Political analyst Amy Walter at Cook Political Report posted last month on social media, “If this election is about policy like inflation/immigration, Trump wins. If it is about Trump, well, there’s the opening for Harris.” With respect, this is a bonkers statement.
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It's not just the second half of this statement that is bonkers. The first half is as well. It's not only bonkers but an admission of systemic failure on the part of our news media.
Inflation cannot possibly be a winning issue for Trump unless you believe what Trump says about inflation, which you can do only if the news media have utterly failed to explain what inflation is, what causes it, and what actual policies might work against it. If all that you know about inflation is that a "strong" President can fix it just by glaring at it in a very "manly" way, you might believe that this is a "winning issue" for Trump.
Immigration cannot possibly be a winning issue for Trump unless you believe what Trump says about immigrants, which you can do only if the news media have utterly failed to explain who immigrants are and what effect they have on our economy, culture, and eventually politics, which is OVERWHELMINGLY positive. If all that you know about immigrants is that they are "vermin" who are coming to rape our daughters and inject us all with fentanyl, you might believe that this is a "winning issue" for Trump.
Honestly, when I hear somebody in the news media claim that immigration is a "winning issue" for Trump, I wonder whether they would have claimed that the "Jewish problem" was a "winning issue" for Adolf Hitler.
These are "winning issues" for Trump because the news media have failed to inform people and have preferred to repeat Trump's lies because they are "entertaining" and probably in line with what the oligarchs who rule our economy and increasingly dominate our critically weak democracy WANT us to believe. These are "winning issues" for Trump because our news media allow lies to "win" against facts pretty much twenty-four seven.
When reporters insist on asking VP Harris about PAB's latest comments, I wish she would politely respond by explaining to them that her Black job is Vice President of the US, and she is running to be President. Her Black job is not explaining PAB's gibber ranting to anyone. She can emphasize PAB's disgusting racism, and misogyny, while also calling his nonsense statements what they are. Then welcome any questions they might have about how the Democratic party has a platform to help make the lives of all Americans better.
The media is complicit,all of this is intentional. The conservative billionaires that own every news channel are forcing all of their subordinates to pretend he is a normal candidate. The utter failure of the NYTimes which I used to respect to report on him accurately hurts the most, but its clear all mainstream journalism has been corrupted by capitalists so thoroughly that you shouldn't listen to any of it anymore. Get your newsfrom independents and international orgs like the BBC. Journalism is broken in America and will likely never change for the better.
If Trump really was The Joker, we’d be in a lot more trouble. Instead, he’s a running joke while the minions behind his charade are the real Master Cylinders.
It seems to me that when he interacts with the press he has a power over them (except black women) and they become deferential and weak. I think it’s a bully fear thing but I also think about a cult leader in the 1920’s in Canada named Brother XII. He was into the occult. Since he was a grifter, eventually some of his followers took him to court and mayhem ensued. A witness got ill and fell to the ground. The prosecutor was overcome by something and couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say. Then the judge couldn’t speak and could only bark like a dog. This really happened, look it up. The charges had to be dropped. He did have psychic abilities and it seems he used some kind of mind control with his stare.
I wonder if 45 has an innate ability to control people that may work something like that. I don’t think it works if you aren’t afraid of him. That’s the trick. Black women have dealt with assholes like him for hundreds of years so they know him better than he knows himself and the Jedi mind tricks don’t work on them.
I still say he rubbed a tacky gold painted lamp in Trump Tower one day and a Genie popped out and granted him 1 wish... to never be held accountable for his actions.
So he promptly had the genie deported as an undocumented immigrant.
I’m just mystified as to why there is so much deference given to Trump by the mainstream media.
The excuse that’s always given is that he tells too many lies to fact check or that he has too many scandals to keep up with. It’s best just to cover him uncritically and let the people decide for themselves.
It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where the doctor tells Burns he has every disease but they’re all trying to get through the door at the same time. Burns then takes this to mean he’s indestructible.
Finally realized that this is no longer about “horse race”
Print media and cable news is dying and their only lifeline (in their opinions) is the cultish fealty of MAGA supporters. They are actively courting them and avoiding anything that could be perceived as a slight lest they be “Bud lighted” out of their bottom line.
Why they don’t understand is that once they lose their reputation that people aren’t coming back. I gave up my NYT subscription this year and I was a subscriber for decades. I had them deliver the paper daily in OHIO! That’s how much their quality of news meant to me. Now I will likely never go back. And once Trump is gone I’m pretty sure MAGA is gone quickly soon after and these media brands are going to be left with nothing.
MSNBC is the one I understand the least because they were actually doing very well just playing things straight and yet even they are playing the “let’s see if we can just get a little bit pregnant” game.
“Treating Trump like a normal candidate requires constantly forgetting the truth about him, which he doesn’t bother hiding.” This. They refuse to acknowledge that the would-be emperor has no clothes.
The media MUST HAVE their horse race, presented in what they choose to think is an old-school “unbiased” way, and they will pursue the trope forever, even if one of the horses is clearly berserk, half-lame, and ready for the glue factory. So they unfurl a purposeful, rigid adherence to the timeworn trope, by pretending that their normalization of the Republican party’s candidate is just doing their journalistic duty of “both-sides-ing” the race.
The NYT did get this right, though: “ … Biden, especially in the debate, also delivered rambling digressions that often left people confused and left voters with a sense of despair about both candidates.” That’s how I felt after the debate, and also for that horrifying month or so afterward, before Biden withdrew, and then it was a new day dawning. If Donald is a Joker-esque super-villain, then Kamala is the super-hero we need, right when we needed one.
Well yes you're right about all this journalistic malpractice, but perhaps the main reason for all this deference is that the owners want those Republican tax cuts, so they have to give every single break they can to President Klan Robe.
As long as they can downplay the danger of him and his lack of fitness in every way, that helps blunt the effect of criticism and the owners can get their juicy, juicy tax cuts by helping him into office.
I get that the wealthy want their tax cuts, but I can’t help thinking that the perception that this alone drives the oligarchy’s fealty to Donald seems a bit facile. I don’t know what else it might be, though, just wondering aloud.
Only other thing I can think of is that hack with the RNC includes a lot of kompromat. As President Klan Robe is also effectively a mob boss, he will operate the same way and keep people compliant. At the very least it can explain how people like Lindsey Graham and Shady Vance do a complete 180 and kiss his ass now.
Good point, and may explain why the media never mentions that the RNC was hacked when the DNC was hacked, yet nothing was released about the repubs. It can't be because there was nothing on repubs worth releasing, and perhaps media moguls as well, it that it was much better blackmail material than what the DNC had.
You'd think Trump's collapse would be the more interesting of the two stories about him, from a writer's perspective. Why does he keep lying? Why are you so focused on crowd size, Mr. Trump? You know that's not true, Mr. Trump, why do you keep saying it? etc etc etc
The TRUE story here is that he is NOT rational. Why would we want someone who's losing his shit to lead our nation?
Vance is about there talking deportation again-did Dana Bash or whomever interviewed him-ask about the cost of this plan? The logistics? Did anyone point out the irony of the "pro-family" guy breaking up family's because one member isn't here legally? As I understand it, most people here illegally try to keep their heads down. How are they planning to find these people? I guess checking expired visas? I guess? Did anyone ask?
When I see these gaggles I think of the musical "Chicago" and how Billy works the press like puppets.
My thought, too. Ditto with pushing back on him—those who deign to do it become superstar journalists whose work is heralded. And it's good copy! Great video! Clicks! Clickety click!
But no. I used to think they were lazy. Now I just think they're complicit.
I love that movie. I used to show that very scene to my Editing and Writing undergrad students, and I loved the classroom conversations it’d always bring about.
What'll happen, just like the last time in the 1950s, is American citizens will be swept up and thrown out of the country. There's no national reporter nowadays with the guts to point this out though—it's all about access and protecting those juicy Republican tax cuts for the owners.
We all know with the targets they seek for the forced deportation, that death camps will be an eventuality. You can't forcibly move that many people, especially on our rickety infrastructure without atrocities. The *best* thing that would happen is they create a bunch of stateless people.
Pitch perfect. We’re experiencing socio-political deja-vu. Unremarked upon by the press because of the complacency that comes with thinking we live in a rational universe. When that walking life support system for pancake makeup, hairspray and petty grievance says “no one has ever seen this before” he is almost invariably wrong but would never be more wrong than he is about this moment. To tweak the quote slightly, when fascism comes to America it will be carrying a bible and wrapped in a flag. In Trump’s case, the bible will be upside down (but signed!), and he’ll be making out with the flag, but close enough. Left unchecked, he, and the GOP, just a cult of personality now, will continue to set off fireworks to distract while picking our pockets of the democracy we’ve cultivated, inelegantly, but still, for nearly 250 years. And gaslight us as well if we dare to notice. Every accusation is a confession.
Every article about this, his latest attempt to destroy the country so his sorry ass can avoid prison, should start with a disclaimer about the various crimes he’s been found guilty of and liable for, all the people he’s threatened and what he is currently doing to try and steal the election, including placing loyal toadies in the elections divisions of swing states to deny results unfavorable to him. He is chaos, he is a cancer upon the body politic, and any reporter that doesn’t state that glaring fact outright is committing journalistic malpractice. This is not putting a thumb on the scale, this is not election interference, this is not bias, this is reality. There are no “both sides” here, he is singularly dangerous. Obfuscating that because it’s too scary to acknowledge, or because MAGA is armed and crazy? Too fucking bad. This is the Frankenstein’s monster the media eagerly created and abetted because we’re a country of starfuckers and this moron was on television.
There can be a tendency to rationalize, which I can even sort of understand, because hey, he’s a major party nominee, and, hey, he’s already been president once. What’s the worst that can happen? I really don’t think we want to find out.
Political analyst Amy Walter at Cook Political Report posted last month on social media, “If this election is about policy like inflation/immigration, Trump wins. If it is about Trump, well, there’s the opening for Harris.” With respect, this is a bonkers statement.
*** *** ***
It's not just the second half of this statement that is bonkers. The first half is as well. It's not only bonkers but an admission of systemic failure on the part of our news media.
Inflation cannot possibly be a winning issue for Trump unless you believe what Trump says about inflation, which you can do only if the news media have utterly failed to explain what inflation is, what causes it, and what actual policies might work against it. If all that you know about inflation is that a "strong" President can fix it just by glaring at it in a very "manly" way, you might believe that this is a "winning issue" for Trump.
Immigration cannot possibly be a winning issue for Trump unless you believe what Trump says about immigrants, which you can do only if the news media have utterly failed to explain who immigrants are and what effect they have on our economy, culture, and eventually politics, which is OVERWHELMINGLY positive. If all that you know about immigrants is that they are "vermin" who are coming to rape our daughters and inject us all with fentanyl, you might believe that this is a "winning issue" for Trump.
Honestly, when I hear somebody in the news media claim that immigration is a "winning issue" for Trump, I wonder whether they would have claimed that the "Jewish problem" was a "winning issue" for Adolf Hitler.
These are "winning issues" for Trump because the news media have failed to inform people and have preferred to repeat Trump's lies because they are "entertaining" and probably in line with what the oligarchs who rule our economy and increasingly dominate our critically weak democracy WANT us to believe. These are "winning issues" for Trump because our news media allow lies to "win" against facts pretty much twenty-four seven.
When reporters insist on asking VP Harris about PAB's latest comments, I wish she would politely respond by explaining to them that her Black job is Vice President of the US, and she is running to be President. Her Black job is not explaining PAB's gibber ranting to anyone. She can emphasize PAB's disgusting racism, and misogyny, while also calling his nonsense statements what they are. Then welcome any questions they might have about how the Democratic party has a platform to help make the lives of all Americans better.
The media is complicit,all of this is intentional. The conservative billionaires that own every news channel are forcing all of their subordinates to pretend he is a normal candidate. The utter failure of the NYTimes which I used to respect to report on him accurately hurts the most, but its clear all mainstream journalism has been corrupted by capitalists so thoroughly that you shouldn't listen to any of it anymore. Get your newsfrom independents and international orgs like the BBC. Journalism is broken in America and will likely never change for the better.
You're asking them to report objective reality and that's just not their job.
Their job is to sell papers or get ratings. The GOP freak show is all a part of that. Draws attention. Captures eyeballs.
The truth is irrelevant. The victims are irrelevant. Democracy is irrelevant.
They would continue their jobs as usual in an autocratic regime with barely a change in how they operate. Bread and circuses.
If Trump really was The Joker, we’d be in a lot more trouble. Instead, he’s a running joke while the minions behind his charade are the real Master Cylinders.
It seems to me that when he interacts with the press he has a power over them (except black women) and they become deferential and weak. I think it’s a bully fear thing but I also think about a cult leader in the 1920’s in Canada named Brother XII. He was into the occult. Since he was a grifter, eventually some of his followers took him to court and mayhem ensued. A witness got ill and fell to the ground. The prosecutor was overcome by something and couldn’t remember what he was supposed to say. Then the judge couldn’t speak and could only bark like a dog. This really happened, look it up. The charges had to be dropped. He did have psychic abilities and it seems he used some kind of mind control with his stare.
I wonder if 45 has an innate ability to control people that may work something like that. I don’t think it works if you aren’t afraid of him. That’s the trick. Black women have dealt with assholes like him for hundreds of years so they know him better than he knows himself and the Jedi mind tricks don’t work on them.
I still say he rubbed a tacky gold painted lamp in Trump Tower one day and a Genie popped out and granted him 1 wish... to never be held accountable for his actions.
So he promptly had the genie deported as an undocumented immigrant.
Stephen, wasn’t the presser on Thursday, not Wednesday?
Thanks!
I’m just mystified as to why there is so much deference given to Trump by the mainstream media.
The excuse that’s always given is that he tells too many lies to fact check or that he has too many scandals to keep up with. It’s best just to cover him uncritically and let the people decide for themselves.
It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where the doctor tells Burns he has every disease but they’re all trying to get through the door at the same time. Burns then takes this to mean he’s indestructible.
Finally realized that this is no longer about “horse race”
Print media and cable news is dying and their only lifeline (in their opinions) is the cultish fealty of MAGA supporters. They are actively courting them and avoiding anything that could be perceived as a slight lest they be “Bud lighted” out of their bottom line.
Why they don’t understand is that once they lose their reputation that people aren’t coming back. I gave up my NYT subscription this year and I was a subscriber for decades. I had them deliver the paper daily in OHIO! That’s how much their quality of news meant to me. Now I will likely never go back. And once Trump is gone I’m pretty sure MAGA is gone quickly soon after and these media brands are going to be left with nothing.
MSNBC is the one I understand the least because they were actually doing very well just playing things straight and yet even they are playing the “let’s see if we can just get a little bit pregnant” game.
Media favors the fascists for no advantage I can see except more bad reporting.
The Joker scene was spot on.
“Treating Trump like a normal candidate requires constantly forgetting the truth about him, which he doesn’t bother hiding.” This. They refuse to acknowledge that the would-be emperor has no clothes.
The media MUST HAVE their horse race, presented in what they choose to think is an old-school “unbiased” way, and they will pursue the trope forever, even if one of the horses is clearly berserk, half-lame, and ready for the glue factory. So they unfurl a purposeful, rigid adherence to the timeworn trope, by pretending that their normalization of the Republican party’s candidate is just doing their journalistic duty of “both-sides-ing” the race.
The NYT did get this right, though: “ … Biden, especially in the debate, also delivered rambling digressions that often left people confused and left voters with a sense of despair about both candidates.” That’s how I felt after the debate, and also for that horrifying month or so afterward, before Biden withdrew, and then it was a new day dawning. If Donald is a Joker-esque super-villain, then Kamala is the super-hero we need, right when we needed one.
The Charleston is an “interesting dance.” You could even say it’s the bee’s knees!
Danced by those jaunty jackanapes with moxie and pizzazz!!
Well yes you're right about all this journalistic malpractice, but perhaps the main reason for all this deference is that the owners want those Republican tax cuts, so they have to give every single break they can to President Klan Robe.
As long as they can downplay the danger of him and his lack of fitness in every way, that helps blunt the effect of criticism and the owners can get their juicy, juicy tax cuts by helping him into office.
I get that the wealthy want their tax cuts, but I can’t help thinking that the perception that this alone drives the oligarchy’s fealty to Donald seems a bit facile. I don’t know what else it might be, though, just wondering aloud.
Starts with "ray," ends with "sizzum."
Starts with "bigga," ends with "tree."
Starts with "miss," ends with "oddginy."
Only other thing I can think of is that hack with the RNC includes a lot of kompromat. As President Klan Robe is also effectively a mob boss, he will operate the same way and keep people compliant. At the very least it can explain how people like Lindsey Graham and Shady Vance do a complete 180 and kiss his ass now.
Good point, and may explain why the media never mentions that the RNC was hacked when the DNC was hacked, yet nothing was released about the repubs. It can't be because there was nothing on repubs worth releasing, and perhaps media moguls as well, it that it was much better blackmail material than what the DNC had.
It's absolutely infuriating.
Biden has clearly lost a step, even though his presidency has been magnificent.
Trump is barking mad.
"... barking mad."
You'd think Trump's collapse would be the more interesting of the two stories about him, from a writer's perspective. Why does he keep lying? Why are you so focused on crowd size, Mr. Trump? You know that's not true, Mr. Trump, why do you keep saying it? etc etc etc
The TRUE story here is that he is NOT rational. Why would we want someone who's losing his shit to lead our nation?
Vance is about there talking deportation again-did Dana Bash or whomever interviewed him-ask about the cost of this plan? The logistics? Did anyone point out the irony of the "pro-family" guy breaking up family's because one member isn't here legally? As I understand it, most people here illegally try to keep their heads down. How are they planning to find these people? I guess checking expired visas? I guess? Did anyone ask?
When I see these gaggles I think of the musical "Chicago" and how Billy works the press like puppets.
My thought, too. Ditto with pushing back on him—those who deign to do it become superstar journalists whose work is heralded. And it's good copy! Great video! Clicks! Clickety click!
But no. I used to think they were lazy. Now I just think they're complicit.
I love that movie. I used to show that very scene to my Editing and Writing undergrad students, and I loved the classroom conversations it’d always bring about.
What'll happen, just like the last time in the 1950s, is American citizens will be swept up and thrown out of the country. There's no national reporter nowadays with the guts to point this out though—it's all about access and protecting those juicy Republican tax cuts for the owners.
We all know with the targets they seek for the forced deportation, that death camps will be an eventuality. You can't forcibly move that many people, especially on our rickety infrastructure without atrocities. The *best* thing that would happen is they create a bunch of stateless people.
Pitch perfect. We’re experiencing socio-political deja-vu. Unremarked upon by the press because of the complacency that comes with thinking we live in a rational universe. When that walking life support system for pancake makeup, hairspray and petty grievance says “no one has ever seen this before” he is almost invariably wrong but would never be more wrong than he is about this moment. To tweak the quote slightly, when fascism comes to America it will be carrying a bible and wrapped in a flag. In Trump’s case, the bible will be upside down (but signed!), and he’ll be making out with the flag, but close enough. Left unchecked, he, and the GOP, just a cult of personality now, will continue to set off fireworks to distract while picking our pockets of the democracy we’ve cultivated, inelegantly, but still, for nearly 250 years. And gaslight us as well if we dare to notice. Every accusation is a confession.
Every article about this, his latest attempt to destroy the country so his sorry ass can avoid prison, should start with a disclaimer about the various crimes he’s been found guilty of and liable for, all the people he’s threatened and what he is currently doing to try and steal the election, including placing loyal toadies in the elections divisions of swing states to deny results unfavorable to him. He is chaos, he is a cancer upon the body politic, and any reporter that doesn’t state that glaring fact outright is committing journalistic malpractice. This is not putting a thumb on the scale, this is not election interference, this is not bias, this is reality. There are no “both sides” here, he is singularly dangerous. Obfuscating that because it’s too scary to acknowledge, or because MAGA is armed and crazy? Too fucking bad. This is the Frankenstein’s monster the media eagerly created and abetted because we’re a country of starfuckers and this moron was on television.
There can be a tendency to rationalize, which I can even sort of understand, because hey, he’s a major party nominee, and, hey, he’s already been president once. What’s the worst that can happen? I really don’t think we want to find out.
Trump wants to do the same thing to the flag that he did to E. Jean Carroll.
Metaphorically … he has.