faith in the judicial system is so important is we’re at a moment where – more on the conservative side (*)– but on both sides you have people who think the system isn’t working, we’ve got to effect change outside of the system through violence. And when you have a system like that, you have no system at all. If people take things into their own hands. So, if it’s always brittle, people think: “Well, I can’t get a result from inside the system, so I must go around it.” And that’s what essentially January 6th is.”
    ANSWER:

    The conclusion that one can draw from this statement is that in politics, there needs to be flexibility, or “cartilage,” in order for the system to function effectively. When political processes become overly rigid or “brittle,” where there is no room for compromise or intermediate steps, it can lead to escalation and a breakdown of the system. This can result in a cycle of retaliation and response, which may ultimately lead to violence or other extreme measures.

    Furthermore, the statement suggests that when people lose faith in the political system and believe that it is not working, they may resort to seeking change outside of the established system, including through violent means. This is dangerous for democracy and the functioning of a society, as it undermines the rule of law and can lead to chaos and instability.

    The statement highlights the importance of maintaining faith in the judicial system and the need for a functional and flexible political process that allows for differences to be addressed and resolved through peaceful and lawful means. It underscores the significance of upholding democratic principles and finding ways to address grievances and effect change within the established system to prevent resorting to violence or circumventing the democratic process.

    QUESTION:
    Would it be fair to say that the person who said this is calling for violence?
    ANSWER:

    No, based on the provided statement, it would not be fair to say that the person who said this is calling for violence. The statement is describing how a brittle political system, where there is no flexibility and a breakdown of established processes, can lead to a cycle of retaliation and response that may ultimately result in violence. The speaker is highlighting the risks and negative consequences of such a breakdown in the political system, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining faith in the judicial system and finding ways to address grievances through peaceful and lawful means.

    The statement is not advocating for or endorsing violence as a solution to political problems, but rather warning against the dangers of a system that lacks flexibility and leads to people seeking change outside of established democratic processes. The speaker is emphasizing the importance of upholding democratic principles and finding ways to address grievances and effect change within the established system to prevent resorting to violence or circumventing the democratic process.

    *This was sloppy. I didn’t mean “conservative,” I meant far-right. Per this CSIS study: https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domestic-terrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest. Conservatism, too often is associated with the right and the ideology of parts of the right is not conservative in any particular way. I try awfully hard not to conflate the two, but I did it in this case.

     

    • More Notions

  • 03/14/2023: T.R. Barista

    Another important contribution to history: presidents as wrestlers. Or, in Teddy Roosevelt’s case, a Brooklyn barista.

  • 03/14/2023: Essay for our 3/13/23 Show

    How it started: How it wound up: View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Prime Time with John Dickerson (@dickersonprimetime)

  • 03/14/2023: Tricky balance for presidents in a bank panic

    Usually, I’d just post this to the Twitter thread connecting public events to the book The Hardest Job in the World, but this passage is too big:

  • 03/07/2023: Quiet Hired

    Quiet hired seems like a good new term for an old thing. That’s distinct from fad expressions to name things that don’t exist or that have existed forever but aren’t illuminated by the new phrase. A wave of the Quiet Hired might lead to a Quiet Riot.

  • 03/07/2023: Getting off your Phone is just the first step

    Thank you to The Dispatch for the link to this article by Rhiannon Williams in MIT Review: “The problem isn’t necessarily the amount of time you’re spending scrolling on the phone as much as what you’re looking at.” The piece touches on something I wrote about in this piece for The Atlantic, which is about […]

  • 03/04/2023: Happy Birthday Time Magazine

    Time magazine celebrated its 100th birthday on March 3rd. We’re coming up on the 30th anniversary of my first professional byline on March 22, 1993. Tanks to Joelle Attinger, John Stacks, Sam Gwynne, Jonathan Beaty and Jill Smolowe for that first shot: It was not for a few months that I’d get a top byline […]

  • 03/04/2023: The Calvin Coolidge Colonic

  • 03/03/2023: Runaway Presidency

    When you are president, things can get out of hand: This is from Jimmy Carter’s White House diary. It demonstrates something about Carter but also the benefit of a presidential retreat where a president can have a minor mishap like this and it won’t get blown out of proportion by the press. Think it wouldn’t? […]

  • 03/02/2023: AI Rendering of Presidents with Mullets

    This Twitter thread of presidents with mullets is hit or miss, but reminds that LBJ essentially grew a mullet at the end of his life: It kinda came to that: https://t.co/qoZwjxBF4i pic.twitter.com/vRCsu57Zgz — John Dickerson (@jdickerson) March 2, 2023  

  • 03/02/2023: The Most Rarefied Presidential List

    The ranking of presidents provides hours of enjoyment for professionals and hobbyists alike. This ranking is perhaps the greatest of all: “…soon, remains of George Washington, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Dwight D. Eisenhower will join the DNA and cremated remains of many of the people who worked on Star Trek and be blasted into […]