Closing Argument

Closing Argument is a Twin Cities News Talk program in which Walter Hudson treats the news as material for a case. A headline arrives, and within minutes it has become a question about rights. That habit is the reason to listen. Rather than reacting to the day and moving on, the show traces a story back to a principle and then defends that principle out loud, clause after clause. The health care debate of spring 2017 shows the method at full stretch. In Hudson's framing, pre-existing conditions are a litmus test for whether the culture is ready to reject socialism. His objection is to a moral premise, that a person's need entitles them to provision, which he calls a violation of what insurance actually is. When Jimmy Kimmel told the story of his newborn son's emergency, Hudson called it moving and heartwarming, then noted that the family would presumably pay the bill before turning to Kimmel's warning about repealing Obamacare. The argument widens from there: people need health care, food and shelter, so the reasoning goes they ought to get them, and the show insists a crucial piece is missing from that chain. Literature and political theory supply the scaffolding. One hour sets Brave New World against 1984, contending that rights are more often surrendered through need, desire and want than through fear. Another lays out passive tyranny: a government entrusted with a monopoly on force that chooses, for political or personal reasons, not to protect the people it exists to protect. That idea grows out of criticism of attorneys general who, the show argues, use the office to advance personal and political agendas instead of enforcing the law. Minnesota stays in view, with a Star Tribune sentencing report, the skyways and the minimum wage on the rundown alongside the Trump tax plan. The press gets its own scrutiny, aimed at journalists who see themselves as the fourth estate speaking truth to power while, in the show's telling, everyone else sees their bias. Interviews widen the frame, as with David Fitzsimmons, chief of staff to Congressman Tom Emmer, and an episode titled 'Interviews with Rep. Emmer Chief of Staff and Michelle Maher'. Titles such as 'Closing Argument 5/2/17 Hr 1' follow a plain date-and-hour format. 'Closing Argument 5/2/17 Hr 2' is a strong first listen, since the need-versus-entitlement chain, the Brave New World argument and the media critique all sit inside it. The delivery is brisk and conversational, dry by default, grave on questions of rights and warm in a 'welcome back, conservatives' greeting. Rhetorical questions pull the listener through each step, and repetition presses hard on whatever contradiction is at stake.