It looks like much of the politicization of the new Cochrane report comes from "City-Journal"(footnote 1), which is the mass-media arm of the Manhattan Institute. However, the author of the Cochrane report seems to be fully supportive of this aggressive politicizing of his work (2).

I haven't given much attention to the Manhattan Institute before, so I wanted to look into them. A quick look at the CityJournal Twitter feed showed them to be strident partisans. The City Journal essay (1) is nothing more than factionalist self-congratulation (i.e. not reporting, not even a coherent argument). The Manhattan Institute itself is clearly meant as a conservative propaganda machine, though they frequently take the stance of "we are just seeking the truth".

The Manhattan Institute is the type of right-wing propaganda that appeals to intellectuals who may be turned off by the crudeness of Fox News. They 'support' their assertions with mountains of (cherry picked) data. Some people think it's just a giant trolling operation aimed at centrist and left-leaning intellectuals -- wasting their time responding to the massive piles of jibberish, out of respect for their conservative colleagues who think this stuff is important.

The propagandistic mission of the Manhattan Institute is on full display in their survey report about "Critical Social Justice" in schools (3). Leaving aside the scientific problems with the analysis, it's pretty clear that their goal is to figure out how to promote conservative ideas in public schools and raise the next generation of Republican voters. Yet through this, they give lip service to the idea that they are trying to prevent indoctrination in the schools. As if the way you prevent indoctrination is to purge opposing ideas. The seem to have objection to the capitalist framing that is pervasive throughout state-run schools.

Finally, I'll note that the MI's 'about' page highlights an endorsement from the Claremont Institute, placing MI squarely in the same network as the CI (4). They don't seem bothered by the CI's firm support for John Eastman (5), who is a Senior Fellow at the CI and publicly argues for establishing tyranny in the USA (via revoking citizenship for the children of immigrants like Kamala Harris (6), and advising Trump to try to organize a coup while Eastman provided legal propaganda to justify it (7)).

1.https://www.city-journal.org/new-cochrane-study-on-masks-and-covid
2. https://maryannedemasi.substack.com/p/exclusive-lead-author-of-new-cochrane
3. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/school-choice-not-enough-impact-of-critical-social-justice-ideology-in-american-education
4. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/about
5. https://www.claremont.org/scholar-bio/john-c-eastman/
6. https://www.newsweek.com/some-questions-kamala-harris-about-eligibility-opinion-1524483
7. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/22/politics/trump-pence-election-memo-fact-check/index.html

#ManhattanInstitute #propaganda #conservative #RightWing #education #COVID #masking #Cochrane #ClaremontInstitute #JohnEastman #antifa #USA #GOP #Trump

#conservativeplaybook #defunddiversityandequityefforts #ManhattanInstitute

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