The Gaslighter’s Psychiatrist: My Response to Dan Drezner

I wasn’t going to weigh in on the latest kerfuffle over Maggie Haberman. She wrote a book. It reveals things that would have been useful to know years ago. On several key points (such as what Trump did with the Strzok and Page texts), she seems unaware of related details that undermine her claims to exclusive smarts. The kerfuffle is not that interesting to me.

But Dan Drezner said two things in defense of her that are so fascinating, I couldn’t resist.

His most substantive defense of Maggie, bullet point 1, halfway into his post, is that most other politicians would not have remained standing after her stories.

Haberman is a pretty great reporter! Her stories on Trump were chock-full of tidbits that would have destroyed the standing of most other politicians. That Trump remained standing (sort of) after every one of her bombshell stories is a source of frustration to many, but Haberman is hardly to blame for this.

Drezner, who is a news-savvy political science professor with a column, not a journalist, spends much of the rest of his post lecturing about how journalism works.

For all the lecturing, he doesn’t note the most curious journalistic fact about Maggie’s book tour, at least to me: not that she delayed stories for the book, not necessarily that she’s telling stories she could have told in 2016 or 2018 or 2020 but did not, but that none of the teaser exclusives are being published at the NYT. The Atlantic, CNN, Axios, WaPo’s own Trump-whisperer — they’re the ones getting traffic from Maggie’s tidbits this week, not the NYT. After I started this, Joe Klein — better known as Joke Line!! — did a fawning review of the book in the NYT, but that’s not news or even, given that it was written by Joke Line, marginally reliable (though it may nevertheless be the most unintentionally insightful piece on the book).

When James Risen’s book about George Bush’s war on terror abuses was shunned by the NYT, it was a symptom of far more significant problems at the newspaper, problems that had to do with that outlet’s relationship to the Presidency (or perhaps Vice Presidency). Who knows whether that’s the case here. But it does raise questions about whether something is going on that explains NYT’s choice to let their star Trump-whisperer scoop them in virtually all the competing outlets — or whether they even had a choice in the matter.

Like I said, Drezner is a political science professor, so perhaps it was no surprise he missed what I find to be a more interesting curiosity about Maggie’s book blitz.

But he’s a political science professor, and so I would have welcomed some reflection about why he believes most other politicians, but not Trump, would have been destroyed by Maggie’s tidbits. Do Maggie’s strengths and weaknesses as a journalist offer any insight into Trump’s unique resilience? Is she a symptom of it? Or one of the causes? Those seem like utterly critical questions for political science professors as we try to stave off fascism in the United States.

As an access journalist, Maggie rises and falls with the subjects of her access. And this book — the payoff for years of access — is not just a story about Trump. It’s a story of her access, the transactional relationship it entailed, what Trump does with those he has selected to be witnesses to his power.

In the Atlantic excerpt of her book, Maggie famously described Trump likening her to his psychiatrist. She used that as a cue to close the piece with her wisdom about Trump — written in the first person but often, not always, quoting Trump’s direct speech, heightening both her own status as omniscient narrator but also the degree to which she is a manufactured character in her own book.

Then he turned to the two aides he had sitting in on our interview, gestured toward me with his hand, and said, “I love being with her; she’s like my psychiatrist.”

It was a meaningless line, almost certainly intended to flatter, the kind of thing he has said about the power of release he got from his Twitter feed or other interviews he has given over the years. The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists—reporters, government aides, and members of Congress, friends and pseudo-friends and rally attendees and White House staff and customers. All present a chance for him to vent or test reactions or gauge how his statements are playing or discover how he is feeling. He works things out in real time in front of all of us. Along the way, he reoriented an entire country to react to his moods and emotions.

I spent the four years of his presidency getting asked by people to decipher why he was doing what he was doing, but the truth is, ultimately, almost no one really knows him. Some know him better than others, but he is often simply, purely opaque, permitting people to read meaning and depth into every action, no matter how empty they might be.

We’re all like Maggie, omniscient narrator Maggie explains, all just bit players serving as a sounding board to witness him ramble for 20 minutes, all the while cutting us off so he can find the precise word he wants. But maybe not. In the next paragraph, first person Maggie reminds us that everyone else asks her, the sounding board Trump likens to his shrink, to “decipher” him. And this woman who stages herself as a participant in three interviews in this piece, concludes not that she’s got no insight, but that he’s simply opaque, something that we — including Maggie the character portrayed interviewing Trump — project our interpretations of depth onto.

Maggie sells herself as the false promise that you might get to know Trump through his quoted lies and not through his means or his deeds, not through understanding how those lies and the way they are circulated wielded power.

And that, Drezner observes, didn’t end up sticking to Trump the way it would other politicians. That seems like a really important insight.

Which brings me to the other thing Drezner set me off with.

The best explanation of Maggie’s work he offers — and it’s a frightfully good explanation — is the way he starts his post:

When I was curating the Toddler-in-Chief thread on Twitter and adapting it into The Toddler in Chief, I leaned pretty hard on Maggie Haberman’s reporting for the New York Times. I literally said, “Maggie Haberman’s reportage… is all over that thread.”

Drezner was talking about his interminable chronicle of Trump’s tantrums. Each tweet screen capped an example of Trump’s closest aides bitching to someone — and yes, that someone was often Maggie — about how they had to coddle Trump, how they built the entire Administration to cater to Trump’s every mood or emotion. In each tweet, Drezner the political science professor would categorize this report as yet more proof that Trump was not “growing into the presidency.” I took the observation as shorthand for false expectations of normality after Trump’s election, a hope that it wouldn’t be so bad after Trump came to understand the gravity of the office. Drezner contines to cling to that observation, even after Trump’s failed coup attempt.

I found the series funny and occasionally baited Drezner on it. It was a worthy observation about false reassurances certain pundits made about Trump. But it ended up being an inadequate rubric for understanding the damage Trump could do as we all laughed at his ineptitude.

In retrospect there were probably better ways to try to convey the danger posed by Trump than to serially mock him on Twitter, reinforcing the editorial decisions that treated his tantrums but not his actions as the news, even while exacerbating the polarization between those who identified with Trump’s tantrums and those who with their fancy PhDs knew better.

And Drezner’s first impulse, when defending Maggie’s journalism, was to point to the sheer number of times she obtained a hilarious quote that served as another artifact in a never-ending string of news stories that treated Trump’s tantrums as the news, rather than the actions Trump pulled off by training people to accommodate his tantrums.

Those stories, individually and as a corpus, revealed Trump to be a skilled bully. But those stories of Trump’s bullying commanded our attention, just like his reality TV show did, and reassured him that continued bullying would continue to dominate press coverage.

That press coverage, I’m convinced, not only was complicit in the bullying, but also served as a distraction from things that really mattered or levers that we might have used to neutralize the bullying.

It was power by reality TV. And Maggie Haberman was and remains a key producer of that power.

Update: Drezner did a really thoughtful response here. I totally agree with this point:

The part unique to Trump is his abject lack of shame. Some scandals that bring politicians down involve illegality, but most involve the revelation of actions or statements that are either embarrassing or completely at odds with their public positions. Most politicians are human beings who embarrass easily, and so are vulnerable to scandal. They will withdraw from the stage to avoid further unwanted attention. Trump’s entire career, by way of contrast, gloried in scandal. During the 2016 campaign he contradicted himself constantly, said and did repugnant things, and did not care a whit. As Ezra Klein noted way back in 2015, that was Trump’s political superpower: “This is Donald Trump’s secret, his strategy, his power…. He just doesn’t fucking care. He will never, ever give an inch. Better to be a monster than a wuss. You cannot embarrass Donald Trump.”

This would not have mattered if two other trends that I discussed at length in The Ideas Industry had not also kicked in: the rise in political polarization and the erosion of trust in institutions. These two trends created a permission structure in which ordinary Republicans could dismiss damning Maggie Haberman stories in the New York Times as fake news. Even if Haberman (and every other reporter) had published absolutely everything she knew in real time, it would not have affected this dynamic.

His discussion of how great stories reporting on scandal barely blip in the coverage, however, goes right to my biggest gripe with Maggie. Drezner denies that Maggie’s reporting serves to distract from real crimes.

The part unique to Trump is his abject lack of shame. Some scandals that bring politicians down involve illegality, but most involve the revelation of actions or statements that are either embarrassing or completely at odds with their public positions. Most politicians are human beings who embarrass easily, and so are vulnerable to scandal. They will withdraw from the stage to avoid further unwanted attention. Trump’s entire career, by way of contrast, gloried in scandal. During the 2016 campaign he contradicted himself constantly, said and did repugnant things, and did not care a whit. As Ezra Klein noted way back in 2015, that was Trump’s political superpower: “This is Donald Trump’s secret, his strategy, his power…. He just doesn’t fucking care. He will never, ever give an inch. Better to be a monster than a wuss. You cannot embarrass Donald Trump.”

This would not have mattered if two other trends that I discussed at length in The Ideas Industry had not also kicked in: the rise in political polarization and the erosion of trust in institutions. These two trends created a permission structure in which ordinary Republicans could dismiss damning Maggie Haberman stories in the New York Times as fake news. Even if Haberman (and every other reporter) had published absolutely everything she knew in real time, it would not have affected this dynamic.

But Maggie’s access and the way Trump’s associates exploit her — gleefully — makes it really easy to play her to kill a story. Her limited hangouts then become the breaking news, rather than the real details disclosed by an investigation.

Both on specific parts of the Russian investigation — such as Paul Manafort’s sharing of campaign strategy in the same meeting where he talked about $19 million in financial benefits to him — and more generally — such as Maggie and Mike Schmidt’s demonstrably false claim that Trump was only investigated for obstruction — stories involving Maggie helped Trump and his associates cover up his criminal exposure.

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108 replies
  1. Leu2500 says:

    Maggie is wrong: plenty of people – mental health professionals – “know” Trump

    They tried to warn us on Twitter b4 he was elected. They explained what was going on during his presidency on Twitter.

    & they published The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump in 2017.

    And if Maggie bothered to remember anything she wrote, she would recall that in an earlier chapter of her book, she reported that Trump CoS John Kelly used this book as an aid while he was CoS.

    • Brad Cole says:

      Looking at Trump and his coterie as symptoms of mental illness is perhaps a waste of time. He is different from a true caudillo in that he depends on the consent of the governed to tyrannize, he has no true base of bullying force. He gives his clique what they want or he is gone, so the true fault lies in those who consent to it.

    • The Lorem Ipsum Conspiracy says:

      It seems that people can be divided into two groups — those who have first hand (and often painful) experience with narcissistic personality disorder and those who don’t quite believe its a real thing.

      When Drezner was doing the press tour for his toddler book, I asked him if he had consulted with any experts in NPD so as to give his readers a better understanding of what the president’s behavior meant in the larger context. He said he had not, and excused that omission with a reference to the Goldwater rule and something to the effect of staying in his lane.

      That’s been the pattern with so much of the press. They have an aversion to seeing his actions through the lens of NPD. When to someone who has already had to cope with a disordered individual, its very clearly the most salient aspect of the man’s identity.

      Haberman struck me as particularly bad in this regard because in her tweets she occasionally uses language indicating some knowledge of NPD, but it is just superficial. As if his narcissism just means having a big ego and thin skin, rather than a disorder that determines his every waking decision.

      [Welcome back to emptywheel. Cautionary note: your identity can’t be confirmed without the same user information entered each time in at least 2 fields. Many users prefer to preserve their privacy but without consistent user information in at least 2 fields the possibility of spoofing may be assumed. Thanks. /~Rayne]

      • Buleriando says:

        This.

        My first hand experience was a long, damaging business relationship. In the process of trying to understand what the hell had happened I came across NPD and it was an epiphany. Took a lot of research on NPD and its variants to convince myself I hadn’t been crazy all those years (gaslighting, anyone?).

        When Trump came along all the alarm bells went off. Yet when I try to explain his behaviour to others (who loathe him as I do) in terms of NPD many of them literally cannot wrap their head around the concept of someone completely devoid of empathy, and what they are therefore capable of.

        • vvv says:

          I was married to one for a cuppla years, which diagnosis I can prove after much $ spent for a forensic psychological eval w/in the divorce action.

          Before the golden escalator ride, I thought tfg a mildly amusing arse.

          When I started paying attention about halfway through the campaign, I quickly recognized his NPD as what I had seen in my ex.

          [FYI – Comment edited to complete content with duplicates deleted. /~Rayne]

          • Rayne says:

            Many people who’ve survived abusive relationships recognized his behavior patterns.

            I wonder how many MAGA voters were drawn to him *because of* his abusive personality.

            • vvv says:

              (Thank you for the edit!)

              Fascinating thought.

              Yuck.

              But yeah – reminds me of the old joke defining a sadist as someone who is kind to masochists.

              • bjet says:

                What does that say of Maggie Haberman and her work, and those who were taken in by it, like Drezner here, if you see in Trump, a masochist?

    • pseudonymous in nc says:

      Mary’s book, especially so. And I think she was able to map it to the dynamics of her family, even while carefully treading the line that prevents mental health professionals from diagnosing from afar.

  2. rattlemullet says:

    Maggies problem is the same as the news industry as a whole these days. News, tragedy if you will, is treated as an entertainment venue and profit making is the main concern and driving force. As trump said it is all about ratings, and crowd size. In my opinion she degrades the profession of journalism for a book sale and potential profits, with trump, she sold her soul to the devil.

  3. PeterS says:

    Thank you for this post. It is worrying (an understatement) that most of the media doesn’t seem to have learned a whole lot since those early days when Trump’s campaign speeches were run live on cable news.

    And I look forward to BC’s comments…

    • Bears74 says:

      “most of the media doesn’t seem to have learned a whole lot since those early days when Trump’s campaign speeches were run live on cable news”

      Hell, they’re aching to get back to those ratings and advertising cash. Cable “news” should never have been allowed to use that moniker. Just look at the direction CNN is heading, seeking to appeal to an audience that has been convinced that they’re leftist Communist propagandists. Politics don’t make for strange bedfellows, capitalism does.

    • Rugger9 says:

      This access journamalism was a hallmark of the Shrub years, but it really started seriously during the Reagan years. Since the Ds don’t whine or threaten like the GOP does, the courtier press doesn’t feel like keeping the same standards for both parties. That lack of fairness has to be addressed first, which will be very hard to accomplish when something like six companies own 80% of the outlets.

      • timbo says:

        The Reagan era was capped off by a consolidation of media and media distribution in the US. This was partially about breaking unions and partially about a huge shift in technology and the way capital worked in the US, particularly in relationship to media outlets, etc.

  4. CD Wilsher says:

    Haberman’s relationship with Trump is strictly quid pro quo. She gets access. In return she portrays Trump the way he wants to be seen: Strong, tough, shrewd. A guy who gets what he wants. Somebody you don’t want to cross. Not a 100% ethical or fair but a guy who gets things done (as opposed to the incompetent boob he actually is).

      • Jett says:

        Bingo! Emptywheel’s about the only place I can go to get THIS kind of thoughtful analysis. Yet, if I want to read “Hey! Look! Trump mistook the black and brown folks in his admin for waiters!!!” I can find that anywhere.

    • Glen Dudek says:

      I don’t think “Strong, tough, shrewd” is correct, or what Dr Wheeler is saying – I think Haberman presents Trump as spectacle, which is to say entertainment, and this obscures the very real danger.

  5. Peterr says:

    Then he turned to the two aides he had sitting in on our interview, gestured toward me with his hand, and said, “I love being with her; she’s like my psychiatrist.”

    It was a meaningless line, almost certainly intended to flatter, the kind of thing he has said about the power of release he got from his Twitter feed or other interviews he has given over the years. The reality is that he treats everyone like they are his psychiatrists—reporters, government aides, and members of Congress, friends and pseudo-friends and rally attendees and White House staff and customers. All present a chance for him to vent or test reactions or gauge how his statements are playing or discover how he is feeling. He works things out in real time in front of all of us. Along the way, he reoriented an entire country to react to his moods and emotions.

    If Maggie thinks Trump calling her his psychologist is a good thing, I have news: that’s hardly meaningless, nor is it flattery.

    A psychologist isn’t someone who helps you find the right word. They are people who observe things about your thinking and behavior, then share what they have seen with you, so that you might see things you didn’t know and thus rethink how you act in relation to others, so that you learn to change that behavior for the better.

    To Trump, a psychologist is someone you can practice shoveling BS with, so that you can hone your skills at selling snowjobs. It’s not about self-reflection, but about learning to better manipulate people around you. That’s about as far as you can get from psychology.

    And if Maggie thinks this is Trump paying her (or others) a complement, she is blind – which is exactly what Trump intends.

    Maggie appears to share a mix of the worst journalistic traits of NYT stalwarts Judy Miller and Maureen Dowd. That she is trumpeted as a NYT’s senior political reporter reflects poorly on the editorial staff.

    • BobCon says:

      There is a great scene in The Sopranos where Carmela goes to see a therapist. Dr. Krakower cuts to the chase – she is married to a mob boss and she needs to take her kids and run now to save them.

      Carmela is furious because she thinks he should just tell her things to feel better about herself so she can keep tolerate her situation. And he responds that’s not what a therapist should do. He needs to lay out the crisis before her.

      And Carmela’s viewpoint is what Haberman thinks — her job is to help all of Trump’s enablers to feel better about themselves and stay married to the mob. The last thing she would ever do is actually report the bigger truth.

      • robb rogers says:

        Powerful analysis, Marcy,
        And Bob, your last line is spot on “–report the bigger truth.”

        This is what riles me about watching “Left TeeVee” on MSNBC –the failure to report the bigger truth.
        It’s not just that the Right is the Bad Guys taking our democracy to the brink, it’s the bigger truth that the Corporate Dems haven’t actually represented their voter constituencies for years (along with, of course, the GOP). Why do virtually all polls continue to show horrid support for Congress? They’ve sold out democracy to the 1%.

        /

      • xbronx says:

        Carmela’s scene with Dr Krakower is brilliant. As she’s leaving he tells her he doesn’t want her money – it’s all blood money. Pre-Covid and certainly during and post-Covid, with tens of thousands of needless deaths, all Trump money is blood money.

    • Paulka says:

      Maggie reminds me of Dr Melfi from The Sopranos who after several years of treating Tony came to realize that a sociopath cannot be “cured” and psychotherapy is used by the sociopath to hone their manipulative skills
      Maggie playing the Dr Melfi part pre-realization that is

      • BobCon says:

        I think it’s telling how the NY Times ran multiple articles during the show’s run that cheered the Melfi-Tony sessions as positive examples of therapy, instead of what finally was spelled out.

        I think it’s a fair question whether Haberman or Melfi can be faulted for failing to see the issue as quickly as Carmela’s therapist. But seven years? Or in Haberman’s case longer?

  6. Troy P says:

    Meanwhile journalism is patting itself on the back. This Politico article by John Harris goes out of its way to praise the same people that Marcy and others on this site have consistently demonstrated are not up to the task.
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/29/objectivity-journalism-versus-trump-00059386
    [This is my first attempt at posting a link here. I think it is clean. But feel free to fix. If you think it does not belong, that is fine.]

    [The URL is clean, devoid of tracking. Thanks for checking. /~Rayne]

  7. NeoGeoHa says:

    Having never been a NYTs reader I had no idea who this person was before TFG became President and started seeing her stuff on twitter (which I no longer use). I have no intention of buying her book or any one of the other ones people write after they have left TFG’s administration. I believe she knows TFG well enough to know how far she can push a negative narrative with him before he cuts her out of his orbit. What seems to be of great import to TFG is relevancy, and so long as his name is out there and he is being talked about, he is happy. The old “there is no such thing as bad publicity” angle. She seems to know just how far to push a negative story about him w/o going over a line. All these inside glimpses and retelling of conversations are pretty meaningless at this point. It is fluff to fill 4 min interviews on tv shows and make her some more $ selling a book, good for her.

    What I REALLY have a problem with is when one of these folks (especially someone like Bob Woodward) sits on actual information or facts that if they came out in a timely manner, rather than 12,18, 24 months later to sell books and rehab their image, would have helped the country or in Woodward’s case, probably would have saved lives.

    • eyesoars says:

      Maggie is to reporting as a Twinkie is to kobayashi beef. Big Macs are at least meat and reasonably nutritious, if loaded with salt and fat. A Twinkie is nutritional vacuity designed to distract you from that obvious truth.

      • Purple Martin says:

        In a pinch, a Big Mac can be considered food. You could have it for lunch.

        A Twinkie isn’t food, it’s entertainment.

        • earlofhuntingdon says:

          Neither is food. Owing to food engineering, eating them does not lead to satiation, only to a desire for more. Like potato chips. And, yes, I recently noticed Twinkies for sale. at $1.59 each.

          • timbo says:

            Generally, eating food leads to a desire for more. I’d say this was a chicken-egg problem but that might not be entirely accurate. On the other hand, it might be entirely accurate.

  8. BobCon says:

    An obvious counterpoint to the quality of Haberman’s reporting is why did all of her post election coverage miss the coup?

    The trivial defense is nobody would come to her and tell her the plan, but that’s only a defense for missing minor facts, not looming hurricanes.

    We know now that it was consuming Trump and his staff. It was known well enough outside the White House that every former DOD secretary signed a joint piece warning of it on January 3.

    Haberman missed it either because the access she diligently cultivated was a sham and she was too bad at her job to know it, or because she saw the warning signs and heard the whispers but was so bad at her job that she couldn’t figure it out, or that she made a deal not to cover it.

    This isn’t like a DC reporter missing the 9/11 plot in the summer of 2001 — that was being planned far away by people no reporter had good access to. But Haberman was literally embedded with the coup plotters every day. How did she miss 1/6 so badly?

    • Tish says:

      THIS. This. This.

      This is what I want to ask her. But I’ve been blocked, apparently, due to something I must have said that she considered impertinent . . . unless she’s still in Safety Mode, in which case I won’t take it personally.

    • PM says:

      “Haberman missed it either because the access she diligently cultivated was a sham and she was too bad at her job to know it, or because she saw the warning signs and heard the whispers but was so bad at her job that she couldn’t figure it out, or that she made a deal not to cover it.”

      Very well said. I was thinking about this yesterday. The sources she cultivated were playing with her and she fell right into their trap reporting what they wanted her to report. What good is that for us or to stop corruption and corrosion of democratic norms and institutions? She is an enabler reducing the dangerous acts of Trump to performative gossip.

    • emptywheel says:

      I don’t really want to get into the weeds (though I do think often she was used to report limited hangouts).

      But I keep coming back to the fact that none of the access journalists were given a hint of the stolen documents case. He told her he took documents (but suggested it was just the Strzok and Page texts and not, for example, the Carter Page app), but not that he took classified docs.

      • bmaz says:

        “just the Strzok and Page texts”. But those would still be Federal Records, even if not Presidential Records, no? Why would Trump need those in boxes in Mar-a-Lago?

        • emptywheel says:

          The idea was that Meadows had them. I think he likely did. I think the binder likely was reclaimed for the January delivery, but a lot of the shenanigans this summer was an attempt to create a cover story for it.

          But as I’ve said before, the far more important detail pertains to Carter Page’s FISA, bc that’s sequestered.

          • timbo says:

            Along those lines, do you think that some of these documents might actually be pertinent to ongoing criminal investigations by Durham? Seems to me that there might be some overlap? Almost certainly some of the stuff they’ve found may have far reaching implications…but how far do those go? (Not that I’m expecting any concrete answer to that yet, just that it is a crazy multitude of scandals that seem to be nexused around Trump and his coterie, and these government documents and related seized documents are part of a centralized store of information that is still being fought over when that should have ended months ago basically.)

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        Taking any documents not personal records would be illegal. A purpose of Trump’s admission to Haberman would be to falsely frame the taking as inconsequential.

        • timbo says:

          We still do not know for sure who provided probable cause statements for the affidavit that resulted in the warrant seizure being issued for the August raid at Mar-a-Lago. It’s possible that some of those folks might be media personalities; unlikely, but still possible.

          • bmaz says:

            WHAT IN THE LIVING FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU ON DRUGS???

            Am dead serious, you need to stop with this bullshit. Or you are done.

  9. Fancy Chicken says:

    I’m not a tabloid reader (It’s pretty obvious that the crowd here just overall isn’t), I don’t read infotainment like People Magazine. But when I read anything by Haberman, it’s with the same guilty pleasure that I assume some people feel when reading the National Inquirer- I know I’m not getting any real information and the tales of Trump tantrums feed my confirmation bias about what a mean and stupid man he is, fueling my hopes that he will eventually get his just rewards on the days it would seem like he would most hopelessly not. I’m sure that many folks read her for the same reason, either unaware of what she was feeding us all or too on their high horse to admit the frisson of schadenfreude was all they were getting from her journalism.

    I don’t have any serious intellectual pretense to guard, so I can admit why I have read her. I just don’t see why more people don’t admit she’s basically a Trump gossip columnist and his predilection for cultivating transactional relationships with that ilk probably goes a great way to explaining why he gives her access.

    And by not seeing her as a gossip columnist with the White House as her beat, I think people give her work more import and it leads to frustration such as yours that serious people became distracted by the Toddler in Chief rather than illuminating his dangerous and disastrous policy decisions and working to educate the public on those and the real long term threat to our democracy Trump’s been since he came down that gold elevator.

    • ernesto1581 says:

      “I just don’t see why more people don’t admit she’s basically a Trump gossip columnist…”

      There you go. It will be interesting when he finally dumps on her how the treatment compares the humiliating number he did on Liz Smith, way back when. And Smith had a sharper and more cynical intelligence. She knew that if it smelled bad it was bad, but nevertheless got momentarily too close to the manure pit in pursuit of a scoop. As it were.

      Like many NY’er’s, I watched and listened to Trump’s disgusting behaviors for over thirty-five years before he got into national politics. In 2016, there was nothing new under the sun, only more of it. Go back and read Wayne Barrett’s book — it could have been written yesterday.

      • Sue 'em Queequeg says:

        Which would be — arguably might be, anyway — fine if the NYT had a team of ace reporters doing what several commenters here have mentioned: focusing on the behavior and its consequences and reporting on the asymmetry between left (or what passes for left these days) and right. When one player in a batting contest is trying to hit the ball and the other is using the bat to smash their opponent’s ribs, the story is not about the difference in their swings.

        But there is no such team of ace reporters. To echo Eyesoars above, there’s no dinner on the dinner plate, only dessert, and not even that unless you like Twinkies.

        I console myself, as I imagine others may do, by giving the headlines a quick scan (I canceled my subscription years ago) and then heading over here to find out what’s really going on from the brilliant and indefatigable Dr. Wheeler and her faithful, thoughtful, informed, and yes, pun-loving core group of commenters.

    • skua says:

      I think being a central proponent of Birtherism, with its divisive white supremecist attraction and Q-Anon like irrationality, made Trump a real threat to the US long before the elevator.

  10. MaryL says:

    Corruption analyst, K. Louise Neufeld, did a deep dive into Maggie Haberman. What I found astounding is that “Nancy Haberman, Maggie’s mother, works for the PR firm, Rubenstein, which was founded by Howard Rubenstein – a PR legend, who was once called “the dean of damage control” by Rudy Giuliani.” Maggie nor the NYT discloses this fact.

    More: “At Rubenstein, Nancy Haberman is no coffee girl. Her bio lists her as Executive Vice President, and gives her history as “Rubenstein, Home with kids for six years, Harper and Row Publishers, New York Post.” Later in her bio, it states, “Has a family of journalists. And the kids she was home with now have kids of their own.” Nancy’s area of expertise: “Traditional media, i.e. print, radio, and broadcast. Big emphasis on New York media. General interest stories, medical, breaking news, nonprofits, education… Lends media support to other people’s clients with her relationships established over 30 years.”

    “Howard Rubenstein’s work history with the Trump family began early with Fred Trump. Then in 1990, when Donald and Ivana were going through their divorce, Rubenstein took on Donald’s personal PR – doing the dirty work of spinning that nasty mess into something that wouldn’t tarnish Donald’s name and brand irreparably. Because that’s the real nature of PR, isn’t it? The Brand.”

    “PR specialists, like Rubenstein and his EVP Nancy Haberman, work the media to the benefit of their clients. If there’s a damaging story about to drop, they’re the ones who get the call from the media outlet. They’re the ones who give a statement on behalf of their client. They’re the ones who SPIN. That’s their art.”
    http://www.citjourno.org/maggie3

    • 2milgroove says:

      Thank you for the mention of K. Louise Neufeld. It was through her work that I discovered the unassailable fact that Maggie Haberman is a propagandist. She comes from a family of spinners and distorters of the truth. I find these new “writers” of inside access books to be despicable.

  11. Rayne says:

    There’s something critical about the transition to/from first and third person and then back again. The process of observing as a third person interrupted by Trump’s queries to the journalist/staffer/other individual, forcing them to first person, and then the reversion to third person — this is how he measures a person’s engagement with him and whether he can do more than simply ask for a better word or if they have an opinion or sentiment. This is a con man measuring his mark and how far he can go by determining their willingness to be complicit.

    And in Haberman’s case, all the damned way because she plays along, gets hooked, sees him as opaque rather than the con man who just manipulated her successfully once again. The fake praise calling her “like his psychiatrist” isn’t mere flattery; it is both a means to close the test and to confirm the mark was on the hook.

    We’re now supposed to believe he continues to be opaque even though he’s obviously conning her right under her nose which she dutifully reports all too late because he’s opaque to her.

    I really hope there’s adequate reason for Haberman to be called to testify before a grand jury about missing and defaced presidential documents. I would enjoy nothing more than another test of Branzburg v. Hayes by way of a NYT journalist.

    • Bardi says:

      Rayne,
      Well said, sir. TY.
      No one is immune from being conned, that is for sure, but, Maggie seems to have been conned by someone better than herself yet thinks herself above all that. She is nothing more than donnie’s press secretary, without the status.

      • Justice Now says:

        Wow! Reading this commentary on M Haberman…I’m finally to the point where the veil is lifted and I can understand the symbiotic relationship. I used to read things she wrote and think she was exposing tRump traits….good or bad….in a sort of both sides of the coin thing. Then I read how most people did not relish her opinion….at all. Now, seeing the weird psychology of this and given her family history….which I did not know…brings into focus who she really is. I hate it when these people save the real truths for the book….to make money off their access and in the process cover up the nefarious things going on THROUGHOUT the tRump administration.

        • bmaz says:

          Who is “tRump”? Did that intentional misspelling make you feel happier inside? What exactly do you think that kind of nonsense accomplishes? This kind of childish junk is seriously tiring. People, please stop with this.

        • timbo says:

          Good. That seems to be one of the great things about emptywheel.net ; may the veil keep lifting until we’ve got back to something more rational in our national governance policies and general social institutions!

    • posaune says:

      Rayne @9:59,
      Yours is a great perspective of language here — a “theory of mind” approach that is right on the mark. “con man measuring his mark.”

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      Thank you, Rayne, and others who’ve adduced Haberman’s buried motives.

      Ever since the first piece appeared in The Atlantic, I too–like you, Dr. W–have been wondering why this work is *not* debuting in The Times. This is very much a pattern now. Josh Dawsey’s byline makes it seem like fawning cross-promotion in WaPo, but there seems to be something else, something more, going on.

      I look forward to seeing you figure it out. I think that it matters, following the larger pattern you point out: Don’t listen to the bombast, watch what they do.

  12. Rita says:

    Maggie Haberman reminds me of the kid in “Stranger Things” who finds a little unknown critter in his garbage can and decides to make it his little pet, hides it from his parents, feeds it, watches it grow, until one day it escapes to rampage through his neighborhood. Her reporting always seemed to have a bit too much of “Look what that little rascal has said now”.

    In the quoted excerpt, she says: “Along the way, he reoriented an entire country to react to his moods and emotions.” This is not correct. The news media did the reorienting. The news media went from the “isn’t he cute and funny in his outrageous behavior” approach to “when he become President he will grow into the role” to “he always promised to break norms” to “he has created the new norm”. They fell for the assurances from his aides that they could control him. They thought that he was a simpleton, easily manipulated. They consistently underestimated his ability and desire to manipulate and control.

    Maggie may be the most visible Handmaiden, but she has had lots of help.

  13. bidrec says:

    The New York Times and the tabloids are national papers. My copy of The New York Times is printed in Philly. The local press was always critical of Trump: The Village Voice, New York Magazine, both before they were acquired by Murdoch, The New York Observer before it was acquired by Kushner, Steven Brill’s American Lawyer, Channel Nine (Ken Auletta), and particularly The Bergen Record. In NYC Trump did not win the popular vote because people know him.

  14. jaango1 says:

    For many years now, I have been highly disappointed by the self-acknowledged credentialed journalists, and who come forth with their assorted political nonsense and Haberman, among others, and derives their kudos, accordingly to their best buddies.

    I am an advocate for the creation of the municipally-owned internet news network
    of comprised 50 sites spread throughout the U.S. Now, I won’t go into all the details, in this instance, and where Chicanos are creating our relevant future regarding a more comprehensive mindset that is next year journalism.

    And yet, I can cogently imagine that ALL news media outlets as well such entities as Facebook, and among the many will be paying their smallish and assessed fees to the municipalities for their furtherance in search of profits and accrued by the journalism employees.

  15. Rick McGahey says:

    The Marx Brothers, like many entertainers, took material on the road to try out with live audiences before performing it in a finished show or movie. Likewise Trump. He flatters Haberman with the “psychiatrist” label, when he’s just treating her like a focus group or audience in preparation for the larger performance. Even the supposed intimacy and flattery is part of the act. Trump is an authoritarian actor/comedian, and if anyone (Haberman, press) thinks they’re getting a true picture from interviews, that just shows how good he is at flattering their egos and playing them. They are rubes in the audience, nothing more.

    • timbo says:

      This. Twitler’s recent interview on Hannity was filled with this sort of seeing-if-it-flies kind of grifter rhetorical stops and starts.

      • bmaz says:

        Who the fuck is “Twitler”? Will you EVER stop with that childish bullshit, or does there need to be corrective action? I have seriously had it with your nonsense and untethered conspiracy theory garbage. No more.

  16. Stevo60 says:

    “Haberman is a pretty great reporter! Her stories on Trump were chock-full of tidbits that would have destroyed the standing of most other politicians. That Trump remained standing (sort of) after every one of her bombshell stories is a source of frustration to many, but Haberman is hardly to blame for this.” Wow, I always though that the job of a journalist was to report facts. Not decide which ones would take down a politician and which ones would destroy his “standing.” Guess that’s my HS journalism teachers never made it to the big time. Saps.

  17. Scott Rose says:

    I doubt Trump has an informed understanding of what psychiatrists are trained to do. Haberman might benefit from reading more about psychiatry. Dr. Robert Hare’s writings on psychopathy are especially relevant to Trump’s manifest disorders.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      An obvious tell that Haberman is being manipulated is that a personality as fragile as Trump’s would never expose himself to an interview with a real psychiatrist.

    • timbo says:

      Trump doesn’t care. That’s what you have to understand. He’s there to see where the weaknesses are, not to appreciate what psychologist might do…at least not beyond any techniques he might pick up from them on the fly.

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Trump published books on how to be a success at business before? I ask because whether or not he’s a professional psychologists, he is saying that if you listen to him that you will be a success. Apparently, Habermann has bought into the latter part of his spiel…

  18. JohnnyO says:

    I’ve only recent started following EW and truly enjoy your insights Dr Wheeler, great job! I am however rather depressed about this post and the replies. I remember thinking how I couldn’t wait for Trump to be out of the White House and finally off the front page, but alas I was naive in the extreme. Trump is still getting to live rent free in my brain because the media refuses to give up on this particular cash cow. Will it continue to be like this years after he’s kicked the bucket? I wonder if a retrospective of news headlines with regard to Nixon would show a similar pattern. Maybe the news clippings from TFG’s stash could lend some insight,

    • timbo says:

      Two years after Nixon had departed the White House, almost nobody wanted to see or here anything about him. That’s not the case with Trump at all it seems. He’s better at staying in the headlines and much better at avoiding any culpability for his conspiracies. So far. Trump will live or die by the media. So far, he’s still living by it.

  19. L. Eslinger says:

    Haberman and Trump use each other, but Trump has an advantage in that Haberman needs him more (increasingly so, since she’s positioned herself as “the Trump Whisperer”). This is reminiscent of the NYT WMD fiasco, and Judith Miller’s credulous channeling of the misinformation ladeled into her bowl.

    Sociopathic manipulators like Trump instinctively identify and take advantage of the fears, wants, and needs of others. My sister is one of these manipulators, and it was chilling to hear her calmly boast that she can sell anything because she knows how to get under people’s skin.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      When your line of work centers on interviewing the movers and shakers in a town like NYC, you can read people or join the unemployment line. If Haberman walks into a room with a guy she’s interviewed many times, and doesn’t know which of them is the better manipulator, it’s not her.

      • Rita says:

        Spot on.

        Or, is it also possible that Maggie knows that her paycheck depends on appearing to Trump as an easy mark?

        • Sandor says:

          Or both. Or “all of the above”. Increasingly, I have come to realize that we have varied tolerance for – ambivalence about – ambiguity. This, as it relates to what it is that motivates us, the kinds of roles that we play, and how these compete given that our goals can be both short or long term. As for Maggie, maybe only HER therapist (if she has one) knows for sure.

  20. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Drezner’s notion that few politicians would have remained standing after Haberman’s blistering series of “exposes” seems about forty years out of date. Especially so given the airtight bubbles so many on the right inhabit.

  21. Paulka says:

    I have always (being raised in the NYC area and Trump being my college graduation speaker) viewed Donald Trump as the epitome of all that is wrong with the human condition. He is vain, lustful, gluttonous, greedy, mean, intellectually incurious, childish, spiteful, envious, etc. I cannot perceive one positive attribute in the man. What I cannot fathom is how people cannot see through the obvious conman persona. Perhaps it was how I was raised-to question the motivations of others, but his schtick it so, so, obvious and in my mind stupid. He has the carnival barker’s personality of everything he does is great, awesome, incredible and everything he opposes is bad, terrible, the worst. Such black and white thinking is the realm of the mentally limited. Not necessarily moral black and white but the simplistic concepts of life black and white. And anyone with a passing knowledge of his business practices-multiple bankruptcies, treatment of contractors, must know that he is completely untrustworthy. I cannot understand why anyone would go into business with him.

    I guess what confuses/bothers me so much is that so many people follow him. I completely get why the media follows him; he is entertaining-like the worst forms of entertainment are enticing. He is the XXX movie of personalities, he is the really, really, dumb action movie of politicians-all flash no substance, he is the Game of Thrones of celebrities-all spectacle without consistent narrative with more than a dose of misogyny and racism. I can’t understand how people can support him given the cognitive dissonance it must cause-how do you ignore the blatant facts to believe anything he says. I suppose it is the cynical nihilist in people that just want to see the world burn that drive many of his supporters, others are parasites sucking what nourishment they can from his bloated being and the cynical few who use him to enrich themselves.

    • Tom-1812 says:

      I, too, find it almost impossible to imagine what anyone could find to like or admire in Donald Trump, or why anyone would want to follow or support him. Everything from his goofy hair to his orange skin to his grating voice to his repertoire of hand gestures just screams fake and phony to me, and I don’t see why that wouldn’t be obvious to any other person.

      I think part of Trump’s appeal is that he is so permissive and undemanding in his role as President or any other public office. All he wants you to do is like him and send him money. You’ll never have to worry that Trump is going to make you feel uncomfortable by asking you to work harder to be a better citizen. He’s never going to ask you to sacrifice anything to help the country live up to the principles upon which it was founded. He’s never going to ask you to question your beliefs and consider that you may be wrong in your attitudes towards some of your fellow Americans. He’s never even going to be spokesman for a charity asking you to donate to help suffering people at home or overseas.

      Trump is like the bad babysitter who tells the kids in his charge that they can stay up as late as they want, watch anything they like on TV, drink as much pop and eat as many chips as they want, so long as they don’t bother him while he’s texting on his phone or going through their mother’s jewelry box.

    • timbo says:

      It is also the innocent optimist that permits Trump and folks like him to exist and flourish. That is, he comes to them with a spiel that promises them riches and power if they follow him, if they believe in him. It’s easy to believe whatever you want if you try, right? And he comes from afar and doesn’t live near you so what can you lose, right? Why not invest a little time, a little money to see if what he’s selling really works. Didn’t work yet? Well, all you have to do is invest a little more, have more faith, stop being so cynical… until… Stalingrad.

  22. klynn says:

    “Each tweet screen capped an example of Trump’s closest aides bitching to someone — and yes, that someone was often Maggie — about how they had to coddle Trump, how they built the entire Administration to cater to Trump’s every mood or emotion. In each tweet, Drezner the political science professor would categorize this report as yet more proof that Trump was not “growing into the presidency.” I took the observation as shorthand for false expectations of normality after Trump’s election, a hope that it wouldn’t be so bad after Trump came to understand the gravity of the office. Drezner contines to cling to that observation, even after Trump’s failed coup…”

    I am not a doctor. What I am about to type is from the perspective of 5 years of caregiving for someone with dementia and missing early signs a few years prior.

    I cannot begin to explain how this paragraph shook me to my core. The difficulty with early signs is that they can blend in with normal behaviors of the individual. Where this paragraph really “got to me” is, upon reflection, I recalled all the times I was relied upon as a sounding board to reassure actions were within the realm of normalcy but upon reflection, were out-of-step in terms of emotion or moodiness. If Maggie had been a trusted go-to for years for messaging, I can totally see DT going to her, in an early disease stage, where one is still able to pull off competent actions that are unfortunately on a foundation of paranoia, and seek her positive “sounding board” interaction. She in turn, complied both out of human nature, journalistic benefit, and ego.

    Again, I am not suggesting a diagnosis. Just noting how this paragraph hit me and triggered recall of a number of memories that would fit the description of this paragraph and thought it somewhat worth sharing considering the genetics of dementia.

  23. MAW says:

    First post of a long term lurker: What is your take on NY Times reporter Michael Schmidt, who often shares a byline with Maggie Haberman and who is now married to NIcolle Wallace?

  24. Randy Baker says:

    You are so spot on! Haberman’s psychodrivel exemplifies the general idiocy of American political reporting, which typically substitutes discussions of character for discussions of the exercise of power by the powerful. If the would be autocrat had been a careful, reflective fellow, would that have made his attempts to end democracy, his filling the courts with right wing ideologues, pilfering the public through self-dealing, and regulatory changes funneling even more $ to the top better? Indeed, if anything, it likely would have rendered him more effective in these endeavors.

  25. Doctor Biobrain says:

    The only way something can destroy you in politics is if it offends your supporters, not because it offends the media or your enemies. I’d see that same mistake from Hillary supporters who would brag about how she was still standing after being relentlessly attacked. Like, yeah, because those attacks didn’t mean anything to YOU and YOU still support her. Nobody can force you to leave politics if you have millions of supporters.

    Trump always kowtowed to his supporters, like bribing farmers with billions of dollars after his trade war with China hurt them. And he almost died of Covid to show how tough he was while refusing to wear masks or take it seriously. And he really wants to brag about the vaccines but gets booed for mentioning them. And he had to pretend to be Christian and like his supporters, even though he thinks religion is dumb and hates the riffraff that adores him. Trump is a follower, not a leader.

    The corporate media thinks the ways of politics from the 70’s and 80’s are eternal rules that never change and apply to everyone. But his supporters HATE the media. Every time they acted scandalized by Trump it only made his supporters like him more. Anyone who doesn’t understand that should quit political analysis because they don’t even know the basics.

    • timbo says:

      Because Trump is a leader you don’t happen to like doesn’t auto-magically make them a leader you don’t have to take seriously. That’s the danger of assuming that being right is a formula for instant success. Trump promises almost instant success. By following him, you are succeeding in the moment now, not in the moment later…which he assures you is not of concern because he’s is the leader now and you are the righteous follower, the one in the know, connected to today’s wisdom. Tomorrow will obviously take care of itself so be happy and enthusiastic now. Everyone else is doing it, so it must be the correct thing! Feeling a little down? Here’s someone who deserves your scorn! Feeling a little hungry? Those people over there are why! Not sure what to do about it all? Trump knows, trust him…

  26. obsessed says:

    Wow, when you’re addressing a post to writers you bring out the serious writing chops. This whole post is exceedingly well written. I’m usually struggling to understand *what* you’re saying and don’t have time to fully appreciate the way you’re saying it. The whole passage on Maggie the writer writing about Maggie the character is devastating.

  27. PM says:

    Trump era journalism was peak performative politics for entertainment with Trump being the primary source and Haberman led the charge. Marcie’s challenge to Drezner is on point in that the journalists who made Al Gore’s sighs enough of an issue to bring him down could not do the same with clown Trump with his myriad (and dangerous) antics. Or must we read that as the same journalists lifting up Bush’s antics to bring Gore down — the start of performative politics as entertainment and gossip journalism. Obama was an entertaining performer among other things and Hillary was not. Maybe people learned their lesson enough to vote for Biden but not the press.

  28. David Campos says:

    Trump’s one true talent is understanding the media and how they can be manipulated. He feeds them the content they crave and they deliver the coverage he craves.

    • Doctor Biobrain says:

      Except Trump never got the mainstream media coverage he wanted and the coverage he got hurt him and made him a laughingstock.

      Trump was saved by the rightwing media ignoring everything he said and did in order to create a fictional Trump who was decent, smart, wealthy, and loved America. And rightwing preachers who said Trump was the new Jesus who should be forgiven of all sins.

      Meanwhile, Trump just lit himself on fire every day and then raged about how hot it was. Even Trump would denounce his own words as “Fake News” the moment the media quoted him. It’s easy to get attention if you don’t mind humiliating yourself.

  29. Sadhana says:

    I knew actual toddlers and none of them were vicious or malignant like Trump so I soon tired of the Toddler in Chief thread. Calling the man a toddler is simply not a useful framing of Trump’s motivations, actions and choices.
    As you say, Haberman is also stuck in the rut of reporting on Trump’s behavior, which carries no information value for those concerned about Trump’s more serious onslaughts on the rule of law and democracy.

  30. gmoke says:

    Haberman is not doing anything that Woodward didn’t already do. The fact that Trmp told him COVID was dangerous and that Trmp was downplaying it in February 2020 and that Woodward didn’t reveal that nugget until he published his book months later is the gold standard of USAmerican journalism today. Let thousands die so you can make money and get headlines.

    Time to reread Society of the Spectacle and Amusing Ourselves to Death.

  31. Beth Peterson says:

    It is certainly curious that Maggie Haberman’s book tour has been dominated by stories that she could have told earlier, but didn’t. It’s possible that she is simply trying to maximize her book’s exposure and potential sales by waiting until now to tell these stories. However, it also raises questions about her relationship to the Trump administration and whether she is withholding information that could be damaging to them.

  32. mospeck says:

    in defense of the NYT –
    still under dispute, but last month my board certified shrink said im not certifiable and so im not going to defend Maggie Haberman or Gray Lady’s estimable old chief Dean Baquet. But then the powers that be seemed to have slipped a widget on April Fools day and appointed new Ed. Joe Kahn. Man actually lets his bright-eyed bushy-tailed young reporters report on the goings on whilst taking their chances in the East Ukraine.
    “If you want to live, run,” Mr. Zelensky said in his nightly address on Wednesday, speaking in Russian and addressing Russian soldiers. “If you want to live, surrender. If you want to live, fight on your streets for your freedom.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/world/europe/zelensky-ukraine-russia-defiance.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVby0SHHGqs

  33. PM says:

    Yeah, he has no shame, so he is not easily embarrassed, blah, blah. How about if the press/media instead had tried to show the public how unfit he was for the job with actual reporting of his ‘resume’ instead of breaking stories about “OMG, he did/said this!!!?” and saying in the next breath, “that is OK, because he is who he is.” You know, authenticity, a much valued commodity among Haberman and her female cohorts, especially, something to clobber Hillary with while praising Trump. Where were the blaring headlines about him being a tax cheat and myriad other unsuitable things? How about if this same Maggie and her female cohorts had not made Hillary’s emails into a crime that it was not? At some point, the Haberman like press/media must accept their responsibility for using the many scandals for salacious entertainment value than the seriousness it posed for the task at hand. They were not serious, period, (there is a line from the “Great Gatsby” for this) and that has nothing to do with trump lacking shame and being who he is. They rewarded him for being who he is and he got reinforcement not penalty. So many things wrong with how he was covered by these reporters, not the least of which was sanitizing his gibberish in an effort to paraphrase him (looking at you, Katy Tur!) and as a result making him sound better.

    (Sorry Marcy, I misspelled your name in my previous comment. BTW, reading your tweets and blog regularly. Keep up the good work.)

  34. BobCon says:

    One of the big problems with the first point in Drezner’s response is that he falls into the DC trap of looking at the government polarization and assumes it reflects a similar binary among voters.

    But that ignores how many low information and low motivation voters are out there.

    The goal of point of good reporting can’t be fixing what Fox News viewers consume. But it can be fixing what casual headline readers see, what pops up on car radio news while commuters are switching stations, and increasingly what pops up in device newsfeeds next to beauty tips and Hollywood news.

    Elites like Drezner don’t do the basic math and ask what effect drumbeat coverage has on races. Flipping just five percent of the vote and leaving 95% untouched would make a massive difference, even in states like Florida. And I suppose to be fair to Haberman, she wasn’t the sole reason the NY Times has fed nonsensical panics across the political spectrum on subjects like Ebola, Clinton’s emails, CRT and deficits, and has starved attention from more substantial issues.

    The rot is ultimately at the editorial level, as demonstrated by political editors like Patrick Healy, Michael Oreskes, and Jonathan Weisman.

    In the narrowest sense it might be true that if Haberman had written up everything she knew, it wouldn’t have moved the needle. But that only works if Haberman was so clueless about looming disasters, like Covid and the January 6 coup, that she had no idea that Trump’s malignancy was going to make them explode.

    Maybe she really is nothing but a trivialist and can’t handle ànything in a bigger framework. But if that’s the case, it’s the fault of the Times — and plenty of other institutions, to be fair — at an editorial level for failing to create better frameworks for its reporting.

  35. Marika says:

    Having years of experience with master manipulators like Trump, I have learned that first and foremost they cannot be trusted. If they want to talk to you, they want to manipulate you. They are better at it and the best thing to do is stay away. You cannot win. Trump is playing a different game than Maggie and she doesn’t seem to realize it. She thinks her access is getting her information but it isn’t and never will. Trump can be judged by his actions, no need to listen to his words, they are only going to be self serving lies that he is telling you with an ulterior motive. He has years and years of practice at manipulating journalists. He is a master at it. Don’t play his game.

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