The Soft Bigotry of No Expectations on Trump
WaPo has an editorial out, purporting to compare the policy platforms of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Its punchline is that Kamala can lift up politics by going deep on policy, something it admits Trump has not done.
Ms. Harris says she wants to elevate American politics, an imperative that Mr. Trump has again shown little interest in. She therefore has an opportunity to lift up her campaign by going deep on substance.
This comparison lists five policies from Trump, seven from the Vice President, plus the common no taxes on tips:
Trump
- Building the border wall
- Conducting mass deportations
- Raising tariffs
- Ending the green energy transition
- Challenging traditional alliances while going easy on rivals such as Russian President Vladimir Putin
Common
- Waiving taxes on tips
Harris
- Capping insulin costs
- Continuing Biden’s climate plan
- Boosting housing supply
- Enhancing effective anti-poverty programs such as the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit
- [Protecting] Justice Department independence
- Seeking robust protections for reproductive rights
- Strengthening U.S. alliances such as NATO
WaPo ignores some obvious policies from Trump, such as his tax cuts for billionaires (though that is alluded to in its observation that Trump would add $5.8 trillion to the nation debt, as compared to $1.2 trillion for Kamala), or his determination to eliminate protections for civil service workers and use DOJ for what he calls revenge but which is in reality forced loyalty. Plus, they count “deport millions” as a stated policy goal of Trump, without noting that he has never provided, never even been asked to provide, details about how he would pay for it, how he’d make up for shortfalls in things like Social Security, how he’d ensure food gets picked and houses get built.
This editorial, on its face, shows that Harris has provided more detail on policy than Trump has.
Yet even though WaPo can identify more policy proposals from Kamala than Trump, it nevertheless holds her accountable for providing more.
Aside from certain specifics — such as building the border wall, conducting mass deportations and raising tariffs — Mr. Trump has never detailed much of an agenda. (His supporters at Project 2025 have prepared a pointedly conservative plan for his second term, though Mr. Trump distanced himself from it after it became a political liability.) As for Ms. Harris, the charitable view is that she has had little time to develop detailed proposals. The less generous take is that she wants to avoid revealing many specifics, lest she alienate one constituency or another. Coasting on “vibes” has worked well for her so far; she has taken a slim lead in national polling, and surveys suggest she has become competitive in all the battleground states.
But the novelty of Ms. Harris’s campaign is wearing thin as an excuse for releasing only the schematics of a platform. She promises “a new way forward,” pitching herself as a change agent, even though she is the sitting vice president and takes credit for the elements of the Biden agenda with which she wants to be associated, such as a cap on seniors’ insulin costs and the administration’s climate plan.
Trump has been running for 21 months; his campaign is more than 90% over. The Vice President has been running 43 days; her campaign still has almost 60% to go.
And yet they’re putting demands on the woman in the race, making no such demand on the white male former President.
The press has gone 21 months without throwing this kind of tantrum with Donald Trump. Given that, this column says more about the failures of journalists to hold Trump accountable than it does any shortcoming on Kamala’s part.
At some point, the traditional media needs to explain why it is so much more rabid about getting policy from Kamala than Trump.
Journalists need to come to grips, publicly, with why they apply this soft bigotry of no expectations to Donald Trump. Is it because they know he’ll deny them access if they make similar demands on him? Is it a (justifiable) fear he’ll sic a violent supporter on them, as he did the other night in Johnstown, with Trump observing, “beautiful, that’s beautiful, that’s alright, that’s okay, no, he’s on our side. We get a little itchy, David, don’t we? No, no, he’s on our side,” as the man was tased? Is it a resignation to the fact that Trump will just lie anyway?
Whatever the explanation for why the press applies so much lower expectations on the former President, who has been running for 21 months, than it does on Kamala Harris, just over a month into her campaign, the explanation is a far, far more important story to tell voters than precisely how the Vice President plans to restore the Child Tax Credit.
The only thing this comparison has done is make visible WaPo’s — and the press corp’s, generally — soft bigotry with Donald Trump, the double standard they are applying in their expectations for Kamala Harris as compared to none for Trump.
The lesson of this editorial, contrary to WaPo’s preferred punchline, is that the press is misdirecting where their attention should be focused.
Update: Tweaked to reflect that Trump is a white male former President, not a former white male.
Update: After a bajillion views of this post, I finally found and fixed the “no tips on taxes” you were all trying to get me to fix. All this time I was looking in the bullet list!
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corporate MSM wants a dog fight and I believe truly they want Trump because anger and outrage sells “news” and advertisements.
As Les Moonves said about Trump in 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464/
I’ve finally had enough; just cancelled my WaPo subscription like I did the NYT two months earlier.
I am not a WaPo subscriber, but I was able to check out the comments published to that editorial piece. Over 9 thousand comments and replies! Near as I could find (I read several, scrolled a lot), none supported the editors. Many told them to stop giving Trump a pass.
Ms. Wheeler’s analogy is spot-on. Calling a wealthy, connected white male out requires journalistic integrity and that don’t pay the bills. As of 9/2, the US presidential election odds tracker per Sportshandler is Harris 52.6% v Trump at 51.9%. (There are loads of online gambling sites calculating odds on the race. Do you think pollsters have gambling sites bookmarked?)
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Nine thousand comments is their bottom line. They care less about having credibility than having attention. Comments show attention, fueling their bus to keep it going. They don’t read their comments, they count them.
Its so breathtakingly myopic…Maybe its good for attention RIGHT NOW, but it chips away at their subscribers every day…Do they REALLY NOT read comments on their OWN SITE?
Its surreal
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They do read the comments — but they use them as a measure of engagement. The more comments, the more engagement, the more easily they can convince their ad buyers to pay more for ad space. There are other measures they use including the number of mentions and the number of shares across social media. Even Marcy’s post will add to their measures.
If WaPo readers want a change in habit, they can’t simply complain in their comments. They have to learn how to make it hurt and do it long and hard enough until change is realized.
Note: percentage probabilities must aim to 100%.
I too canceled my NYT online edition 4 months ago.and I’m seriously thinking of canceling the WaPo too. Most of their editorial staff have their noses in the air. I happen to love The Daily Beast.
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I too cancelled my subscription to the NYTimes. And now the Washington Post is following its lead. I imagine we will still be subjected to the CFTIFG’s image daily while maybe, occasionally, his opponent will be mentioned. Obviously, these former revered publications are in it for the money and the clicks. But now, where to find the news?
the guardian.com. inquirer.com. apnews.com. upi.com. etc.
By inquirer.com do you mean the Philadelphia Inquirer? A large part of their national reporting is just reprints from the Washington Post.
Yes, those plus Democracy Now!, Background Briefing with Ian Masters, Times Radio
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I’ve found AP News not to be consistently fact-focused in its election-related coverage lately.
I have long found the Guardian’s US coverage to be more in depth and insightful than most US publications. Payment is voluntary. I choose to support them.
The 200 year old Guardian is my go to.
I appreciate your article and wonder how we can persuade wapo and nyt to do their jobs? It is a travesty that these shapers of public opinion are scared shitless! They should be retired!
Same boat. I’ve been getting my news from Wonkette, with a sporadic dose of MSNBC*. Wonkette’s a satirical site, sure, but have I missed anything lately? This morning they linked to this here post by Marcy, so: no.
When and if the late night shows come back on line, I’ll supplement those sources with Colbert and Seth Myers. I consider myself covered for the long haul.
*What is going on at MSNBC? Did the overlords choose election season to shove the entire network into the ash heap?
I, too, have let subscriptions to these newspapers go. A part of me, though, feels bad because their apparent timidity must be judged against the litigiousness of the well-funded right. Charles Ornstein of Propublica just wrote about a six-year battle he had to wage against a lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. Time-consuming (6 years), expensive (hundreds of thousands of dollars). What he didn’t say, but these newspapers must be weighing, is how much damage the current Supreme Court might do to First Amendment guarantees if they challenge executive power as they did in the Watergate and Pentagon Papers era.
Project 2025. Trump has and will continue to do disavow P2025 so it won’t show on any policy list. But we know better…and others do as well. Just not enough others – yet.
“But we know better…and others do as well.” The press also knows TFG’s lie of trying to distance himself is transparently false. To buy the lie by ignoring it completely, the press misrepresents reality.
If only there was a short video reel which gets the message across in <60 seconds
https://youtube.com/shorts/5NXzlzV7p7E
After the traditional media was browbreat by Republicans over Student Loans, at a bare minimum you’d think they’d notice that deporting people means plenty of mortages, rents, car loans, credit card bills, etc. would default if you deported the debt-holders.
I’m sure the same vulture capitalists that made hay during the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crises (2008/9) will be ready to snap up these vacated homes.
And then wait for the economy to tank again and the Feds (under a Democrat) will step in to rescue them (too big to fail.)
Banks held onto the foreclosed homes, and sold them later, sometimes a year or more after foreclosure.
Didn’t the NYT suggest the other day that the big deportation that Donald wants to do will be the “perfect solution” to the housing crisis because of all the suddenly empty homes?
Very Stephen Miller of them. It’s the sort of thing a few politicians would have said in Vienna, about, oh, 1938.
It misses many things, including the size of the economic hole such a policy would create. All the jobs that would go undone, including at his own golf and hotel properties. All the taxes, Social Security, rent, mortgages, and car loans that would go unpaid. All the fuel, food, clothing, and other purchases that would go unmade.
Trump accounts for those things the way he accounts for the reams of free campaign aid he gets from Elmo, the WaPo, the NYT and so many others: Not. At. All.
the so-called ‘respectable’ media like the NYT, should f-in realize (like any 5th grader) that there might be some big problems with actually implementing that deportation plan.
I agree heartily, Dr. Wheeler! The press has given Trump a huge pass for at least 15 years now, never requiring the level of detail they expect from any Democratic candidate. Not to mention the free negative ads Trump got to use against Hillary Clinton from David Pecker and the National Enquirer, which at the time, hurt her badly. Saying she was weak and about to die, etc. Well, here were are eight years later and she looks and sounds healthier than Trump! I wish the media would stop molly-coddling this criminal!
His are mostly *ending* policy.
A lot easier to just kill something than create/design aomething that works.
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I got rid of the Times about 5 years ago, when I got sick of the clearly biased coverage, and it seems like it’s only worse now base upon what I am seeing. The Times went of the deep end during W’s tenure and has only gone further to the right. It is just gross how they and WaPo clean up for Trump while holding Harris’ feet to the fire. I am sure it has something to do with why the race is even close.
First a caveat: I dropped WaPo & NYT subs in ‘22 and ‘23 respectively- NO regrets – for exactly these reasons. So haven’t read other than headlines and the occasional share. Bigotry is a completely appropriate label. Trump / MAGA gets a pass that amounts to support, for all the good reasons stated by others. Ms. Wheeler’s impatience is spot on. Thank you and keep the good work coming!!
“plus the common no tips on taxes”
Personally, I never tip when paying taxes.
I agree this looks like a typo.
Although the tax form *does* have a line for it if you want to give more than you owe…
In a sense, we’re tipping Exxon and all the billionaires whose slack we’re picking up.
I dunno…seems obvious (at least to me) that any time there is a profit motive any corporate entity will shill and pander to make a profit. Media, Law, Health Care, Telecom, Politics, Entertainment et al – the same motivation: profit above all. While there are obvious exceptions it holds true much of the time.
Why should we expect propaganda outlets to change their tune if there is no profit in doing so?
I butted heads with bmaz a couple of times over what the Emptywheel site is: I see this as an investigative journalism endeavor with a hefty portion of politics and law to boot (bmaz was law first and foremost IMHO).
Much needed in today’s world, thank you Marcy Wheeler and all here who help keep things on an even keel.
I quit looking for rhyme or reason with printed, televised then ethered information in the late 70’s: when entities started selling their opinion as straight news I walked away from accepting at face value what was put out there.
People tend to go where their own worldview is reinforced – sites that stick to the truth and facts scare the hell out of a lot of folk.
So why are the mainstream news outlets not going to change? Not going to hold the Orange Idiot’s feet to the fire?
No profit in it. I wish I wrong about this.
Though the profit motive may be a large factor for editors (and their bonuses) and management, I don’t think it’s a strong of a motivator for individual journalists.
Instead, the fact that no matter how much is written about Trump to hold him to account, he’s basically ignored it all, so why bother? Just ask Daniel Dal, who has documented the same lies hundreds of times. Meanwhile, relentless above-the-fold headlines about Biden’s age may have had an effect on the future of the nation.
The challenge is that since Dems listen to feedback, journalists that want to make a mark in the world, to do something notable, aim their sights at Dems because they are likely be read. Meanwhile, Republicans usually ignore feedback, so why bother? This kind of makes sense since Republicans are uninterested in governing as a majority, so by definition most people are against them.
A non-trivial number of journalists seem to have profits as a motivator. Consider those who write up some stories for their editors, but save others for the book they’ll write later.
Some of those “never before revealed details” about campaigns and candidates would have been better appreciated BEFORE the election rather than after it was over.
As well as the celebrity that comes with being a “star reporter” or best-selling author. I wonder if that’s why Jonathan Swan has aligned with Maggie Haberman at NYT.
The Maggie Haberman effect
It’s kind of my impression of the WAPO piece (but i can’t access it): Some OK idea to write-up a compare/contrast/reader of the campaigns via shortlist: And then you look and on the one side you have all this stuff to work with and on the other- not much. Therein lies the fluff..
That very first quoted part at the top seemed two sentences that couldn’t promise much more to follow.. man, top editorial too-
“The Soft Bigotry of No Expectations on Trump” is an instant classic!
And Mike Gerson also referred to “…Trump’s fundamental unfitness for high office” and asked whether he is “psychologically and morally equipped to be president? And could his unfitness cause permanent damage to the country?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gerson
Not a big reach for GW Bush’s chief speech writer, to diss a fraudulent real estate mogul and wannabe politician. Were those questions credibly asked about any politician, the answer would be obvious: that they are unfit for any public office and their election would inevitably damage US interests. But that Republican Party is as gone as Gerson.
Let us not forget that the 6 problems that now have lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court are courtesy of but 2 families: HW and W gave us Thomas, Roberts, and Scalito, and Trump gave us the rest. And now a price must be paid.
“And could his unfitness cause permanent damage to the country?”
One could argue it already has.
Excerpts From Bush’s [9/2/1999] Speech on Improving Education https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/03/us/excerpts-from-bush-s-speech-on-improving-education.html Sept. 3, 1999
9/2/1999 [huh…25th anniversary]:
“Now some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards.
I say it is discrimination to require anything less — the soft bigotry of low expectations.” – GW Bush
9/2/2024 “
Now some say it is unfairTotally UNFAIR to hold disadvantagedchildrenTRUMP [Me!] to rigorous standards!!!” – TRUMP [probably]“The Low Spark of Well-Heeled Men”
This post writes itself every presidential campaign…just trade out a few bullet points from each candidate. The general point has been true since I can remember following politics. Social media is changing all of it, however. I’d be surprised if either of my two voting-age daughters have ever read the NYT or WaPo, and yet they are both aware of what’s going on right now…and they are adept at seeing things without the tint. When the “news” media lies to them (OK, OK, “spins”) about what they’re seeing with their own eyes, it doesn’t work out so great for the “news” media.
This year, for the first time since I can remember, I think I’m actually seeing not-liberals catching on. It has taken a man as clownish as DJT to get them there, and certainly it’s not all not-liberals, but something is changing.
Amen. but there is another aspect of choosing a president: Whom will he appoint to the 3,000-4,000 policy/administrative positions?
The press has actually skimmed the top of this as regards trump, but I have seen nothing beyond some silly questions about Cabinet positions (asking the governor of Massachusetts if she would accept appointment as attorney general) as regards Harris.
In 1980, I was working at the Des Moines Register when it endorsed John Anderson — don’t blame me, I had nothing to do with that– in part because he had published a 300-page policy proposals. No one knew — and no one asked — whom President Anderson was going to place in gummint jobs.
While I am interested to know what policies candidates avow, I do not take them too seriously. It is an actual true historical fact that Roosevelt ran in ’32 on a platform of economy in government spending. We can be thankful he ignored his campaign promises.
Unfortunately for your daughters, the news young people read on tik tok and social media is targeted at them by algorithms designed to feed them, you know, more of whatever tint they see through.
We come here because we know Marcy puts in the hard work so few journalists do anymore, and we all had to work hard with limited media news to find the few sources of unpolluted information like we have here.
The news that people consume via traditional outlets is different…how? I didn’t say my kids get their news from Tik Tok, they are on social media and have eyes of their own. Sure, an algorithm could focus what they see online, but again, how is that different from the WaPo’s front page guiding our attention to whatever narrative they want to spin, with curated headlines that people don’t always get past? Or watching CNN…whatever the programmers decide is news winds up on the TV.
My kids are in school, they are not news junkies like I am, but they have to pay for gas, they have friends on the Spectrum, they have LGBTQ+ friends who are directly impacted by governmental policies that threaten them. They don’t need Insta reels or Tik Tok to see how things affect them directly, and they don’t need someone to tell them that the stuff they see daily isn’t affecting them…it’s hard to gaslight someone when they have agency.
I agree that the WaPo simply chose to disregard significant disqualifying considerations in regard to Trump in trying to compare Harris and Trump. It was almost written as though the two candidates were simply “two peas in a pod”, when they clearly are not. I never thought I would be one of those to cancel a subscription over an editorial, but I just did.
It is up to the left in this country to point out this obvious disparity, starting with the candidate Vice President Harris. She could respond to the NYT complaints concerning their lack of access by pointing out their lack of real coverage of her opponent. The false narrative of a biased liberal press is long dead. Using the bully pulpit to make this point would, in my opinion, be an effective campaign strategy
Yes!
Candidates have challenged news coverage for many cycles, and the response has been the same – the press outlet denies the charge, pronounces themselves vindicated because that candidate was disturbed about the coverage, then turns their guns on that candidate in retaliation. It’s not worth the engagement with this press anymore
Another excellent and timely piece! Nice work!
Since beginning his campaign for president in 2015, Trump has become a toon—a cartoon character in a cartoon.
One could also argue Trump first became a toon during his tenure on the TV show Apprentice, notably when he was scripted to say, “You’re fired!”
The Apprentice was a cartoon show, really no different than The Simpsons. And Trump became a toon, really no different than Bart Simpson.
Regardless, the TV and newspaper media appear to view him as a toon—a cartoon entertainment toon once again running for president.
Since, in their eyes, he is a toon, they don’t expect anything from him other than Bart Simpson type outbursts; instead the TV and newspaper media are now demanding the non-toon candidate Harris utter the straight lines (her policy proposals) so that Trump the Toon can counterpunch against those policy proposals in typical Bart Simpson toon fashion.
My question has always been when will the NYT, WAPO and TV media/reporters stop treating Trump as a toon like Bart Simpson and, instead, treat him like a candidate for president and the convicted criminal/rapist/huckster/Don the Con he is.
The TV and newspaper media’s number one priority is providing entertainment value, not policy education value. They don’t care about policy and educating the public on policy proposals.
These supposed debates are not debates; instead they are cartoon s featuring Trump the Toon counterpunching the policies of the straight person Harris.
Perhaps it’s time for Harris during the September 10th cartoon event to treat the event as the Gong Show and “Gong” Trump off stage when his shtick becomes shit.
Trump’s schtick has always been shit; it’s just that more people are coming to that realization.
NYT and Wapo headline failures are legion. Reading the article requires reading between the lines after mentally noting what’s missing. It really can be too much to ask of casual readers.
Like push-polling, I find the articles persistently creating horse-race conditions, quite often shoring up Trump in the process.
“Gold-standard” integrity become an oxymoron when a tin-pot candidate is oversupported. It’s been over eight years of Trump and they’ve only learned sensationalist schtick sells – not how to light up the dark.
> And yet they’re putting demands on the woman in the race, making no such demand on the white male former President.
I think you’re selling WaPo short here: they’re more than capable of belittling a white male—as long as he’s a democrat.
I, too, canceled. The WaPo article is pure prostitution.
Sad. It used to be a respected source.
Then Bezos bought it in order to buy DC influence.
I think of it more like Judas selling out the country for 20 pieces of silver
Off topic: Could you add a Share on Mastodon link to your other share options? You are incredible, insightful, thoughtful.
Also off topic as I agree with the review, but I would suggest for future posts that the author avoid the “soft misogyny” (if you will) of calling the female candidate by her first name but the male candidate by his last. Either Kamala vs Donald or Harris vs Trump would be fine, but Kamala vs Trump is belittling.
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I can’t speak for Marcy but I generally refer to Harris by her last name as I do most women about whom I write; however I think for this particular candidate expecting last name only may be pedantic. If Harris didn’t want to be called by her first name two of her great-nieces wouldn’t have appeared on stage at the DNC convention to explain how to pronounce their aunt’s first name.
Encouraging first name usage also sets a nice trap for Trump to show how much of an asshole he is by refusing to pronounce it correctly.
I feel as if I’m living in a nine-year horror movie where the audience can see that the monster (e.g., the shark, the serial killer, etc.) is perpetrating daily atrocities, but the authorities refuse to take seriously the warnings of the hero and/or heroine who have personally witnessed each depredation. And the narrative continues to hold as the evidence becomes increasingly undeniable. I think THIS mass murder, right in front of the sheriff’s office, caught on CCTV, and in front of half the people in town, will FINALLY get some attention. But the smirking sheriff dismisses the reports, snickering about, say, the heroine’s peccadillos. I can only conclude that the sheriff is in on it.
One of the most bizarre, in my opinion, free passes the major media has given Mr. Trump is the silence around the recent Jeffrey Epstein info dump. In the period of time that Epstein was molesting teenage girls, there were repeated, documented connections with the former President. Mr. Trump himself has bragged about entering the dressing rooms of his Miss Teen pageants. I have not seen stories about why Mr. Trump was spending so much time with a sex offender or any questions of Trump to explain the relationship other than some meidas touch reports. I cant imagine that story not being front page news if it were a Democratic candidate.
Agree 1000%. No one seems to be elevating that. Haven’t seen Ronan Farrow or Megan Twohey & Jodi Kantor unpacking this.
Possible I missed it, but sounds of silence to me.
We expect far too much from a very narrow number of journalists who are obligated to cover their assigned beats. Both Twohey and Kantor work for NYT — that should tell you a lot.
Farrow has been working on a two-year fellowship program as a mentor and is probably occupied with that.
The question isn’t which journalists aren’t covering this but why editors at major news outlets haven’t assigned this.
Are editors and owners/investors of news outlets also compromised?
I doubt we’ll hear any more than we already have about Epstein. He didn’t become a multi-millionaire by providing under aged girls to middle class johns.
I agree that the Press either has no idea how to report on Trump or is under some kind of financial pressure to report badly. But I doubt pressing Trump for policies is the right approach. If we frame the race as being a choice between electing a dictator and a president, then I am voting for the latter. In this context, I don’t really care what Harris’s policies are because she will have them and they will be formed and carried out in a deliberative way. Conversely, if I am going for the dictator (there are after all lots of reasons why dictators are and have been popular) then I don’t care about dictator’s policies, that is not why dictatorships are attractive (policies are not aspirations). But if I were uncertain about a dictator vs a president then I could be swayed by policies from only the putative president. I won’t hold my breath for reporters to frame it like that but it would at least make for an honest editorial.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness”
Wapo with its blinders on.
Pity WaPo spends so much time blowing out the candles.
Brazil seem to be inclined to light a few candles, is it too much to hope that other sovereign nations might do otherwise?
A belated edit. You knew that I meant ‘likewise’, not ‘otherwise’, didn’t you?
Embarrassing.
Democracy Dies with WaPo Editorial Board Holding It Underwater in the Bathtub
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Thank you for putting this in writing! I have been noticing the disparity as well. Cancelled my NYT digital subscription awhile back. Never subscribed to WaPo. If I check into a hotel and they offer a free copy, it immediately goes into the trash can, where it belongs.
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They want a gotcha. They want a stumble and Harris is denying them their gotcha. They want a horse race to the wire. Not over early in the home stretch. People tearing up their losing tickets and leaving the track. They want continued attention to their output, their advertisements, their clicks. They are in sales, not education.
In horse races, they handicap. The more successful the record, the higher the weight that horse carries in a rematch. Those fuckers are handicapping their horse race. Which is fine for an actual horse race. But this is the nation’s election for who is chief executive for the next four years. It’s not over whose TV show ratings are today’s best. It’s reality, touted as close when the choice, objectively seen, is clear.
It is why Biden did not win 2020 by a sounder margin. It is why Biden’s age mattered, and now Trump’s is NOT NEWS. It is how things are. Figure that one out. Having had that say, I shall read how others comment. Likely saying the same thing differently. Bottom line, they have aims, not consciences.
What worries me is what they focus on / push for after this fails. Violence? It sells, and they have done it before.
MAGAworld faith is the hot air that keeps the Trump balloon aloft. If these cultists ever got the notion that the game was over before the vote, the bloated thing would deflate and fall out of the sky faster than you could say “Hindenburg”. So in that sense the interests of the dead tree scrolls and Trump are aligned. Both are shaky enterprises desperately trying to survive inherently adverse circumstances through self-serving mutual support.
This persistent false equivalencing by the media isn’t the result of journalistic incompetence, it’s the fig leaf used to cover support for Trump whilst still trying to preserve some semblance of editorial propriety.
It’s interesting from my point of view as a 73 year old, Liberal Gay perspective, that when Jeff Bezos bought WAPO in 2013, I’ve never even looked at it’s website or read it because even back then I knew that a billionaire owning a “news” site was not good news. My perspective comes from learning from some of the Gay Lib founders who knew bullshit is bullshit and what was so remarkable about them is they didn’t waste time. They were leaders.
So as a student of, how I see the NYT today can best be described as what to Giuliani is now. The NYT looks exactly like what Rudy is today. The question is who would WAPO, be? Roger Stone or another of TFG’s seriously lacking strings puppets?
Happy Labor Day. Thank You Marcy & crew for this incredible site : )
Just in case no one has mentioned it – “no taxes on tips” (?).
I imagine most minimum and sub-minimum wage staff would prefer no wage theft and a livable wage. The “no tax” distraction doesn’t much benefit them. It’s a meme that benefits the wealthy, and appeals to their sense of entitlement not to support the societies that help create, grow, and protect their wealth.
Not to mention that post-official-act “gratuities” to public servants would become not just lawful (thanks, SCOTUS), but tax-free. Bonus!!
WRT your correction. I suspect the orange buffoon was once white. There was no error. And no reporter has ever asked him when he made the change.
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That editorial has less substance than Trump’s policies.
How does one comment on policy without analyzing the likelihood that the policy can be effectuated? Or that the candidate with a track record for lies can be trusted not to flip flop? Or that one with a track record of incompetence can implement the policy?
The Editors might just have easily counted the policies of each candidate and decided that the one who used the most nouns wins. That is the depth of their analysis.
Of course I agree with your many many and salient points, but did I not hear that Harris said that she supports building a border wall? It could have been a parody that slipped by me.
There is a fact check on this
https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/harris-has-not-flipped-on-trump-border-wall/
The origin appears to be an Aug. 27 article in Axios headlined, “Harris flip-flops on building the border wall”
Which is a misrepresentation/overinterpretation of Harris’s DNC pledge that “as president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he [Trump] killed, and I will sign it into law.” The Axios article also referred to unnamed Harris staffers. The unnamed Harris staffers in the Axios article pushed back on the idea that she had changed her position
It needs to be stressed over and over again, and hopefully will by the “Border Czar”, that a compromise bill Biden and the Democrats bent over backwards to accommodate the GOP and signed onto was nixed by Trump, who wasn’t and isn’t even an elected official, because he would rather keep immigration alive as an issue to run on than allow anything to be done to try and fix it. Compromise sometimes means “flip-flopping”, if you insist on calling it that. Harris simply said she would sign the bill if reintroduced, which Biden obviously would have as well.
At the risk of being too charitable, maybe wapo/nyt think they’ve reported sufficiently on DJTs agenda. But that’s an abrogation of responsibility: it benefits news consumers to re-hear info. It may be “same old same old” to media pros, but crucial information to the many readers and viewers who dip in and out of political news. We need the Fourth Estate to actually function.
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You’re right, that’s too charitable.
“Update: Tweaked to reflect that Trump is a white male former President, not a former white male.”
“…he was always of White heritage, and he was only promoting Orange heritage. I did not know he was Orange until a number of years ago when he happened to turn Orange, and now he wants to be known as Orange.”
Relevant to Trump, that’s a lot more accurate than Trump’s original quote about Harris.
As somebody who had the oranges of the Mueller probe investigated, shares a facial hue with former speaker of the house (and cannabis investor) John Boehner, and prisoners wearing jumpsuits of that very color, I’m coming to the conclusion (despite t-shirts currently on sale) that orange lives do NOT particularly matter…
We shouldn’t ignore the sacrifices even the orange parents have made for the furniture of their children.
To complement an orange person gives me the “blues”.
As a Liberterranean, I feel strongly about keeping the government out of my chidrens’ furniture – no cherry-picking!
Orange you glad we haven’t all gone bananas?!
You got it plum right :-)
Raisin d’etre
You’re a peach of a person!
I think this sub-thread should be berried.
Tomato, and tomato, and tomato,
Creeps in this petty pace…
It is all so sublime.
What about how will he be a dictator on Day One?
Even AP is going bad. Here’s a current one (note how it can’t even spell the name of the city):
Really? “Relatively few”? Relative to whom—Trump? That’s bull. Why did you have to go all stupid with off-base commentary, after three solidly factual paragraphs? Are you trying to influence the reader’s vote? I mean, everybody thinks stupid things, and often those things end up in first drafts, but most good writers review their drafts and clean them up.
Apologies for the rant; I’ll go start the grill now. Ribs. And pasta with creamy tomato sauce for the vegans among us–is that liberal enough?
[Moderator’s note: HTML formatting added to denote excerpted material and improve readability. /~Rayne]
While you start up the grill, I’ll clean up my first draft of the day. Cheers! :-)
Trump cannot distance himself from Project 2025. He tried to implement some of the tactics his last year in office, including loyalty requirements for federal employees. From his first day in office he has claimed as president he could do anything he wanted to do. He removed civil service protections from some VA employees, separated families, called for political opponents to be arrested and in some cases shot without bothering with charges or a trial. Since then he has adopted more of those tactics and the whole 2025 manifesto was largely written by former Trump staffers, people under consideration for posts in his next administration, or people he has close ties with. It’s like the Pope saying he’s not familiar with the Bible. Who is this Jesus guy anyway.
Ms. Wheeler’s post may explain why there is an independent media. I was watching Meidas Touch on Youtube and that particular section has 1.4 million views. That’s hard to believe, but maybe its true.
I suspect that the groups that are likely to determine the election, women, voters under the age of 40, and Hispanic Americans are not influenced by the Washington Post. Its possible that what Ms. Wheeler is describing is a form of whistling in the dark.
Independent media has been around for a long time. It predates corporate conglomerates, which use their aggregate wealth to gobble up rivals and innovators. It’s survival is what’s at stake.
I have active subscriptions to both nyt and wapo. Their coverage often sucks. But I am a reader day and night of everything. I can’t stop.
A bright light in journalism I’ve found is the profusion of local independent newspapers and I get two in paper copy and read others online: I greatly admire the Provincetown Independent and The New Bedford Light. They are refreshing and lots of good retired journalists are writing for them.
That. We are in this mess in no small part because we don’t support local independent media, the business model for which has been undermined by the internet.
Absolutely. I used to write for a local paper. With the decimation of chain store ads and classified ads by various Internet alternatives, subscriptions have plummeted and with them, reporters and coverage.
I cancelled my NYT subscription. Did not cancel any of my local newspapers from across the country. I get daily windows into Kansas City, Tampa, East Texas, Mississippi and other places I can’t get to physically. They are priceless, and worth so much more than the mulch put out by the corporate media.
Once upon a time the Boston Globe was like that. No more, especially on public education, where they’ve outsourced coverage to an org funded by fans of school privatization.
For everyone who has mentioned cancelling their WaPo (or NY Times) subscriptions over their piss-poor coverage, may I suggest setting up a regular donation to support an independent journalism blog? https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/
Thank you for that very helpful reminder. Off I go….
Have supported EW for two yrs with monthly donations. Then learned (here!!) about PayPal’s origins and cancelled my donations via this business. Wish Marcy would delete this mechanism of $$ transfer regardless of which new corporate entity bought PP after its founders profited from it. Now it’s back to old fashion checks in the mail again.
I also cancelled my digital subs to both WaPo&NYT after 2021 b/c of EW; although I enjoyed reading some of the commentary in those days. But the consistent high quality EW posts and commentary is what matters most to me. While I do miss bmaz (sometimes) the energy it took to deal with the damage to innocent bystanders was a distraction.
I suspect many MSM reporters, OPEd writers and investigative journalists are EW fans and comment here but understand their privacy must be protected. Just like all the judges, practicing and retired attorneys and legal affairs reporters who contribute here too. TY all.
Wrongly posted elsewhere, intended for here. Early morning error, sorry –
Early Harris local press endorsement – https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/the-seattle-times-editorial-board-recommends-kamala-harris-for-u-s-president/
Mentioning issues the ed. board favors.
[FYI – duplicate previous post has been binned. /~Rayne]
Long time reader, first time commenter — I think. If not, it’s been quite a while.
There’s much mention of Trump’s race and gender above, though I think there’s less understanding of why this should be relevant. As a white man, Trump is part of the group to whom the USA has long entrusted power. As a rich member of that group, he presumably has demonstrated that he knows how to use that power to positive advantage. (Presumed by WaPo, not by me, in case that wasn’t obvious.)
US white men have instituted wildly different policies over the last 240 years, so for WaPo the minimum standard for a viable candidacy is not one of policy, but of whether you can be trusted with power and whether you can exercise power. By default, white men are trusted with power by our institutions, including establishment media like WaPo and NYT.
Harris, however, is a woman of color. We haven’t seen many women of color hold the presidency and use it for the enactment of a diverse range of policies. In a world where racism and sexism matter more than competence — obviously from this most recent editorial the world of WaPo — Harris must continue to prove that she can be trusted with power despite her resumé, and there is constant questioning of her policies as a way of interrogating whether or not she knows how to use power.
If this was a meritocracy, Trump would never have made it through the GOP primary in 2016. There would have been an examination of his competence (and a withering one at that) rather than praise for his appeal. His tax evasion, his bankruptcies, his incompetence on the set of his own game show, all of these would have been among the highest priorities for media coverage.
But the US Presidency is still a white man’s office. Anyone different must establish and reestablish their eligibility to hold the office not just when first beginning a campaign, but even after 8 years of occupying the big chair. For Obama it was the birth certificate that had to be shown and reshown, and investigated, and lengthened, and bunked and debunked and rebunked.
For Harris it’s whether she slept her way to the CA board of unemployment appeals and whether she knows how to formulate policy. It doesn’t matter that she’s been formulating policy for 20 years and more, recently at the very highest levels of federal government. Her eligibility is under question every day. Trump’s isn’t.
And yes, it’s about race and it’s about gender.
It’s understandable and yet it’s not acceptable, any more than it would be to demand more of Harris if she were a lesbian.
It’s bigotry and it needs to be called out especially when the person she’s running against is a hatemongering felonious seditionist fascist. It’s not as if this country has had a hatemongering felonious seditionist fascist running for president; shouldn’t the media demand presentation and explanation of his policies in depth?
not to mention simultaneously being viciously cunning and batshit crazy.
Well stated. Now the only thing missing from the white men’s aura of power and eptitude is a powdered wig. Oh, wait – I guess it can also be orange.
Great to see you here, CripDyke! I was just recommending your usual digs as my personal news source, and here you are. Your perspective is always welcome.
And just where might those digs be? I’m interested!
In this EmptyWheel blog, if a poster has a website it can sometimes be found in the URL linked to the poster’s name. In this case it is https://pervertjustice.substack.com/
Looks interesting!
Ida, click on CripDyke’s name. It will take you to the substack.
NYT’s “both sides” coverage of TFG’s housing policy is especially galling. That “policy” is quite literally from Mein Kampf. That is literally Hitler’s solution to Germany’s housing problems, changing The Other from “Jews” to “Hispanics”.
Also from the NYT coverage: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
Boy, that sounds familiar.
On top of this article’s bang-on criticism of the opinion, WaPo still has it wrong. Most of what they’ve listed, and objectively less for Trump, are not policies or even strategies. “Building the border wall” and “Conducting mass deportations” at best are two elements in his Immigration Policy. Are we really calling “Ending the green energy transition” a policy? “Raising tariffs” and “Ending the green energy transition” are, I guess, part (?) of his Economic Policy. I don’t know how to frame “Challenging traditional alliances” as any kind of policy, policy element or strategy. It’s akin to a policy of “being a d-bag”.
What they’ve listed under Harris is a bit better, perhaps because she has actual policies. even if WaPo can’t seem to label them. Still, “Capping insulin costs” is an element under her Healthcare Policy (plus, this has already been done; further steps include expanding this cap to other drugs). “Continuing Biden’s climate plan” could be seen as a policy but, again, “Boosting housing supply” is an element of an Economic Policy, as are “Enhancing effective anti-poverty programs such as the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit”. I am willing to give “[Protecting] Justice Department independence” and “Seeking robust protections for reproductive rights” (a huge part of Healthcare that probably deserves its own policy) some kind of Policy or Strategy label. “Strengthening U.S. alliances such as NATO” is an element of Foreign Policy.
If WaPo had a basic understanding of Policy versus “things I’d do”, they would see that Trump’s “things I’d do” do not add up to a policy. Here’s a challenge, WaPo: take those policies that I mentioned (Immigration, Economic, Foreign, Healthcare, Climate) and see whose campaign can give the right amount of detail to actually call it a policy. Both candidates have, or are, in office; both should be able to quote directly from their policy handbooks and provide a defined policy statement, with supporting elements on how it gets done, how long it will take, and how it’s funded. Who’s do you think will be more comprehensive and comprehensible?
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My take too. Trump’s list doesn’t contain “policies.” It’s just a bunch of phrases intended to evoke responses at rallies. At best they’re aspirational. At worst they’re…not that.
Or, as he would put it, “a Bunch of Phrases Intended to evoke Responses at Rallies.”
Well, I wonder if our formerly prestige media realize what they’re sowing right now. On the evidence of this thread alone (although this bunch of us constitutes a probably infinitesimal slice of the electorate) many people have begun adapting to the idea of getting their information elsewhere than legacy media.
Speaking for myself alone, I’m taking that alternative path with a visceral sense of betrayal about the way our formerly major media have wasted what used to be a privileged franchise (we’ll tell you the truth, as only we can, and you’ll buy our papers, watch our screens, etc., and accord us primacy as one of the pillars of democracy). Instead, they’ve turned it into a megaphone for the outrages Marcy has outlined so well, AND, they still demand our uncritical gratitude for it.
As a lifelong reader of the WaPo (and a loyal subscriber to I.F. Stone’s Weekly, back when it still published), that’s not the ‘journalism’ I was brought up to revere at all, and it certainly no longer deserves unquestioned fealty as a bulwark of democracy (since our media, and/or its owner class, manifestly doesn’t care about democracy). Keep it up, media elites, and you may find that “We won’t go back” applies to your lost audience as well.
A piece from Greg Sargent, today over at The New Republic:
Finally: Top Journo Erupts at Media for Ignoring Trump’s Mental State
The whole article is on point, as is the great video clip of Mike Barnicle in it.
Barnicle goes there in the 2:14 long video clip — he discusses the “soft bigotry” noting the forced and wholly unequal both-sideism the media uses when reporting on Trump.
Sure would be nice if this kind of opinion went wider than small independent sites.