The New York Times downplayed the Holocaust. I assume everyone knows that, but maybe they don't. For a variety of reasons — the Times's Jewish owners didn't want to seem to be going to bat for the Jews. The Roosevelt administration didn't want the considerable portion of America that harbored sympathies for Hitler to think the war was being fought to save Jews. And, in the Gray Lady's defense, no one could quite believe what was happening. The NYT wasn't alone in getting things backward — check out the Milwaukee Sentinel above.
At least the Holocaust was semi-hidden. What is harder to understand how the Times can now botch reporting on the latest manifestation of evil — Donald Trump's quest to retake the White House and destroy democracy. There's no other way to say it. The man is a traitor, lapdog of Vladimir Putin, would-be buddy of tyrants and strongmen everywhere, whose ruthless authority he envies. Liar, bully, fraud and felon. That isn't an opinion. It's mere fact. Obvious fact.
It amazes me how the Times just doesn't get it, even when they act like they do. Their front page story Oct. 6 on Trump's "extensive cognitive decline" might be reassuring if it were news. But it isn't. It's what I call "Napoleon escaped from Elba" news. News that isn't new. Trump has been full-blown batshit crazy, a raving loon since Day One. On Wednesday, they ran a story spotlighting a single, minor lie, "Trump Says He Visited Gaza, but There's No Record of It." At this point, that is like sharing news that Hugh Hefner went on a date. The miss-the-forest-behind-the-tree aspect is staggering.
A scrupulous journalist — oh for instance me — might frame that story differently. "Donald Trump lied about visiting Gaza, which is no big shocker because he lies CONTINUALLY about EVERYTHING! But we thought we'd share this latest mote of falsehood anyway, a drop of water in a torrent, in the name of thoroughness."
It amazes me how the Times just doesn't get it, even when they act like they do. Their front page story Oct. 6 on Trump's "extensive cognitive decline" might be reassuring if it were news. But it isn't. It's what I call "Napoleon escaped from Elba" news. News that isn't new. Trump has been full-blown batshit crazy, a raving loon since Day One. On Wednesday, they ran a story spotlighting a single, minor lie, "Trump Says He Visited Gaza, but There's No Record of It." At this point, that is like sharing news that Hugh Hefner went on a date. The miss-the-forest-behind-the-tree aspect is staggering.
A scrupulous journalist — oh for instance me — might frame that story differently. "Donald Trump lied about visiting Gaza, which is no big shocker because he lies CONTINUALLY about EVERYTHING! But we thought we'd share this latest mote of falsehood anyway, a drop of water in a torrent, in the name of thoroughness."
Why not print that sentence? Is it not utterly true? In the same edition of the paper, Jess Bidgood's On Politics "Trump's Ugly Closing Argument" column ends with this: "Democracy experts have expressed deep concern that Trump is seeking to stoke doubt in the result of the election, laying the groundwork for him to contest it if he does not win."
Really, "deep concern"? Is that what the "Democracy experts," whoever the fuck they are, have? Let's recast that sentence to better reflect reality. "Anyone with eyes in their head and brain behind them has watched with growing horror as Donald Trump vigorously stoked doubts regarding past and present elections like a blacksmith at his bellows, laying the groundwork when he tries to overthrow the result of the election, again, which he absofuckinglutely will do if he doesn't win outright."
Which version do you feel better reflects the true situation? Maybe this is a minor point. The people voting for Donald Trump aren't reading the New York Times. Or me for that matter. But why not speak the truth plainly? Because we sure as hell won't be able to after he is elected.
Really, "deep concern"? Is that what the "Democracy experts," whoever the fuck they are, have? Let's recast that sentence to better reflect reality. "Anyone with eyes in their head and brain behind them has watched with growing horror as Donald Trump vigorously stoked doubts regarding past and present elections like a blacksmith at his bellows, laying the groundwork when he tries to overthrow the result of the election, again, which he absofuckinglutely will do if he doesn't win outright."
Which version do you feel better reflects the true situation? Maybe this is a minor point. The people voting for Donald Trump aren't reading the New York Times. Or me for that matter. But why not speak the truth plainly? Because we sure as hell won't be able to after he is elected.
The Gray Lady has aged into senescence. It is so careful of its reputation, its dwindling readership and imperiled revenue, that it can no longer serve the function for which it was created.
ReplyDeleteactually, all they care about is click bait. he wins, he's going to be great copy- doesn't require any actual work, just sit back and be a stenographer to the horror show. they also see themselves as part of the unofficial government, so they softpeddle the full-on naziism so the can whisper into the ears of those close to the great leader. political reporters are silly people in a dire age and none are more worthless than the crew aat the gray lady.
DeleteThe Washington Post is not far behind, I'm afraid. (And yes, I subscribe to both.)
DeleteWaPo has really gone down the poop chute . And yet I still pay for a subscription, despite a years-long (and apparently lifetime) ban from commenting there. Go figure. The comments are nearly all from blue folks...probably a hundreds thousand liberals...nodding and cooing to one another like penguins at the South Pole. Hundreds of preachers, and a choir of countless thousands.
DeleteBut they do have their squabbles and disagreements, despite all being in the same camp, and plenty of Nasty Party folks infiltrate as well. So after being too feisty, and too-many time-outs and suspensions, I finally got the boot. Plenty of other fun places to give the opposition hell, however, so I don't mind as much as I once did.
I’d give your “nodding and cooing” my personal metaphor of the day prize, but it’s already gone to “like a blacksmith at his bellows”
DeleteHere we are one month before the presidential election. I imagine there are those who have not made up their mind about which candidate they support, though I find it hard to believe.
ReplyDeleteNearly four full years into the Biden Harris administration. People haven't been able to decide If they want a celebrity grifter or a member of the team that has guided us through some difficult times with a steady hand and a clear concern for the future of our Democratic institutions and the preservation of our Republic.
News organizations that sensationalize and trivialize the statements and behaviors of one of the candidates. Ignoring the danger associated with his previous administration..
I'm not surprised that this has you at your Wit's end. But no matter what you write, it's not going to make a difference.
All we can do once again is wait to see if the citizens of our country will rise up and protect us from this lunatic.
God save our souls
Will there be a mass uprising? I worry that we will be good little NAZIs and do what we're told. We'll dutifully pull "banned" books from library shelves & teach only what the Heritage Foundation wants us to learn. Doctors will twiddle their thumbs while women die needlessly in hospital ERs. That's just for starters.
DeleteWe're on the verge of what the historian Paul Johnson called "gangster government." There will be no rule of law, just kleptocracy. Everything will be for sale. Cronies will be rewarded and "enemies" punished.
The best of the hundreds of wails, rebuttals, and screeds, most of them in NYT article comments sections, ripping the New York Times for their infuriating minimization of the threat Trump poses. Thank you, Neil, for so intensely capturing our anguish.
ReplyDeleteThank you, as always. For an excellent book about anti-semitism, Dara Horn’s People Love Dead Jews……
ReplyDeleteEver since Howell Raines was the editor of the NYT, the NYT has rolled over for every Re Thug Licon that's run for president, because according to Raines, an extremely liberal Southerner, he hated Al Gore for not being liberal enough, so Raine buried the news of Junior Bush's drunk driving arrest & conviction on Page 26. And the NYT has continued to dump on every single Democratic candidate for president since then, Obama excepted, but only because Obama was black.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess Harris isn't black enough for them, so they continue to deny the obvious, the fat traitor has serious dementia, does nothing but lie & is obviously insane!
Note that it was the Washington Post that added up is over 30,000 lies, which the NYT also ignored!
The NYT is not alone in this. As Jeff Tiedrich has pointed out repeatedly, the major main stream media have all been doing the same thing. I cannot imagine why unless it’s simply fear of how they may be treated should he manage to get elected.
ReplyDeleteThe MSM follows the lead of the NYT, if the NYT thinks it's a major story, all of the MSM will cover it as that. If the NYT doesn't think it's important, the rest of the MSM ignores it.
DeleteJust pathetic!
I couldn't believe how quickly the damning Jack Smith indictment fell from the news cycle. It was mind-boggling.
DeleteIt sounds like you're saying NYT is going easy on Trump for fear he'll otherwise be mean to them if he's elected. I don't get that because, given the way he consistently trashes MSM, if he gets elected I am confident he will do anything and everything to destroy them. Freedom of the press will mean nothing to his administration. Do reporters at NYT and WaPo actually think they'll be allowed in a Trump administration press pool?? No one from any reasonably respectable news outlet will be allowed anywhere near the White House, and his toadies in Congress will do the same. I'm dumbfounded by anyone in the media who thinks it will be otherwise.
DeleteNot at all. They're going easy on him because journalism is a kabuki, a stylized form, and affecting a balance, and rational distance, is what they do. It isn't self-interest so much as inertia. There is an old New Yorker cartoon that shows a woman wearing an elaborate hat, seated in a lifeboat as a ship sinks in the distance. A purser says something like, "Madam, I assure you that the judging of the festive hats will resume once we are ashore." That's what's going on — the NYT is the Gray Lady in the hat, focusing on the small bore issue, missing the greater calamity. Maybe I'll dig it out and post it Saturday.
DeleteWe live in a society (maybe) where the news longer reports, it makes.
ReplyDeleteIs there really nothing else we can do except vote to derail this Trump mania that has hijacked our democracy? I have no more words to respond to what’s happened and continues to happen. I’ve read all the books and listened to all the podcasts on all the factors that unleashed Trump, his supporters, along with the evil geniuses like Bannon, the Heritage Foundation, Rush Limbaugh, etc.. who have been planning this debacle for decades, but at some level I feel like having all the reasons why this is happening is meaningless in the face of not being able to do anything to stop it. I ask myself how can anyone in their right mind support such a demented lunatic and then I get my answer — they aren’t in their right mind. We have greed, a lust for power, and narcissism driving the leader group and delusion, denial, and stupidity driving the supporter group. And then we have social media fueling the mania and mainstream media being left on the dust. Whomever said knowledge is power never imagined this scenario. I am so grateful for you, Neil, and your readers, and am so disheartened and fearful right now.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we can try to shake it up a bit, be disheartened on even days, fearful on odd. The situation is dire, that's all there is to it.
DeleteBless you. I think I’ll reread Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning to reconnect with his famous quote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” I choose hope, trust, and possibility.😊
DeleteDianne, please don't give up hope until after Nov. 5. Until then there is actually a lot you can (and I would argue should) do. Get involved with any of the scores of organizations working their tails off to defeat him and elect Harris/Walz. Doing door-knocking, letter-writing, phone banking, text banking, etc. may not be fun or sexy but it *can* make a difference. Persuading even only a handful of voters in a handful of key wards in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania can flip districts and actually be the difference in the race. Please try to turn your dread into some practical effort. I think you'll be glad you did.
DeleteThanks, Monica. Appreciate the actionable advice.
DeleteI fear MAGA guns will come out if the vote counting displeases. I have read books on ‘30s Germany and US Nazi sympathizers like one of the early Hamilton Fish Congressional members. My stomach is in constant upheaval over the craven, complicit and gullible Trump voters.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for an article spelling it out! Reading another WaPo article today acting as if it’s two normal candidates has made me feel like I’m the crazy one. Harris is being penalised for being the only sane candidate in the race and the mainstream media outlets seek to report on her mistakes whilst letting Trump skate. We end up being hyper-focused on whether she answered a question in exactly the right way (or dodged and turned it round a bit to make a point she wants to make like every normal politician before her), rather than the story being that Trump won’t take a proper interview at all or if he does, or if Vance does, they rant on about the unfairness of fact-checking!
ReplyDeleteI can see where the New York Times is going by treating Trump as if he were an ordinary candidate for the presidency. While it would be the plain unvarnished truth to call Trump a traitor, a convicted sex criminal, a thief, a blatant liar, etc., the Times may feel that saying so would be taken as partisan name calling rhetoric, similar to what Trump and his ilk say about Biden, Harris and Walz, and in some way justifying Trump's blathering accusations.
ReplyDeletejohn
Unfortunately, I believe you are spot on. The media fears appearing to be too one-sided to report the unvarnished truth. That’s how coarse, crass, mean and disgustingly mendacious the Orange Traitor is. If the media tells it like it is people simply can’t believe it’s true, and it must be that they’re picking on Fat Don unfairly. It’s a no win situation.
Delete"Democracy experts have expressed deep concern that Trump is seeking to stoke doubt in the result of the election, laying the groundwork for him to contest it if he does not win" What...the ...flood?
ReplyDeleteAn expert is defined as "a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area. A specialist, a master, a professional, a wizard. How the hell does one become a "democracy expert" anyway? By going to school for twenty years and earning a DD (Doctor of Democracy) degree? By living for 77 years in a democratic country and voting the Democratic ticket for 56 of them? (Hey, I'm a wizard!)
Just another example of why anyone with any sense gave up on the NYT a long time ago, even though too many lefties still read it like the fundamentalists and evangelists scrutinize their Bibles.
"Deep concern" is defined as an uneasy state of mind, usually over the possibility of an anticipated misfortune or trouble. Uneasy? How about scared shitless? Four weeks to go, and my thoughts are about nothing else.
November's approach feels like an approaching Category 5 storm...there's no escape from it. None. Not even via baseball, which has become a diversion that now lasts about as long as smoking a cigarette once did.
If he wins, there will be trouble, followed by madness. Followed by the abyss.
If he loses...well...here's to Joe (and Kamala) taking the gloves off.
And taking care of business. You don't negotiate with cancer...you eradicate it.
Love it. Great point. I read the NYT daily and find it frustrating that the editors seem to over compensate regularly. I especially enjoyed " Really, "deep concern"? Is that what the "Democracy experts," whoever the fuck they are, have?"....Spot on Neil.
ReplyDeleteToday, the NYT actually has a 'Political Memo' titled, "In Interviews, Kamala Harris Continues to Bob and Weave"
ReplyDeleteAnd for comparison, today's NYT also has a story headlined "Trump’s Remarks on Migrants Illustrate His Obsession With Genes," like he's some kind of hobbyist rather than a bonkers racist/eugenicist. My edits: "Trump's RACIST Remarks on Migrants Illustrate His DANGEROUS Obsession With Genes." With every story that normalizes Trump, the NYT is complicit in the destruction of democracy.
DeleteIn my opinion, the major political figure most like Trump was Joe McCarthy. Think of any of Trump’s many character flaws – the blatant demagoguery, the belittling nicknames bestowed on opponents, constant lying, laziness, corrupt greed, womanizing, using Roy Cohn – McCarthy had them all too, in spades.
ReplyDeleteSo it might be instructive to look at how the Times had exactly the same (self-imposed) problem when it tried to cover McCarthy. In Richard Rovere’s biography, we find this footnote:
The New York Times once looked back upon its own coverage of a McCarthy investigation and acknowledged that it had done its readers a great disservice, though an unavoidable one….The Times admitted that there turned out to be no truth in [its news articles], but it explained that it had seen no alternative to publishing them. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore charges by Senator McCarthy just because they are usually proved false. The remedy lies with the reader.” To many people, this was rather like saying that if a restaurant serves poisoned food, it is up to the diner to refuse it.
If only Rovere had stopped there. Unfortunately, he went on to say:
Yet the Times was, I believe, essentially right, for I suspect there is no surer way to a corrupt and worthless press than to authorize reporters to tell the readers which “facts” are really “facts” and which are not.
Shades of the current debate over disinformation.
Loved this post. You have perfectly deconstructed the world we find ourselves in.
ReplyDeleteAt once surreal and too real.
It continues to amaze me how media has failed because they are looking at their monetary bottom line for sensational clicks, Evangelicals call themselves Christians but have no tolerance for anyone else or their opinions but their own, contradicting love of others as Jesus commanded, and how everyone behind Trump has their eyes and ears wide - closed to the depravity of a man they embrace: a sociopath, felon, and Alzheimer's patient rolled into one, they want to elevate to a king. If Trump is elected it will be hell here in America. But apparently that's what these sleepwalking and depraved Americans want.
ReplyDeleteI'm not nearly as concerned about what the mob boss and his henchmen will do if he loses as I am that he might win.
ReplyDeleteThe most astounding thing to me about his supporters is that, even now, they continue to claim that they like him because "he tells it like it is." In his entire life, I can't imagine that that was ever true, but nobody in the history of the presidency has come remotely close to publicly lying about stuff as much as he has since 2015.
Lies about big stuff, lies about little stuff, lies that can't necessarily be easily disproven, lies that are so transparent that there is videotape of him indicating that he's lying.
I can only conclude that "He tells it like it is" is a bizarre, pathetic way for them to acknowledge that he hates all the same people that they do.
"He tells it like it is" seems to be Trump fans' standard comment when pressed on exactly what it is that appeals to them about him. They are stumped for a more precise answer, they never learned anything in school about topics that a president really needs to be concerned about, they don't understand talk about the economy, where taxes come from and go to, how international trade works, and so on, but Trump, who always sounds to me like the drunk at the end of the bar, uses simple words and extreme language that they can understand, dialogue that goes down easy even if it doesn't mean anything, a sort of junk food for the brain.
ReplyDeleteI think one reason that Trump's nonsense is believed is because he's careful to spew it only in situations where he cannot be immediately contradicted on camera with facts, such as at any of his rallies. Actual one-on-one interviews with someone who will challenge him, not toss softball questions, are few and far between, so there are not many videos out there that are less than flattering in treatment of him and his claims.
Contrast that with Harris and Walz, who are out there doing a lot more public events and interviews far and wide. They're not quite at the level of Pete Buttigieg, who will cheerfully wade into any lions' den to deliver the Democratic party line, but they're also not just carefully insulating themselves behind layers of adoring fans for every single public appearance.
The only thing that has me amazed is the polling data that indicates the race to be a dead heat. Are there really that many stupid people in this country, or (as one might hope), is this simply another case of inaccurate polls that will lead to a surprise in November? We were already led into a false sense of security back in 2016, and we had a squeaker in 2020 (I honestly don't recall what the polls were suggesting as a likely outcome on Election Day that year), so I don't know how much stock to put in the poll standings this year... as if that should matter. Voting is what matters.
If the polls are to be believed, die-hard Cub fan Hillary blew a big lead in the final two months. We thought we had it in the bag. Especially those of us who were working for her. Saw a lot of crying that night.
DeleteIn 2020, Biden never actually trailed Trump at any time in the campaign. In mid-September, he was supposedly ahead by seven points. In mid-October, it was ten. Joe won by seven million votes, or 4.5%.
Not exactly a squeaker, but he did lose a lot of that "big lead" by November, so the media forecast a squeaker. Because a squeaker means more hits, clicks, eyeballs, and ratings. And higher ratings mean more profit. It's all about the moolah.
Right now, the polls are all over the map. It's ridiculous. Once-respected Newsweek said Harris was winning. At the very same time (yesterday), Newsweek also said that she had lost her lead and that Trump was winning. What horse puckey. Nobody is believable anymore...nor should they be believed. We ignore the polls, but we will have voted by this weekend.
Thank you Neil for putting it in print what is true. This friggin lunatic and his followers are about to bring down the US and so many of them are blithering racist greedy ignorant arrogant idiots who refuse to have an open mind - I’m sick to my stomach with him and his followers.
ReplyDelete