Yet and still


Like so many other liberals, I'm sick and tired of the New York Times' normalizing and both-sidesing Trump. Many times over the past few months have I considered killing my subscription rather than continue to be outraged on a daily basis. If I wanted to tear my hair out over a bad slant on the news, I'd sign up for Fox News or the New York Post.

But the other day, I had to laugh. The Times must be getting a little nervous about defections by readers like me. In an editorial and in an in-house opinion column, they were sure to start off with the plain truth about how bad Orange Caligula is, before they went back to their usual know-nothing act. First we got the editorial:

The most important distinction between the two candidates for the White House is that Vice President Kamala Harris is committed to democracy and the rule of law and Donald Trump is not. It’s a race that is, fundamentally, about who has the right temperament and is fit to be the next president, and the answer is not in question.

Consider, for instance, Liz Cheney’s endorsement last week of Ms. Harris. Ms. Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman, supports the vice president even though she disagrees with many, perhaps most, of Ms. Harris’s policy positions. “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” she said. Her father, Dick Cheney, a former vice president and fellow lifelong conservative, followed suit the next day.

Yet policy matters, too. And voters have been clear that they are less interested in debates about the future of democracy than they are in the matters of governance that affect their everyday lives....

How courageous! Two whole paragraphs of the truth before the turn at "Yet...." One page later, Paul Krugman wrote:

On Saturday, at a rally in Wisconsin, Donald Trump said some bizarre and potentially damaging stuff about economic policy. “So what?” you may say; it was, after all, a day ending in “y.” And to be honest, the most vile thing he said at that event wasn’t about economics; it was his declaration that his vision or plan for “getting them out” — deporting undocumented immigrants — “will be a bloody story.”

Still, his remarks about how he would use tariffs to preserve the dollar’s status as a reserve currency should worry anyone imagining that international economic policy during a second Trump term would be like policy in his first term — a lot of sound and fury signifying not much.

Old Paul couldn't get more than one paragraph out before the "Still," but at least he spoke the truth briefly before moving on to the daily normalizing.

Trump has obviously been quite a meal ticket for the Times, and they can't seem to let go of him. But they're losing friends fast, and when he's gone, you have to wonder what they'll have left.


Comments

  1. It's not *just* the NYT... Hair Hitler has been a meal ticket for the media industrial complex for a long time. It's hard to willingly step off a gravy train like that.

    I'm hopeful that, when drumpf loses the coming election, he makes good on his promise to leave the country...to a place with no extradition treaty with the US and even worse internet. The Cayman Islands comes to mind. He's probably been stashing money there for years buying passports for him & his spawn will be a seamless process.

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  2. Pretty rich that the Dims want to beat us over the head about "Democracy" when their candidate got ZERO delegates and they just pushed Joe to the sidelines (where's Joe these days). A smoky backroom process to anoint Harris is "Democracy" in action. OK, got it.

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    Replies
    1. Wow. This mst be a very sad time for you. Well-deserved sadness.

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    2. So that is not how it went down? So much for free and fair elections.

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    3. I'm good. I don't play pretend voting matters. When was the last time a Republican won Oregon?

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    4. Yes, but the sheep in Portland and Eugene do not share the same values as the rest of the country. This whole “campaign” system has janky and suspicious written all over it.

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    5. I feel like I just read a FOX talking point memo. Care to share any original thoughts? If you are capable of any that is.

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    6. "when their candidate got ZERO delegates"
      ... CBS News disagrees: "The DNC said after the close of the virtual roll call, 4,567 delegates voted for Harris." - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dnc-roll-call-of-states-2024/

      Here's a concept you might want to bounce around inside that echo chamber between your ears: the DNC followed the rules that have been in place for years, about how to proceed in that situation. Read, and learn: https://protectdemocracy.org/work/what-happens-if-a-presidential-candidate-dies-steps-down/

      Also along the journey, you might muse over the concept that whomever you are listening to and agreeing with on this nonsense, is either unbelievably ignorant of the things I just found on Google for you in about 20 seconds, or they are *lying to you*.

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    7. Pretty easy when there’s no open primary.

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  3. The truth is that Trump sells newspapers, clicks, and eyeballs. Dinosaur Media gave us Trump in 2016 and then bit that hand that fed them. The media barons of NYC--more inbred than the Russian Czars--can read their slipping circulation numbers...and nothing sells papers better than (aside from puppies) a mustache-twirling villain.

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  4. Jack, do you ever feel weird about your dissonance between national and local politics? I’m asking sincerely. I’ve been in the same boat. Like every feckless local progressive is a disaster, but somehow these ones holding court 3,000 miles away are great. Are they? I would never vote for someone like Donald Trump but I’m curious how you square the contradiction yourself. Harris is just a Chevy Vega with a few hundred million more in the bank and better media. What if it’s all bullshit?

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