New York Times publisher dismisses Trump's attempted coup as 'politics,' not an act of horrific corruption
By: Donald Trump (Uncharted Blue)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I regret to report that The Freaking New York Times is at again, because of course it is, but this one's a bit different because it comes from the very top: New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, and because Sulzberger published it in his paper's closest competitor, The Washington Post, "because I believe the risk is shared by our entire profession, as well as all who depend on it."
It is framed as a full-throated warning about dangers to the integrity of the free press posed by anti-democratic forces nationwide and explicitly by Donald Trump, and Sulzberger is on point when identifying the dangers and the global interconnectivity of the attacks. It's about authoritarianism; it's about eliminating the ability of each nation's press to push back on intentional movement-pushed propaganda, an all-but-required staple of authoritarian movements.
While we can marvel that both the Post and the Times continue to breeze past the Trump camp's promised mass deportation of as many as 20 million people, a number that would include untold numbers of American citizens whose birthright citizenship is to be summarily revoked—and the undeniable truth that such an effort would certainly require massive internment camps and mass deaths both, to be achieved—it seems that authoritarian attacks on newspapers themselves is at least enough to rouse press attention.
As they seek a return to the White House, former president Donald Trump and his allies have declared their intention to increase their attacks on a press he has long derided as "the enemy of the people." Trump pledged last year: "The LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events." A senior Trump aide, Kash Patel, made the threat even more explicit: "We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly." There is already evidence that Trump and his team mean what they say. By the end of his first term, Trump's anti-press rhetoric — which contributed to a surge in anti-press sentiment in this country and around the world — had quietly shifted into anti-press action.
Action which closely mirrors those of far-right Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, as it turns out—the figure who has become a much-glorified father figure to American white nationalists, militia kooks, and Trump-backing suit-and-tie conservatives of the sort that attend CPAC. (But I repeat myself.)
Again, the dangers are spelled out clearly, and there seems to be no whitewashing of the extreme danger authoritarianism now presents:
To ensure we are prepared for whatever is to come, my colleagues and I have spent months studying how press freedom has been attacked in Hungary — as well as in other democracies such as India and Brazil.
Until you get to the precise paragraphs that begin describing how the press should respond to this existential danger, at which point Sulzberger again reveals the core of his own failures and that of his industry. His recipe for fighting back is to stand back and watch it happen, because he does not consider it the role of journalists to weigh in on whether journalism should live or die.
As someone who strongly believes in the foundational importance of journalistic independence, I have no interest in wading into politics. I disagree with those who have suggested that the risk Trump poses to the free press is so high that news organizations such as mine should cast aside neutrality and directly oppose his reelection. It is beyond shortsighted to give up journalistic independence out of fear that it might later be taken away. At The Times, we are committed to following the facts and presenting a full, fair and accurate picture of November's election and the candidates and issues shaping it. Our democratic model asks different institutions to play different roles; this is ours.
And there we are. That is how Republicanism metastasized into an authoritarian and then fascist movement to begin with. That is how The New York Times turned the usual watchdog role of the press into a convenient supposed sin that must be guarded against. That one word. Politics.
To jog everyone's memory, Donald Trump attempted to overthrow the United States government rather than admit he had lost a nationwide election. He and his allies mounted a full-throated propaganda campaign that falsely questioned the legitimacy of the election—spreading provable hoaxes—as their supposed justification for nullifying the election. A simultaneous plan sought to smuggle forged "electoral slates" into Congress, at which point his vice president was to present them and declare that the original, certified election results were now "in doubt" and should be overruled by Congress. To pressure Congress into taking such action, he assembled a militia-infused mob of supporters and ordered them to march on the Capitol building at the precise day and hour that this was to take place. The mob attacked police officers, pushed through barricades, and smashed windows to gain entry to the building, at which point they began searching for U.S. lawmakers (and the vice president who refused Trump's demands, on who Trump directed the ire of the invading crowd with a tweet clearly intended to inflame them) and ransacking congressional offices.
To the publisher of the New York Times, taking a stance on a violent attempted coup instigated by one of the two presidential candidates—one who is an adjudicated rapist and a felon both, even aside from the seditious act—would amount to "wading into politics," declaring that to "directly oppose" the instigator and beneficiary of the coup attempt would be "casting aside neutrality."
That is the argument here. That it is beyond the boundaries of "news organizations" to pass judgment on the violent attempted coup instigated in very large part by propaganda campaigns meant to undermine the press and democracy both, because that would be politics.
Not outrageous acts of corruption. Not intentional criminality on a shocking and nation-shaking scale. No, declaring that Trump is unfit for office after an attempted coup that produced multiple deaths would be casting aside neutrality and wading into politics.
And that is how we got here. Because a steady stream of outrageous actions that would have unequivocally been labeled corrupt and criminal must now be treated with "neutrality" lest the press be seen as playing favorites.
What a remarkable stance that is. What a remarkable claim to make, this claim that not even an hoax-premised autogolpe is now far enough outside the realm of valid "political" acts to require The Press to creep outside the box of Both Sides and declare that no, this is criminal. This is an attack on democracy. This is an act of corruption so egregious and ongoing that the press should oppose it "directly" rather than preening about their goddamned ever-fictitious neutrality.
Because the press is not neutral, on Trump. The New York Times and the Washington Post are not the slightest bit neutral, when it comes to reporting on Trump. We saw this play out vividly in the tabloidesque coverage of the current president's mental health, when he was Trump's opponent: A poor debate performance led to New York Times frontpages dominated by unattributed speculations as to his possible symptoms and prognosis. Verbal slip-ups were analyzed with panicked tones. It was reported, in all sincerity, that the sitting president was often tired in the late afternoons—apparently the first time a president has ever suffered from this, if the coverage is to be believed. A Parkinson's-specializing doctor visited the White House several times as the administration sought to polish up new Parkinson's-related proposals, and was declared without evidence to possibly be secretly going there to give the president secret medical care.
Except in the meantime, Donald Trump has for months been spewing verbal logorrhea that can be called nothing but delusional. He claimed children were coming back from school with school-approved sex-change operations. He repeatedly refers to Joe Biden as his opponent, forgetting that Biden stepped aside. And rather than offering up seven consecutive frontpage stories questioning the 78-year-old coup-attempting seditionist's mental fitness for office, The New York Times and other outlets continue to hide his dysfunction by cutting out his delusional claims and replacing them with what, in the paper's editorial estimation, he supposedly meant to say.
Trump's actual, insane answer vs. how NYT cleaned it up for him: pic.twitter.com/tWEzhRG4Cq — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 5, 2024
That is not neutral. Sulzberger is simply lying on that, and the evidence is in his paper every day. Trump, the seditionist, has his words polished by the press even when committing the most egregious of gaffes. Trump, the seditionist, is not thought to be unfit for office no matter how many times he invents new fictions and swears them to be real.
Is that neutral? Or is that the sycophantic gutting of press neutrality, instead presenting to readers altered, false interpretations of events that absolve "journalists" from determining what is truth and what is fiction, what is normal and what is corrupt, what is realistic and what is transparent hoax, by wrapping it all up into a ball, calling it "politics," and disclaiming all further responsibility?
If a newly autocratic party can mount an actual attempt to topple the nation's elected government and have it written off by the press as a political act that the press should not weigh in on, we are in far more trouble than Sulzberger himself appears to believe. He has written an editorial that plays to the autocratic tricks he himself warns about by asserting that while others might have responsibility for opposing it, his own offices do not, and instead turns to a description of how the Times intends to prepare for a future in which they have steadfastly and correctly done nothing to prevent all of these warned-of nightmares have come true.
Historian Kevin Kruse was quick to weigh in on Sulzberger's bizarre declaration.
"I have no interest in wading into politics" is an incredible line for someone who has just spent thousands of words describing how politics is already wading into the media, intent on doing real harm to the institution and the nation too. Deciding that you're going to sit politics out is a political choice, plain and simple.
and
While I disagree with the insistence that a "fair and balanced" approach is still warranted in this exceptional and exceptionally dangerous election, at this point I'd actually welcome an even-handed approach from Sulzberger because under his leadership the coverage in the New York Times has not been evenly balanced at all.
I have certainty that Sulzberger will continue to feign ignorance of his own choices. It's not even a question. His assertion that "neutrality" prevents the press from fully warning of the extreme dangers of a coup architect's desired return to power is not one he or the rest of the American media will second-guess because to come out, full-throated, against acts of sedition would result in fury from the political party that has spent four years altering state laws to allow the results of next November's election to be more easily nullified. His paper will not get quotes. His paper will not get interviews. His paper will receive scorn and condemnation from the wealthy anti-democratic fringe that continues to fund and promote those who argue against democracy and craft the bizarre hoaxes used to falsely discredit it.
It is an ode to press cowardice, this frantic and long diagnosis of a potential collapse into authoritarian press suppression that asks everyone but himself and his own peers to rise to this uniquely dangerous moment. And that is how we got here, because the press decided that it would meet the radicalization of mainstream conservatism into open white nationalism, attacks on democracy, attacks on the very legitimacy of any ideology that is not their own, attacks on the press, and an orchestrated coup attempt that enlisted hundreds of party officials by declaring that all of it was politics and therefore uniquely off-limits to journalists that conveniently did not want to ask those questions to begin with.
The New York Times again both-sides fascist extremism, balancing Harris 'tax cuts' against Trump's mass deportationsThe incompetence and amorality of our press may be more responsible for America's descent into authoritarian extremism than any other factor.Uncharted BlueHunter LazzaroWashington Post Editorial Board erases Trump's coup attempt when pondering 'policy' differences between candidatesTrump and his allies tried to topple the government. To the Washington Post editors, it's not even worth mentioning.Uncharted BlueHunter Lazzaro
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I've been saying this for I dont know how long. The major media, even those who the right believe to be "fake news" , do not care enough about a traitor being put back in office to oppose him. To the contrary , as often as not they either cover up for him or minimize his insanity.
The media will do more harm than good over the next two months.
I wonder if Party Members used to complain that Pravda was too pro American.
It is disgraceful that the New York Times and a lot of the major media are willing to blow past or minimize this
People like you think this is a matter of opinion. It is anything but.
www.salon.com /2024/09/06/donald-incoherence-makes-the-medias-double-standard-hard-to-hide/
Donald Trump's incoherence makes the media's double standard hard to hide
8-10 minutes 9/6/2024
It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he'd made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.
That press conference came in the shadow of the Hur report , in which the special counsel made a gratuitous comment about Biden being an elderly man with a bad memory. From that moment on almost every story about Joe Biden was framed in terms of his advanced age and the question of whether he was up to the job. The drumbeat continued for months until Biden's disastrous debate performance validated the narrative and it continued until the day he withdrew from the race. No one in the media cut Joe Biden any slack for his performance.
Donald Trump has the whole press corps acting as his ghostwriter, sanitizing his babble for the public.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there's been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about "the late great Hannibal Lecter" and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks . Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say "Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again" as if it's just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.
And it's true that he's always done this to some extent. His speeches and press conferences are surreal windows into his undisciplined, puerile mind. Despite his regular protestations that he's "like, really smart," he communicates at a 4th grade level (the lowest level of any of the past 15 presidents going back to Hoover) and uses the same handful of words and phrases over and over again to cover for the fact that he never really has any idea what he's talking about.
But Trump's getting worse and the press is failing to properly report it. Over the past couple of weeks, the problem has gotten more acute and there has been very little recognition of it. Because political reporters have normalized his unfit intellectual and emotional characteristics for so long they're just continuing to cover him as if they are perfectly ordinary even though he is rapidly deteriorating,
Trump appeared with Sean Hannity for a pre-taped "town hall" in which he wondered how anyone could be voting for Biden. He has repeatedly made that mistake, declaring that he's running against his former rival instead of his current one. That might have been an understandable gaffe in the early days after Biden withdrew but this has now been going on for a couple of months. I think we know that if Biden had done this we would have had screaming headlines.
But it's the truly demented and/or incoherent blather that's going unremarked upon and there is no excuse for it. I already wrote about his stunning declaration at the Moms for Liberty event in which he said that kids are getting transgender surgeries in school and the parents don't know anything about it. But in the write-ups of the event in all the big papers it wasn't even mentioned. Instead, we got headlines like Trump Questions Acceptance of Transgender People as He Courts His Base at Moms for Liberty Gathering and Can Moms for Liberty save Trump?
The New York Times' Jamelle Bouie smartly called this bizarre coverage (and the double standard) out in a TikTok video:
On Thursday Trump gave what was billed as an economic policy speech to the New York Economic Club. This was a room ostensibly filled with educated people who have a deep understanding of the way our economic system works. Trump attempted to deliver a rote teleprompter speech that derided Biden's economy and discussed his plans to raise more tariffs, drill baby drill and lower more taxes. It could have been finished in 10 minutes. But Trump inevitably digressed to his usual meandering stump speech which he delivered in ever desperate tones to an audience that was more often silent than not.
But the memorable moment came when he answered a question about what specific legislation he planned to propose to deal with the crisis in child care by spewing an incoherent string of words that sounded like a 4th grader giving a book report of a book he didn't read. He clearly had no idea about child care and so he reverted to the only economic policy he's ever known: tariffs, the cure-all for every economic ill.
Here is how the New York Times wrote that mess of a response up:
Does that accurately describe Trump's incomprehensible babble? I don't think so but it certainly was nice of the Times to "interpret" his comments to mean that he "insist[ed] that his other economic policies, including tariffs, would take care of child care." It's very generous of them to help him out that way otherwise people might think that Trump had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and clearly has no economic "policy" other than tariffs (which he doesn't understand either) even after having spent four years in the White House. Why, they might even conclude that he doesn't have the mental capacity to be president. I guess that would be rude.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent wrote about this phenomenon which he calls "sane-washing" (coined, I believe, by Parker Molloy.) He speculates that the reason members of the media are unable or unwilling to characterize Trump as being unfit for the job is because they think calling Trump's ignorance and irrationality what it is would require them to make a value judgment that interferes with their self-regard as unbiased, objective observers. If that's the case, they are simply failing to do their jobs. As he writes:
They could, but in all these years, Trump has dominated the political culture they never have. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Meanwhile, here's a recent headline about Vice President Kamala Harris that's indicative of the coverage she's been getting from the Times: Harris’s Early Campaign: Heavy on Buzz, Light on Policy . The piece immediately inspired a whole line of criticism about Harris' grasp of the details of the job of president. Just last night, we got this from Alex Thompson at Axios: Harris abandons 2019 pledge to ban plastic straws .
Trump's "policy" speech (talk about light!) at the New York Economic Club should have been reported as a train wreck. But the media covered for him as they so often do. He has the whole press corps acting as his ghostwriter, sanitizing his babble for the public. But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aren't so lucky. They have to campaign and govern in a world where they are held to the standard that requires a president to be able to demonstrate his or her fitness for the presidency.
It's unreal, mindboggling, that he is held to no standards whatsoever.
To some extent Trumps lunacy and buffoonish behavior has been normalized. But this is our country, not a reality tv show.
newrepublic.com /article/185530/media-criticism-trump-sanewashing-problem
How the Media Sanitizes Trump’s Insanity
Parker Molloy 9-12 minutes 9/3/2024
Four years ago, in an article for Media Matters for America , I warned that journalists were sanitizing Donald Trump’s incoherent ramblings to make them more palatable for the average voter. The general practice went like this: The press would take something Trump said or did—for instance, using a visit to the Centers for Disease Control to ask about Fox News’s ratings, insult then–Washington Governor Jay Inslee, rant about his attempt to extort Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden, and downplay the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the U.S.—and write them up as The New York Times did : “Trump Says ‘People Have to Remain Calm’ Amid Coronavirus Outbreak.” This had the effect of making it seem like Trump’s words and actions seemed cogent and sensible for the vast majority of Americans who didn’t happen to watch his rant live.
Flash-forward to today, and it’s clear this problem has only worsened. As Trump’s statements grow increasingly unhinged in his old age, major news outlets continue to reframe his words, presenting a dangerously misleading picture to the public.
For instance, last week, Trump posted the following to his Truth Social account:
CNN described that rambling, insult-laden, conspiracy-riddled wall of text—itself a pretty good example of what he spends his time off the campaign trail doing—by writing, “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he has ‘reached an agreement’ to participate in a September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that ‘the rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone.’”
Does that really capture what Trump posted?
Days earlier, Trump heralded the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who has long pushed baseless claims that vaccines cause autism, by saying that “a panel of top experts, working with Bobby,” would “investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and more.”
In its write-up of that portion of Trump’s speech, The New York Times omitted Trump’s mention of autism, simply writing that “Mr. Trump said that, if elected to a second term, a panel of experts ‘working with Bobby’ would investigate obesity rates and other chronic health issues in the United States.” By removing the mention of autism, which should be a red flag whenever paired with a mention of Kennedy, the Times took an obvious nod to a conspiracy theory and turned it into a normal-sounding policy proposal.
While speaking at an event put on by the extremist group Moms for Liberty, Trump spread a baseless conspiracy theory that “your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation,” referring to transition-related surgeries for trans people. In their write-up of the event , a glowing piece about how Trump “charmed” this group of “conservative moms,” the Times didn’t even mention the moment where he blathered on and on about a crazy conspiracy that has and will never happen.
This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
The consequences of this journalistic malpractice extend far beyond misleading headlines. By laundering Trump’s words in this fashion, the media is actively participating in the erosion of our shared reality. When major news outlets consistently present a polished version of Trump’s statements, they create an alternate narrative that exists alongside the unfiltered truth available on social media and in unedited footage.
Voters who rely solely on traditional news sources are presented with a version of Trump that bears little resemblance to reality. They see a former president who, while controversial, appears to operate within the bounds of normal political discourse—or at worst, is breaking with it in some kind of refreshing manner. You can see this folie à deux at work in a recent Times piece occasioned by Trump’s amplification of social media posts alleging that Harris owed her career to the provision of “blowjobs”: “Though he has a history of making crass insults about his opponents, the reposts signal Mr. Trump’s willingness to continue to shatter longstanding norms of political speech.” Meanwhile, those who seek out primary sources encounter a starkly different figure—one prone to conspiracy theories, personal attacks, and extreme rhetoric.
The Atlantic ’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote about this in a June newsletter , explaining the role the press plays in this sanitation of Trump by journalists while remarking on a rambling speech in which Trump went on a tangent about shark attacks and using some sort of electrocution device to fend them off:
Over the weekend, the Times seemed intent on validating Goldberg’s words with a questionable “campaign notebook” article titled “ Meandering? Off-Script? Trump Insists His ‘Weave’ Is Oratorical Genius. ”
Writer Shawn McCreesh drew generous parallels between Trump’s speaking style and celebrated wordsmiths:
He then added, “But in the case of Mr. Trump, it is difficult to find the hermeneutic methods with which to parse the linguistic flights that take him from electrocuted sharks to Hannibal Lecter’s cannibalism, windmills and Rosie O’Donnell.”
McCreesh didn’t stop there. He went on to liken Trump to literary giants James Joyce and William Faulkner, and even psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
“In a world of canned political speeches, Mr. Trump’s style is beloved by his supporters, who enjoy these frequent glimpses into his id.”
This analysis goes beyond mere sanitization; it ventures into the realm of the absurd. By framing Trump’s incoherent ramblings as some form of avant-garde oratory, the Times isn’t just failing to accurately report—it’s actively warping reality to its readers.
The consequences of this extend beyond misleading headlines or sanitized quotes. It’s creating a dangerous disconnect between reality and reported news, fostering an environment where extreme rhetoric becomes normalized and conspiracy theories gain unwarranted legitimacy.
This won’t remain just a Trump problem. As other politicians observe the media’s willingness to soften and reframe inflammatory statements, we risk further degradation of political discourse. The bar for what’s considered acceptable rhetoric continues to lower, while the public’s ability to discern fact from fiction erodes.
To combat this, we need a paradigm shift in political reporting. Instead of contorting themselves to find rationality in incoherence, journalists should simply present politicians’ words and actions plainly, complete with fact-checks. This might mean rethinking traditional notions of “objectivity” that often lead to false equivalencies and misrepresentation.
Readers, too, have a role to play. We must seek out primary sources, demand more comprehensive reporting, and support news outlets that prioritize accuracy over access or the appearance of “balance.”
As we approach another critical election, the quality of our discourse hangs in the balance. The health of our democracy depends on an electorate that’s truly informed, not just placated with sanitized versions of reality. It’s time for both the media and the public to recommit to the pursuit of truth, however uncomfortable that may be.
You sure put a lot of hard work into posting articles that few read or find relevant.