Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America
By: Will Bunch ( httpswww. inquirer. com)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
They stood on an arena stage in Milwaukee under a massive sign that read "Democracy" — the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla that loomed over this strange political event but was never really discussed. When the dust finally settled after two hours of the first televised debate of the 2024 GOP primaries, nothing — from the rude kids-table outbursts from the impertinent Vivek Ramaswamy to the doomed efforts by Nikki Haley or Mike Pence to be the grown-ups in the room — actually mattered inside the airy Fiserv Forum except for one thing.
All those not-so-wonderful people out there in the dark. A mob that raged, and ultimately ruled.
This audience seemed to only care about The Man Who Wasn't There — Donald Trump, who was too busy refueling his private jet for his next arrest to bother attending. The restive crowd reached its peak when its bete noire, the anti-Trump turncoat Chris Christie, dared try to challenge Ramaswamy's outburst that POTUS 45 "was the best president of the 21st century." It filled the basketball arena with boos.
The pro-Trump ruckus was such that Fox News coanchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum dramatically turned around to face the audience. "So listen," Baier said, "the more time we spend doing this, the less time they can talk about issues you want to talk about."
LOL. As the night dragged on, the only "issues" the crowd seemed jazzed about were brash challenges to scientific truths that it considers elite liberal pieties — like Ramaswamy's false claim that climate change solutions have killed more people than climate change — or authoritarian vows of violence, like Ron DeSantis' promise to render any drug dealers at the border "stone cold dead." None of the eight people on that stage "won" — only Trump, his angry mob, and a 21st-century brand of American fascism that is the enemy of democracy, the writing on the wall.
If you watched the hours of TV news coverage during an especially momentous week in August, there was little sense of that reality, and for long stretches of pundit blather, none at all — as talking heads gave earnest high school debating marks to candidates who are all but ignored by the GOP voter base. The disconnect deepened the next night as Trump turned what would surely be his comeuppance — his surrender at Atlanta's bug-infested county jail for fingerprinting and a mug shot ― into an outlaw display of authoritarian force.
It was a remarkable night of imagery over substance, yet there was little discussion of why this accused felon was getting a phalanx of dozens of motorcycle cops, comprising police who are drawn to Trump's authoritarian bluster like moths to the light. Trump's glowering mug shot instantly became the most talked about picture in American history — yet not one pundit was able to explain why tens of millions of everyday voters are so eager to return to the White House this man who attempted a coup on Jan. 6, 2021, or why his poll numbers rise with each indictment. I guess the 20th-century author and socialist Upton Sinclair really nailed it when he wrote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
" READ MORE: America needs to confront its 'Mussolini moment' | Will Bunch Newsletter
America is entering its most important, pivotal year since 1860, and the U.S. media is doing a terrible job explaining what is actually happening. Too many of us — with our highfalutin poli-sci degrees and our dog-eared copies of the late Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes — are still covering elections like it's the 20th century, as if the old touchstones like debates or a 30-second spot still matter.
What we are building toward on Nov. 5, 2024, might have the outward trappings of an election, but it is really a show of force. What we call the Republican Party is barely a political party in any sense of the word, but a dangerous antisocial movement that has embraced many of the tenets of fascism, from calls for violence to its dehumanizing of "others" — from desperate refugees at the border to transgender youth.
There is, in reality, no 2024 primary because this movement embraced its infallible strongman in Trump eight years ago. And there is no "Trump scandal" because — for them — each new crime or sexual assault is merely another indictment of the messenger, the arrogant elites from whom their contempt is the number one issue. These foot soldiers stopped believing in "democracy" a long time ago — no matter how big an Orwellian sign Fox News erects.
If you watch enough not-Fox cable TV news, you'll occasionally see an expert on fascism like New York University's Ruth Ben-Ghiat or Yale's Timothy Snyder explaining the roots of this American authoritarianism, or you can read a piece like Margaret Sullivan's Guardian take on the fascist appeal of Trump-clone Ramaswamy. But then it's back to your regular programming, including a desperate desire to frame today's clash in the context of long-lost 20th-century democratic norms, and to blame any transgressions on a mysterious "tribalism" that plagues "both sides."
This weekend, the New York Times' Peter Baker, an influential news analyst, noted on Twitter/X that in 1994 some 21% of Republicans and 17% of Democrats viewed the other party negatively, which has risen to 62% (GOP) and 54% (Dems). Baker was recommending a story condemning "tribalism," when what we are really seeing here is the vitriol of an authoritarian movement and the increasing condemnation from those who are appalled by it.
Some of the media's worst avatars of what increasingly feels like hopeless democracy nostalgia are so-called never-Trump conservatives like Kathleen Parker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist now with the Washington Post. It was Parker who famously predicted on the eve of the 2016 election that a victorious Trump would "dress up and behave at state dinners and be funny when called upon" and show contempt for Vladimir Putin, in the most notoriously wrong column of all time: "Calm down. We'll be fine no matter who wins." Rather than slowly back into the bushes, Homer Simpson-style, Parker is still pining for normalcy, declaring last week that Haley won the Milwaukee debate "poised, precise and prepared" — as if that mattered in the lion's den of Fiserv Forum.
Of course, D.C. pundits like Parker or Baker are trained to talk to the folks on the stage and their high-priced consultants, not the mob that inexorably moves modern Republicanism away from believing in elections. I've been inside and outside of Trump rallies in Hershey and West Chester and Wildwood, and what I learned is that the only issue that matters isn't an issue at all, but their contempt for the media outlets like CNN they believe look down on them and their savior. Of course, the salary of Baker or Parker or the CNN punditocracy depends on not understanding that.
It was so revealing Wednesday night when Fox News launched its debate coverage by playing a snippet of Oliver Anthony's No. 1 hit, the blue-collar populist rant "Rich Men North of Richmond," with its mix of anti-government elitism and a downward punch at welfare recipients. It felt like the Fox message was, "We're not comfortable talking about what's really happening with the white working class in America, so we're just going to turn it over to this angry singer with the big beard."
The news media better get comfortable talking about what is really happening in places like Anthony's Farmville, Va. They ought to be explaining both the legitimate anger voiced by the singer's lament over working overtime hours for low pay, the manipulation of that anger by demagogues like Trump, and the uncomfortable questions about how much of the rage is over threats to outdated and detestable hierarchies of white supremacy and the patriarchy.
Anthony isn't the only one doing a better job discussing this than our journalists. On Saturday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders went to New Hampshire to both endorse the reelection of President Joe Biden as a defense against authoritarianism — but also to warn his fellow Democrats they need to do a much better job addressing the discontents of the American middle class. Said Sanders: "In the United States, and in fact around the world, support for the establishment and their institutions is in decline. People want change. And change will come. The question is: What kind of change will it be?" Not surprisingly, Sanders' important speech was barely mentioned in the media.
Almost on cue, the GOP's Ramaswamy went on CNN Sunday morning with a dark, right-wing appeal that is the change far too many people are seeking, in a stunning riff that blamed this weekend's racist mass shooting in Jacksonville, Fla., by a white gunman who targeted Black people not on racism, but on anti-racism and the media. Ramaswamy insisted that the media, universities, and certain politicians have rekindled racism and that "I can think of no better way to fuel racism in this country than by taking something away from people based on their skin color." Meaning white people.
These are the stakes: dueling visions for America — not Democratic or Republican, with parades and red, white, and blue balloons, but brutal fascism or flawed democracy. The news media needs to stop with the horse race coverage of this modern-day March on Rome, stop digging incessantly for proof that both sides are guilty of the same sins, and stop thinking that a war for the imperiled survival of the American Experiment is some kind of inexplicable "tribalism."
We need to hear from more experts on authoritarian movements and fewer pollsters and political strategists. We need journalists who'll talk a lot less about who's up or down and a lot more about the stakes — including Trump's plans to dismantle the democratic norms that he calls "the administrative state," to weaponize the criminal justice system, and to surrender the war against climate change — if the 45th president becomes the 47th. We need the media to see 2024 not as a traditional election, but as an effort to mobilize a mass movement that would undo democracy and splatter America with more blood like what was shed Saturday in Jacksonville. We need to understand that if the next 15 months remain the worst-covered election in U.S. history, it might also be the last.
Tags
Who is online
92 visitors
So, let's get this straight: The brutal fascists are the people out of power? And the elite radicals who control government and all the institutions are fighting for democracy?
Is that your interpretation?
Leftists have a problem with definitions.
So why would they get fascist correct?
Can you define it?
What is the definition of "woke"?
I am assuming you have set the "way back machine" to the Clinton presidency. In which case, based on the submitted definition of sex not the dictionary's, blowjob wasn't the same as sex.
During the deposition, Clinton was asked "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel's Office, Clinton answered, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." Clinton later said, "I thought the definition included any activity by [me], where [I] was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies" which had been explicitly listed (and "with an intent to gratify or arouse the sexual desire of any person"). In other words, Clinton denied that he had ever contacted Lewinsky's "genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks", and effectively claimed that the agreed-upon definition of "sexual relations" included giving oral sex but excluded receiving oral sex.
That's the part I'm not getting. They hold all the power. They imposed mandates, had people fired and opened the southern border, yet somehow the people with no power are a threat to democracy.
If the Republican Party had their way, abortion would be illegal across America and women would not have the right to control their own bodies.
You think that is not an attempt to control?
And book banning, restricting teaching of controversial subjects, trying to get religion taught in public schools, ? Not attempt to control?
Because we have the filibuster in the Senate they cant pass all the crap they would like to. So what?
No, you'd have the right to vote on it. The question for every democrat candidate should be: What limitations do you favor on an abortion?
And book banning,
You mean prohibiting pornography from being given to young children?
restricting teaching of controversial subjects,
You mean teaching white children that they are racists and black children that they are victims who can never succeed? You people tried to ban the classic works of Mark Twain.
trying to get religion taught in public schools,
You don't mean teaching religion. You mean mentioning that it exists.
Not attempt to control?
Your side has been nothing short of a Soviet style regime with school boards that hid the rape of young girls and the arresting of that girls father. The regime that weaponized the FBI to threaten and intimidate parents. Those are not the children of the state, despite what Marx said.
As the man who taught at the university of Pennsylvania for four years said:
"democracy is at stake."
We must reelect the little authoritarians again.
It's kind of like Joseph Goebbels telling the people that we can't let German Jews have power because of what they'll do.
No, republicans are already talking about a FEDERAL anti-abortion law. The only thing stopping them are the democrats in Congress and POTUS.
What about books that teach history, social studies, etc. that have been banned?
No, he is talking about the actual history books, not the right wing partisan summary of them.
You can talk about it all you want in History or Theology class. It does not belong in any science class, or anywhere else.
Texas Republicans advance bills to expand religion in public schools
Are you now claiming that liberals are Catholics? Who's presidential candidate boasted about grabbing women by their "pussies" again? Or boasted about having sex with a porn star right after his wife gave birth?
Brutal fascists are those who care nothing for the civil rights of the 'other'.
Brutal fascists are too stupid to understand the definition of the word.
There are a few here on NT who might as well use a swastika for an avatar.
Could you diagram that sentence? Because, WTF?
I really don't think Nikki Haley wrote this...........please fix.
Why? They are. That you want to paint one side rosier than the other is part of the problem...........a LARGE part
any criticism of democrats is forbidden by the doctrine of both sideism. The slightest Criticism of Biden marks you as a fascist traitor intent on destroying America. Until the media accepts that and acts accordingly, they are enemies of the state.
Republicans,conservatives, and right wing media demand that for every "issue" with an extremely problematical (to say the least) Trump candidacy the media must identify and emphasize an equal if not similar defect in Biden. Problem is no such equivalency actually exists, but because the media wants , and gets , a "horse race" to talk about , we see constant bothsidesism. In other words the two articles I posted here are exactly correct.
Some folk with low IQs tend to be far right-wing fascists.
Folk with higher IQs tend to be liberals and accept "others."
Seems these days it is a war of intelligence Vs stupidity.
That is hilarious.
Where do you come up with some of the bullshit.
Hell, all you have to do is read most of leftist's comments here and you will see your "assessment" is back asswards.
[deleted]
www.theguardian.com /commentisfree/2023/sep/15/trump-biden-mainstream-politics-news-coverage
With democracy on the ballot, the mainstream press must change its ways
Margaret Sullivan 6-8 minutes 9/15/2023
Christiane Amanpour has reported all over the world, so she recognizes a democracy on the brink when she sees one.
Last week, as she celebrated her 40 years at CNN, she issued a challenge to her fellow journalists in the US by describing how she would cover US politics as a foreign correspondent.
“We have to be truthful, not neutral,” she urged. “I would make sure that you don’t just give a platform … to those who want to crash down the constitution and democracy.”
It’s an important call to action. But so far, the American press is failing to meet its responsibility to adequately emphasize the stakes of the coming election. Here’s some of what is going wrong:
News organizations have turned Biden’s age (granted, a legitimate concern) into the equivalent of a scandal. In story after story, headline after headline, they emphasize not his administration’s accomplishments, but the fact that he’s 80. A New York Times headline during his recent diplomatic mission to Asia epitomized this, turning the president’s joke about jet lag into an impression of a doddering fool: “‘It is evening, isn’t it?’ An 80-Year-Old President’s Whirlwind Trip.” Ian Millhiser of Vox nailed the problem: “I worry the ‘Biden is old’ coverage is starting to take on the same character as the 2016 But Her Emails coverage – find something that is genuinely suboptimal about the Democratic candidate and dwell on it endlessly to ‘balance’ coverage of the criminal in charge of the GOP.”
The evidence-free Biden impeachment efforts in the House of Representatives are presented to news consumers without sufficient context. In the first round of headlines last week, most news outlets simply reported what speaker Kevin McCarthy was doing as if it were completely legitimate – the result of his likely high crimes and misdemeanors. The Washington Post presented it seriously: “Kevin McCarthy directs House committees to open formal Biden impeachment inquiries,” adding in a credulous line: “The inquiry will center on whether President Biden benefited from his son’s business dealings … ” No hint of what is really happening here. In this case, the New York Times was a welcome exception: “McCarthy, Facing an Ouster and a Shutdown, Orders an Impeachment Inquiry.” That’s more like it.
Trump continues to be covered mostly as an entertaining side show – his mug shot! His latest insults! – not a perilous threat to democracy, despite four indictments and 91 charges against him, and despite his own clear statements that his re-election would bring extreme anti-democratic results; he would replace public servants with the cronies who’ll do his bidding. “We will look back on this and wish more people had understood that Biden is our bulwark of democratic freedoms and the alternative is worse than most Americans can imagine,” commented Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen, and an expert in authoritarian regimes.
So, how can the press do better as the election approaches?
Earlier this month, I got the opportunity to speak to the staff of the Guardian US about this in their Manhattan headquarters, with the top US editor Betsy Reed leading the discussion and with the Guardian’s London-based editor-in-chef, Katharine Viner, sitting in the first row.
I identified what I called the big problem and the big solution.
The big problem is that the mainstream media wants to be seen as non-partisan – a reasonable goal – and bends over backwards to accomplish this. If this means equalizing an anti-democratic candidate with a pro-democracy candidate, then so be it.
Add to this the obsession with the “horse race” aspect of the campaign, and the profit-driven desire to increase the potential news audience to include Trump voters, and you’ve got the kind of problematic coverage discussed above.
It’s fearful, it’s defensive, it’s entertainment – and click-focused, and it’s mired in the washed-up practices of an earlier era.
The big solution? Remember at all times what our core mission is: to communicate truthfully, keeping top of mind that we have a public service mission to inform the electorate and hold powerful people to account. If that’s our north star, as it should be, every editorial judgment will reflect that.
Headlines will include context, not just deliver political messaging. Overall politics coverage will reflect “not the odds, but the stakes”, as NYU’s Jay Rosen elegantly put it. Lies and liars won’t get a platform and a megaphone.
And media leaders will think hard about the big picture of what they are getting across to the public, and whether it is fair and truthful. Imagine if the New York Times, among others, had stopped and done a course correction on their over-the-top coverage of Clinton’s emails during the 2016 campaign. We might be living in a different world.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman pointed out last week that the media apparently has failed to communicate something that should be a huge asset for Biden: the US’s current “Goldilocks economy”. Inflation is low, unemployment is low and there’s virtually no hint of a recession. But many Americans, according to surveys, are convinced the economy is terrible.
“There’s a really profound and peculiar disconnect going on,” Krugman said on CNN.
Media coverage surely is partly to blame. When gas prices spike, it’s the end of the world. When they steady or fall, it’s the shrug heard ‘round the world. It illustrates one of journalism’s forever flaws – its bias for negative news and for conflict.
Can the mainstream press rise to the challenge over the next year?
“When one of our two political parties has become so extremist and anti-democratic”, the old ways of reporting don’t cut it, wrote the journalist Dan Froomkin in his excellent list of suggestions culled from respected historians and observers.
In fact, such both-sides-equal reporting “actively misinforms the public about the stakes of the coming election”.
The stakes really are enormously high. It’s our job to make sure that those potential consequences – not the horse race, not Biden’s age, not a scam impeachment – are front and center for US citizens before they go to the polls.
As Amanpour so aptly put it, be truthful, not neutral.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
This article was amended on 15 September 2023 to correct a misspelled name.
The mainstream media has an ethical duty to remain non-partisan.
The media has an ethical duty to tell the truth. Trump and Biden are not two sides of the same coin.
The far-right wing problem being that honest journalists hate them.
Yet you make them one. Every time Biden is criticized you immediately say the criticism is invalid because it helps Trump. Why can't you just defend Biden on the merits without immediately claiming Trump is worse?
I would agree the Democrat party has become radically progressive, extremist, and antidemocratic.
The truth is that the mainstream media, for the most part, can't hide or cover up the truth about the corruptness of the Biden regime any longer. The evidence of wrongdoing grows by the day. The majority of Democrats want someone other than Joe and Kamala to run, but their backup bench appears to be empty.
A democrat whining about media coverage is like a harlem globetrotter complaining to the refs about a missed three second call on the Washington generals.
Far right wing fascism relies upon the ignorant believing a constant lie.
Progressivism relies on their intellectually overmatched cult members who get out over their skis parroting buzzwords in the place of critical thinking. Just repeat the same words over and over hope their fellow idiots mistake it for signs of brain activity. They are parrots who aren't even rewarded with crackers.
All your far-right ilk do is lie about everything.
Liberals tend to tell the truth no matter the fallout.
That's the difference between us.
[deleted]
Probably the one that resides under his bed.
The news media better get comfortable talking about what is really happening in places like Anthony's Farmville, Va. They ought to be explaining both the legitimate anger voiced by the singer's lament over working overtime hours for low pay, the manipulation of that anger by demagogues like Trump, and the uncomfortable questions about how much of the rage is over threats to outdated and detestable hierarchies of white supremacy and the patriarchy.
Anthony isn't the only one doing a better job discussing this than our journalists.
I posted a YouTube video a couple weeks ago of Anthony trying to straighten out the hopelessly crooked understanding of his art by those on the right who are face-palmingly foisting him as one of their own. It got little traffic. With the Trump base being so wildly unreachable and the gop accepting a lock step arrangement with them, it’s very difficult to find a piece of common ground to have some less partisan dialogue over. As much as people say we need to be more respectful between the two sides of the isle, we should relish these rare opportunities to discuss what could very well be seen as commonalities between the two.
There will never be "commonalities" between fascists and true Americans.
America fought two world wars against fascism. We won but the fight continues.
Fascism now continues the war from infiltration. Hitler lives with the GOP.
Seems most republicans are now fascist democracy haters.
A legally elected, good president is being unjustly attacked by fascists.
I think the First War World was about Imperialism, not Fascism, I could be wrong
I don’t disagree that a significant portion of the right falls into your assessment, but there remains the portion of the electorate that simply sees the letter D or R as toxic and will plug their nose to vote along those lines. If the nuance of art can bridge similar reactions from different sides then it has a special value. The problem is politically reflexive reactions to triggering words without an understanding of intended meaning. For instance, the song has a line about food stamp welfare and obesity that liberals instantly derided, but has some undeniable truth to it. The government should have a duty to help those in need of food, but not be overtly contributing to America’s obesity epidemic.
Lol. Kudos to you for having enough unearned self confidence to insult other peoples intelligence while posting comments like this..
Pretty sure that WW1 and WW2 were both about fascism.
Hopefully, America will always fight against fascism.
Trump and his MAGA cult are fascists. Time to put them down.
The FBI says domestic far right-wing fascist organizations are the biggest threat to democracy ever.
Damn shame that most liberals don't tend to be militaristic like far-right wing fascists are.
With any luck, the rule of law will see violent fascists dead.
Expecting people to use words properly is fascist.
OR know the meaning of the word let alone use it in the right context
Now context and meaning? Now you are just being MAGA fascist.
Sorry that this site allows far right-wing lying fascism.
No, WWI wasn’t about fascism. It’s originating cause was an assassination of the Austria-Hungarian Archduke which triggered an almost unstoppable reaction due to alliances, European military timetables and nationalism.
No, you're not wrong.
That’s because they want to balance the allowed far left-wing lying fascism.
I don’t know which nations in WWI were the fascist nations. Maybe only the Serbian assassin but I thought he was an anarchist. All this terminology is so confusing.
Now, now....that is very right wing fascist of you to say that.
You’ve got me pegged.