Seriously, every pundit should be forced to watch this opening by Lawrence O’Donnell. Anyone with a sense of shame would never again declare that Biden should be swapped out for a fantasy candidate
It’s done. STFU. Biden is the nominee.
As he should be https://t.co/fjR7WoEo3z
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) February 22, 2024
I believe it was Rikyrah who said Lawrence O’Donnell’s latest deserved its own post. Yes, it’s that good!
(Works pretty well audio-only, if you want to treat it as a podcast. Or, if you’re in a hurry, skip to the 17min mark)
glc
More on vaccines from Hilda Bastian
moonbat
I think Mr. O’Donnell is very generous to say that’s what television has done to our understanding of the job of the presidency. I would argue that’s what a lazy, untrained, uninterested media has done to the job of the presidency. Only a disingenuous fool would honestly believe that the job of the presidency is being on camera.
But it was an excellent schooling nonetheless.
Chetan Murthy
I watched the entire thing (when it was linked earlier today on LGM). Normally I skip-forward thru these things. But this, I watched the entire thing, and it was worth it, even though I’m already convinced of his top-line message. Really worthwhile watch. There are (important!) points he makes, that aren’t on the bullet-list in the OP.
Chris
@moonbat:
I would argue the media isn’t lazy, untrained, or uninterested, so much as rabidly partisan and not in the direction it’s constantly accused of being.
But yes.
Poe Larity
I wish to complain that all the cellular outages did not result in receiving less text messages today.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
SHOCKER
Manhattan DA Jack McCoy resigns after 19 years (link)
Leto
I watched this live last night and it just took a sledgehammer to the knees of every stupid ass “Biden has to make way” article/talking head that’s spoken about this for the past 3+ years. I’m glad it’s getting a post here, though being greedy I wish it was in a bit more prominent time slot. Still, it’s a must watch.
TriassicSands
Gavin should definitely “stand by” just in case all the “horse race journalists” die of terminal stupidity and Newsom decides he wants to be a “horse race journalist.” Of course, the chances of that happening are approximately, exactly zero in eleventy seventy gazillion million thirty five. (I think that’s horse race journalist mathematics.)
TriassicSands
Extra! Extra! Read all about it.
This just in: Joe Biden should drop out of the presidential race and the Democrats should wave the white flag and let Trump run unopposed.
TriassicSands
@moonbat: @Chris:
I definitely agree with moonbat. Bending over backward to “prove” you aren’t partisan is a sign of stupidity, laziness, being poorly trained and lacking understanding of what journalism should be.
The frequently and justifiably criticized NY Times demonstrates constantly that it thinks that being “fair” is more important that emphasizing the truth. That is the root cause of bothsiderism and false equivalence, not partisanship. Yes, it looks like partisanship in some ways, but I think it is very different.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands: If your second para were true, we’d see th FTFNYT running with the “Russian secret services work with GOP to imepach Biden using false evidence” story on full afterburner. It makes the Comey letter in October 2016 look like a letter to the tooth fairy. But …. *somehow* I have this feeling that’s not going to happen.
The FTFNYT and other MSM aren’t “being ‘fair'”: they’re rabidly partisan.
Splitting Image
I’d be curious to see a Venn diagram of pundits who demanded that Hillary Clinton retire to a life of knitting socks in the ancient time-honoured tradition of defeated presidential candidates and pundits who are now demanding that Joe Biden stand aside in the ancient time-honoured tradition of presidents who became more burdened by age on the job but were eligible for re-election.
In the meantime, let us discuss how Donald Trump’s plan to become a dictator on day one of his second term resonates with former Reagan Democrats who are now hard-core Republicans.
NotMax
@TriassicSands
If it walks like a partisan, and quacks like a partisan….
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
Summation of the Ochs-Sulzberger dynasty.
TriassicSands
@Chetan Murthy:
Do you need the NY Times every day? I do and criticize them vehementy in letters to the editor and comments every day. They aren’t being “fair,” they think they are being “fair.” To them that means if you say something bad about Republicans, you are obligated to say something bad about Democrats, where invariably there is zero equivalence in the seriousness of the two criticisms. Donald Trump incites insurrection; Joe Biden says something that isn’t 100% accurate (which is something Biden has frequently done in the more that forty years I’ve been following him). That, of course, is where false equivalence comes in. The Post does the same thing. Fact checker Glenn Kessler writes: Trump calls for ditching the Constitution; Joe Biden claims to have been arrested. (These are examples for effect, not necessarily specific instances. It isn’t worth anyone’s time for me to go back and dig up the specific examples. But I see this kind of crap repeatedly.
Here is an example of what Kessler listed first as the
The biggest Pinocchios of 2023
Biden has always done this kind of thing and it is annoying (to me, anyway), but it is nothing like the things that Trump and other Republicans say. Glenn Kessler thinks he is proving that he is fair in his appraisal of politicians by emphasizing Biden’s propensity to exaggerate personal details of his life. Look, everybody, you can’t criticize Glenn Kessler for being partisan and unfair to Republicans. Look at who he chose first for the worst “Pinocchios” of 2023.
Can anyone find anything that Trump said in 2023 that might have been a tiny bit worse than Biden exaggerating his past? How about dumping the Constitution? And scores and scores of other things.
Find a politician who doesn’t exaggerate about his or her past and you’re a far better detective than Sherlock Holmes.
ETA: What many commenters here may not understand (or accept) about my contention is that it is worse than being partisan. Partisanship is natural and has to be suppressed if one is a journalist. What they are doing is far more dishonest.
Steeplejack
@Leto:
It was featured prominently in the “Go Ahead, Make My Day” morning post.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: I listened to it until it got to the NYT Co going public. They didn’t mention a damn thing about the NYT’s cozying up to Hitler. Got tired of it. It’s hagiography.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands: What Josh Marshall calls a decade-long attack by a foreign power against our government and society (with the connivance of the G(r)OP), and FTFNYT isn’t gonna cover it properly, on the basis of “fairness” ? of FAIRNESS ?
That’s some bullshit there, that is.
JoyceH
Lawrence reminded me of something I thought very early in the Trump administration. The new wave of Republicans (Trump, Gaetz, MTG, etc) genuinely believe that every important thing about government service takes place in public in front of cameras. The real nuts and bolts of governing, that takes place in meeting rooms and offices, is boring, trivial minutia – and if you don’t do that stuff at all it just doesn’t matter, so long as you get your face out there.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: I found the bits about the Pentagon Papers, illustrated with video clips from All The President’s Men, particularly hilarious. Since, uh, Woodward&Bernstein worked at WaPo, and (IIRC) FTFNYT were behind the pack on Watergate.
TriassicSands
I hope this will be my last word on this subject. What determines whether something is, in fact, partisan is motivation. After decades of reading the Times and Post, I’ve seen what has changed in their coverage. What they do may seem to some like partisanship is not the same thing as actual partisanship.
A partisan doesn’t need to resort to bothsiderism and false equivalence. Partisans tell one side of the story and either ignore or lie about the other side. Reading the Times every day for years, I don’t see that. I see articles that reek of bothsiderism and false equivalence, and that is something you don’t see from Fox News. They don’t have to resort to tactics like that, they simply lie, distort, and ignore.
Partisans extol the virtues of their side and denigrate their opponents. Someone trying to “appear to be fair” reports bad things about one side and then reflexively includes something negative about the other.
In 2012, Mann and Orstein had a column printed in the Post: “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem.” Mostly accurate, there was still one small entry that reeked of bothsiderist tendencies — when they felt compelled to point out that Democrats aren’t perfect. No sand person thinks Democrats are perfect. In the context of that column, no observation about Democrats was necessary, but they still felt compelled to say something to show they were “fair.” Mann and Orstein have been overwhelmingly critical of Trump and Republicans for years. There is no question which side they favor. But journalistic practices have become so warped that even in a column about how bad the GOP is, they had to say something negative about Dems. Five and a half years later, the Times finally printed a similar column by Mann and Orstein. But the compelling argument in both those columns has never, as far as I can tell, made any difference in the political coverage of either paper.
NY Times, Dec. 2, 2017, “How the Republicans Broke Congress.” Mann and Ornstein are less interested in being fair than in being truthful.
NotMax
The NYT embarked on its still accelerating slide downhill when they removed the period from the masthead.
@Chetan Murthy
Not an apologia but it wasn’t solely NYT with regards to Hitler. Nearly every U.S. journalistic outlet of clout did the same at the same time, as well as American industrial behemoths such as Ford and GM.
Adolf was purported to keep a picture of Henry Ford on display in his office and the regime bestowed on James Dean Mooney, V.P. in charge of GM’s overseas division, the Order of Merit of The Eagle, the highest honor for a foreigner (Mr. Ford also received the same award).
TriassicSands
@Chetan Murthy:
You seem to rely on what someone else says. I’m relying on my own decades long experience with both the Times and the Post. I’m curious, is Josh Marshall so infallible that you agree with his every observation and take his word as being the final word on every subject, even when your own personal knowledge of an issue gives you no first hand ability to make a judgment?
In my opionion, the Times’ political coverage is, on balance, terrible. I would bet, without any personal knowledge that the majority of the reporters and direct editors will vote for Biden and want Biden to win. I won’t say the same thing about the publisher and editor-in-chief, although after years of following former Times editor Dean Baquet, I can’t think of a more committed bothsiderist.
Back when there were some responsible (if misguided) Republicans, coverage was simpler. Today, it would be impossible, again in my opinion, to write anything truthful about Republicans that is complimentary, unless it is some inconsequential detail (though I can’t even think of one of those). Recently, I was accused in the comment section of being partisan. My response? Absolutely, today everyone should be partisan for Democrats and against Trump and Republicans. To not be partisan, which I consider also being truly “fair,” is to be dishonest. Does that mean I can’t criticize Biden or Democrats? No. But I can the difference.
Obviously, these are my opinions. Others may feel differently and do. Most don’t actually read the Times since they’ve already decided they know the “facts.” There is much that is worthwhile in the NY Times, but very, very, very little of that appears in the political coverage.
NotMax
@Chetan Murthy
No question the shots of Redford and Hoffman were a piss poor choice.
What was of interest were the family’s finances and how they handled (and directed) them.
TriassicSands
Good night, all. I’ve got other things I have to do. Be well.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands:
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? ARE YOU FUCKING JERKING MY FUCKING CHAIN? JESUS FUCK. OF COURSE THE GROPERS ARE COMPROMISED BY PUTIN! OF COURSE TFG IS.
JESUS FUCK.
TriassicSands
@Chetan Murthy:
I came back here to close the window and saw your comment. My comment, still, was about whether the Times is partisan in favor of the Republican Party and Trump. Your all caps are laughable. You need to calm down.
Good night.
NotMax
@NotMax
May as well mention also Prescott Bush’s playing footsie with Nazi Germany before and during the war.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands: what kind of bullshit is this? You think ignoring the biggest national security story in decades is somehow okay because of fairness? What the fuck have you been smoking? And you sure as fuck know that if it were the Democrats doing this, the New York Times will be all over it all over it all over it. And no question of fairness would stop them from doing so. And you know this. Fairness my ass.
Kathleen
@Chris: I agree with you.
Craig
@JoyceH: Yes. They’re the flip side of 1980s New York Transgressive Performance Artists. Same schtick, but they are really dumb about it.
Baud
Via reddit, game recognizes game.
eclare
@Baud:
Yep.
Geminid
There was a flurry of suggestions after the 2022 midterms that Democrats replace Joe Biden. Rachel Bitecofer’s response:
This was after she laid out the various advantages that political scientists had found attached to incumbency.
This is one reason I am fairly optimistic about tbe result in November. Trump came close in 2020 but he still could not win despite the advantages of incumbency. The office of President especially enhances the stature of of the incumbent, but now it’s Biden who benefits.
brantl
@TriassicSands: He’s not wrong, and you are, (CAPS NOTWITHSTANDING //).
Odie Hugh Manatee
The presstitutes are dying for easy stories that write themselves. That’s because they bring nothing to the table when it comes to real news, just more kneetime for them while they service the Republican party. The bullshit about having Biden step aside is because they want easy stories at the expense of the Democrats. What could be greater entertainment than Democrats battling it out in an arena while the other party lies in wait to overthrow the government. Why, the stories write themselves!
That’s the point, lazy fuckers looking for easy clicks and eyeballs. Any advice the presstitutes offer is poison to Democrats. And FUCK the fucking conservative New York Times. No acronym, spell that shit out for them loud and clear.
Fuck the fucking conservative New York Times. With a large variety of rusty farm implements. Freedom of the press is wasted on them.
brantl
It doesn’t require that the press be card-carrying Republicans; if they hide in their corners while the Rethugs rope-a-dope them to the canvas, they might as well be Rethugs. They’re bending over backwards to kowtow to the Rethugs, trying to be “fair”; lately, Stumpy could come out and chew on the carpet, and Joe could stumble once in a speech, with no content that was in error, nor factually incorrect, and the current media would point out Biden’s stumble, and say “To be fair, that was really high-quality carpet, and being in real estate, Trump recognizes high-quality carpet.“.
JWR
I don’t know what to think about some “Democratic” consultants these days. From NBC
Baud
@JWR:
If it walks and talks like a Republican, the party label don’t matter.
OzarkHillbilly
That’s what trump thought. Of course, that just proves your point, doesn’t it?
gene108
The media narrative about replacing Biden seems to me to come from their desire to get Trump elected. I’m not usually one to think this, but holy fucking shit! What party keeps their incumbent president from seeking re-election?
Reagan challenged Ford, in 1976, and Kennedy challenged Carter, in 1980, but those weren’t party wide efforts.
Yet the media acts “shocked” that the incumbent President doesn’t have a dozen serious contenders in his own party trying to oust him from the nomination. The narrative is so disingenuous by people who do know better that it has to a deliberate attempt to help Trump.
Baud
@gene108:
Agree. Disingenuous is the perfect word.
satby
@glc: really fascinating, thanks!
Baud
Via Reddit
Baud
JWR
@Baud:
You’ve got that right! As for the hired magician, “He speaks of his belief in right-wing conspiracy theories like the “deep state” and has “some issues” with the first moon landing,” not to mention other of his wacky theories and projects, such as fake-pooping into a toilet placed on top of Trump’s star on Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Just weird.
ETA Fixed some stuff.
Baud
@JWR:
Sounds like he understands that both sides are the same.
JWR
@Baud: Heh! But yep, a real straight shootin’ sorta guy, that one.
OzarkHillbilly
@JWR: Not exactly the kind of guy we want in a circular firing squad?
schrodingers_cat
Trump sucked at the visible aspect of being President as well. He was awful in ceremonial situations and made us a global laughing stock.
Is it only me who remembers those meetings with Putin and the NATO summits? The fawning over the N.Korean dictator?
satby
Apropos to nothing in particular, here in the lower frozen north we’re 21 days away from the vernal equinox which is officially March 19, but will occur in this zip code on March 15-16, when the day and night will be equally 12 hours.
But who’s counting?
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I blame Pope Gregory.
Princess
@schrodingers_cat: him refusing to go to go out the war dead because he didn’t want to get his hair wet. Sulky Melania with him looking constipated. But in his mind, and in the minds of his voters, he was great at all that stuff.
schrodingers_cat
@Princess: Yeah I remember that
OzarkHillbilly
You misspelled “suckers and losers”.
TBone
If anyone needs inspiration for this election year ahead of us with all of its trials and tribulation, coming like a jail on wheels, this song kicks ass. Apropos is my Word of the Day.
https://youtu.be/Le-3MIBxQTw
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
@Princess:
Rudely elbowing his way past the PM (President?) of Montenegro so he could preen for the cameras from the front row.
(P.S. to S_C: My birthday’s not until August, and I’ll only be turning a youthful 82! But it was nice of you to think of me.)
Soprano2
I think another factor is that the press never had access to a president like they did with TFG, and they got addicted to it. They want that back.
Lots of the other comments are true too, but I think you can’t discount how heady that access was to them.
schrodingers_cat
The hideous orange 🍊 👹 did not look good in front of the camera on any occasion. The Beltway courtiers pining for his return are displaying their own complete lack of judgement and character.
Splitting Image
@SiubhanDuinne:
He also refused to shake hands with the President of Lithuania. He glared down at her like something he’d stepped in.
Geminid
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink tweeted out a nice picture from Kyiv this morning. It shows her with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Maggie Hassan, Jack Reed, Richard Blumenthal, and Michael Bennet.
OzarkHillbilly
Good for her! Leaders everywhere should be taking notes.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
As with so many bad trends in my lifetime, I blame Reagan. I remember magazine articles gushing about how natural and at ease he was with the TV cameras. They did in fact think that was his main job.
Princess
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Media likes to think being good at media is the main job of being president because it makes them more important.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Maggie Haberman wrote that the NYTimes “broke” the “Trump Administration will only ban abortion after 16 weeks story”. Please. The Trump campaign fed it to the NYTimes and then the rest of media all obediently disseminated it for him. This is ego and an exalted opinion of themselves. That’s why they never see they’re being used. It’s Iraq War all over again. Dick Cheney had them “break” a lot of his handpicked, invented news too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Splitting Image:
I don’t remember that incident, but I know he totally refused to shake hands with Angela Merkel (for a photo op) when she visited him in the WH. Just sat splay-legged and glowered at the cameras while a relaxed Merkel smiled and bantered with the press.
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
To me, Biden is the anti-Reagan. It’s time for us to put up or shut up when it comes to everything liberals saying since 1980. Our credibility is on the line.
HinTN
@Soprano2: Come on, the immortal phrase “cocktail weenies” originated in the W administration. Access journomalism had been around long before then but these here innerwebs really began pointing it out about then.
Baud
@Kay:
I saw another headline (not sure if NYT or not) about how Trump was mad that the story “broke.” All Kabuki.
HinTN
@Baud: 👍
Kay
Kay
@Baud:
He’s so, so good at it. Fifty years of practice jerking around NY media. It’s really the only “work” he’s ever done and does.
Matt McIrvin
I wouldn’t put too much stock in fundraising–Trump hardly spent anything in 2016 and he won anyway because the media basically gave him his campaign advertising for free.
Princess
@Kay: I think Incel men are projecting onto women what they themselves value. They only want to date models and are furious that these women, who are basically dolls in their minds, are not interested.
Ken
@JWR: Bizarre. It reads more like a mad lib than anything.
A Democratic consultant paid a New Orleans magician to use artificial intelligence to impersonate President Joe Biden for a robocall
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Not just the media. Diverse groups of men worked together to achieve that outcome.
Brit in Chicago
@Baud: I always figured that some high-ranking officers in the Pentagon or Defense Dept. talked to their counterparts in Brasilia who promptly had a come-to-Jesus moment. Of course those officers take their orders from the Sec. of Defense who takes his order from the President so yes, credit Biden for that too.
Ken
I can’t be the only one whose image of the typical “incel man” is a flabby guy living in his parent’s basement and spending six hours a day ranting online.
Princess
@Matt McIrvin: Well, according to Open Secrets, he spent close to a billion in 2020 and I think that was his own campaign, not super pacs. Looks like in 2016 it was about 300 million.
Brit in Chicago
@satby: How can the equinox vary from one zip code to the next?
Kay
I feel like news like this is unspinnable by the NYTimes and the rest – far Right actions that happen outside their narrow areas of interest and out of their control. They can make Trump seem inevitable, run daily stories about how Biden will lose, misrepresent “the economy” and crime, but they cannot stop the far Right from taking actions that repel normal voters.
Our job will be to get voters to look at actions rather than GOP/media rhetoric. The Trump “16 weeks abortion ban” was carefully calculated spin fed to political media – narrative – this absolute nut job court decision, however, is real – it happened, and clinics shut down.
artem1s
@Matt McIrvin:
He won because the voter suppression tactics Karl Rove spent 2 decades putting into place across 50 states were still in operation. The GOP itself barely had to spend any money in their primaries. And at that time TIFG didn’t have access to their whole donor list – they were still nominally in control of the money. By 2020 the Party system was already cracking apart and TIFG had completely commandeered their donor lists and was funneling buckets of their money into his own pockets. The “how to become a millionaire by not really running for office” secret was out of the bag and being employed by dozens of ‘real businessmen’ across the country. The GOP is bleeding at every orifice and no amount of ‘free TV’ time is going to make up those losses or produce the media promised Red Wave.
gene108
@Soprano2:
I don’t think that’s coming back if TFG wins. Seems like the Republicans plotting to use his would be administration for their own ends are developing a more disciplined approach to running things, than what his term was like. None of them have criticized him, like some in the Republican establishment did in 2016, so they can put their people in.
Another Scott
I haven’t watched the Larry piece yet.
For too much of the political and economic press, 1979 was yesterday and also just around the corner. “Everybody knows” all kinds of stuff that isn’t really true now, if it ever was. Most Democrats somehow are misguided and don’t know how the world “really works” in economics, social interactions, foreign affairs, etc., and they’re too easily swayed by “idealists” who want to end wars (e.g. McGovern) or “Socialists” who think that more should be done for people who aren’t in the top 5%. And they don’t see the “dangers” of those policies.
Sure, there’s the overt bias favoring the GQP because everyone knows “the US is a center-right country” (even if it really isn’t). Sure there’s the both-sidesing of far too many topics. Sure there’s the fear of lawsuits (I’m convinced that’s a part of why the press still treats TIFG with kid gloves – they don’t want to be sued), and monsters endangering their safety. Sure, there’s the chasing of clicks via doom and the latest thing to be scared and angry about. All of that.
But underlying it all is (mostly) a monoculture that rewards group-think. Too many reactionary white men run and own the major media.
My $0.02
Cheers,
Scott.
gene108
@Kay:
I used to think like this, when I was like 13 to 15. Then I made a girl laugh being silly and that got her interest. And then 10th grade ended, and summer vacation started shortly thereafter.
Betty
@Baud: Diverse is an interesting word choice for that bunch.
Betty
@Brit in Chicago: I read that Secretary Austin was directly involved.
trnc
The media definitely did that and will again this year, but there is almost certainly going to be more news that is distinctly negative for DT from the trials, probably more from the large judgements against him, etc. They won’t get email-level or inflation-level coverage, but they’ll be out there.
Also, I take any of DT’s campaign filings with a grain of salt. No reason to think his campaign took those requirements more seriously than anything else.
There go two miscreants
@Brit in Chicago: The USPS is understaffed these days!
Ken
Isn’t he the one that conservative media has been spinning all sorts of fantasies about, up to and including that he’s died and the office is empty?
Soprano2
@HinTN: I think it reached unprecedented levels in the TFG administration. The press got used to thinking that was normal (it’s what they want to be normal), that’s why it makes them so mad that Biden’s administration is more like others were. Plus, the TFG administration staff had more petty backbiting and fighting than most do, and many of those people were happy to share it with the press. The press misses all of that and want it back. Just think, if your career started in 2015 you think that is normal.
Soprano2
@Kay: Least surprising finding ever. They think if only they were more physically attractive women would swarm all over them in spite of their repugnant personalities.
Matt McIrvin
@Brit in Chicago: It doesn’t. The equinox is defined according to the position of the Sun in the sky, as seen from Earth–it’s when it’s exactly halfway between the solstices. The day and night are approximately the same length then, but it’s not exact because of the discrepancies of the Earth’s orbit from a constant-speed circle. The day when they are exactly the same length is a few days off.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think about the women who went through hormone injections and all that entails who now can’t have those eggs harvested. Someone needs to interview them, or the women who were ready to try to get pregnant but can’t now because of the clerics on the Alabama court.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
Back after a night. Sorry, I simply don’t believe this. They’ve gone much too far into the tank for Republicans for it to be explained by anything as generic as “trying to be fair.”
Chris
@Another Scott:
Like I said the other day. “Rich White East Coasters vote Republican” is a tribal affiliation that’s well over a hundred years old. Older than “white Southerners vote Republican,” older than “black people vote Democrat,” older than “white ethnics vote Republican,” older than “Asians vote Democrat” (all of which, by contrast, have changed in the last fifty to a hundred years). It’s one of the oldest and strongest in the country.
The average big name media pundit, and certainly the average media owner, is a rich white East Coaster.
It’s a certain kind of Republican. The kind that recoils at the thought of actually identifying as Republican, because it likes to think it’s above the fray of petty partisan politics. The kind that’s more likely to name HW than Reagan as its favorite historical president. The kind that earnestly wishes for a nice reasonable moderate like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis to run the party instead of Trump. But it’s still Republican.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, the details of this stuff are kinda unintuitive. And fascinating.
Like sunset isn’t when your eyes tell you it is:
The idea that everything in nature is “perfect” as revealed by our unaided senses and agrees with simple mathematical models (celestial spheres) is just very-limited short-hand, and becomes toxic when it is held up as dogma.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
RaflW
Wow, even just the opening is great. Pointing out that the DC Press Corpse* is handed a chance to ask about Putin, Russia and Navalny, when Russian malfeasance is one of the great global challenges, and they just shout the idiotic “Nikki, or Donald?”.
*Zombies, maybe?
different-church-lady
@TriassicSands: Problem is Trump is telling the truth: he would dump the Constitution. No Pinocchios!
wjca
I see lots of people endorsing this. Not surprising, since you’re right.
What I don’t see is the other side: “if it walks and talks like (your image of) a Democrat, the party label doesn’t matter.” Because God forbid anyone accept the (admittedly not numerous) Republicans, or even independents, who haven’t formally embraced the Democratic Party. Gotta insist that no Republican could ever, probably has ever, been anything but the embodyment of evil. Frankly, it gets a bit tiresome.
wjca
@Kay:
Well, physical attractiveness and social status are what they care about in others. So why wouldn’t everyone?
EDT And Princess got there first.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
Those people are the ones who benefit from having the cameras focused on the president. They are focused upon getting “the story” and getting it printed. At one point, and it was during my and other’s lifetimes, a news paper was the fastest, most informed way to get the news. TV news was at best 1/2 hr per day. At most. Now TV gives us “instant” news, but the most important/all of the decisions made by governing people are done not in the spotlight, but in those rooms with closed doors and actual discussions. TV news is the spectacle, the result, same as 50-60 yrs ago when it was the newspapers and possibly radio. And radio wasn’t as in depth, not anywhere near as in depth. TV is the spectacle. Behind closed doors and in the offices, including the oval office, are the discussions, the decisions. We see/hear the TV. But TV is not in the room when decisions are made. It can’t be. The decisions are far too important to turn into theater
IOW you are absolutely correct.
Hannah
https://thedashfiles.substack.com/p/part-1-why-i-voted-for-joe-biden
Paul in KY
@Chris: The media knows what direction it’s owners (who write their paychecks) want to slant the news/narrative and they mostly slavishly do it.
Paul in KY
@JoyceH: They all want to be on TV, as it pays so much.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: By their coverage, the Times is most definitely ‘partisan’ towards TFG. This comes from the top, of course.
Paul in KY
@TBone: I’ve seen them 3 or 4 times and then Ms. Howard solo a couple. Just a great set every time!
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: That’s a very good point. Always thought VP Gore should have cultivated the pundits a bit more and maybe they would have been a little easier on him.
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: IMO, some women do swarm over studly looking guys with repugnant personalities. Have seen it. Assume they just wanted a ‘hot’ lay or some arm candy (at the time).
Paul in KY
@Chris: To say that ‘Nikki’ Haley or Ron DeSuckus is considered a ‘nice reasonable moderate’ shows how twisted they and GQP has become.
DeSuckus may actually be more cruel than TFG.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
The definition of “moderate Republican candidate” these days is literally “not Donald Trump.”
Paul in KY
@Chris: There might be a couple who are more out there than him, but I see and understand your excellent point.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
Thanks. Your point probably deserved a more detailed response, so…
“Moderate Republican” isn’t an ideology or a faction, it’s an aesthetic and, frankly, an evasion. It means “Republican but not THAT kind of Republican,” where “THAT kind of Republican” means whatever a Republican is currently doing that’s considered embarrassing in the kind of circles NYT pundits run in. It’s a phrase you use to define whatever Republican you’re currently selling as a blank slate, which we should all disassociate from whatever we hate about the party, and onto whom we should project whatever it is we imagine a Good Republican to be.
In short, it’s a way of saying “forget how bad the party is, imagine what it might be, and pretend that you can somehow turn it into that by voting for it!”
Hence, the media’s love for DeSantis and Haley. Is DeSantis, if anything, even worse than Trump on every possible metric? Did Haley support Trump through two impeachments and tell us all to forget about the coup attempt? Doesn’t matter! Trump is the Republican Party brand that pundit types feel currently embarrassed by. DeSantis and Haley are the two current Not Trumps. Therefore, DeSantis and Haley are Moderate Republicans.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Good exposition on your previous comments. They are ‘moderate’ GQPers!