I didn’t say you were.
The dichotomy of what the NYT wrote this morning — totally ignoring Trump’s usage of the antisemitic slur “shylock”, despite fully covering his event otherwise; and an article using hacked data provided by a white supremacist, which the NYT uses while “protecting” the anonymity of the white supremacist, about NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani’s checking of the wrong demographic boxes as a teenager on a college application — provides yet another example of how the media openly favors Trump and Republicans.
Democrats need to treat the media like Republicans did for decades. Quite clearly it worked.
A Democrat used Shylock (in an essay for high school English Lit class) so, really, they’re all the same!
Not to mention that the Democrat technically wrote “Sherlock.”
From journalist David Roberts, and I think he’s exactly right here:
It’s very obvious that the NYT has put people in editorial positions who view it as part of their job to upset the left. This is, in the bizarro, insular world of US elites, seen as a way to restore balance & regain the trust of the right.
Putting aside the merits of the larger effort …I want everyone to notice something about it in particular: when they try to write these articles, they end up doing shitty journalism. The Claudia Grey stuff, the Mamdani stuff, the trans stuff, sanewashing Trump … it’s not just irritating to lefties, it’s also demonstrably bad journalism.
The point I want to make is: this is not coincidence. You could not do what the NYT is trying to do while maintaining high journalistic standards.
Why? Because in reality, the parties are asymmetrical. The right has become deranged, violent, & illiberal. Dems are bog standard center-left party.
There was just an awful flood in Texas and several people are missing, including several summer camp kids. One thing Democrats should absolutely do, after weather disasters like this, is find out if any of the weather prediction cuts had any impact at all on these events (i.e. warnings were not sent out to the community beforehand, or these warnings were delayed) and tie these deaths to Republican and Trump cuts. “Because of these Trump cuts, 20 children in Texas are dead because of a flood that went unpredicted. Because of these Trump cuts, a family was killed when their house was crushed by a tree from high winds that went unpredicted.”
Over and over again. Make it a part of every single campaign. Go on Fox and make Hannity cut your mic. Go on Rogan and read the names of the dead kids out loud (ask their families first). Send congress-critters and candidates to those districts, for fact-finding, family-comforting, and photo ops. Call for investigations. Say “we’re going to get to the bottom of why this administration failed the people of Texas”.
And when the media or Republicans say “how dare you politicize tragedies”, double down. “How dare you vote for cuts to weather prediction that saves American lives? How dare you sleep comfortably at night after voting for these cuts that killed Americans? How dare you failed to report on these cuts that killed Americans?”
Great piece from Josh Marshall of TPM (gift link) on how, even if party “leaders” are screwing up, when out of power, the real power of the party is its voters, ABC Democratic voters are extremely engaged:
Democratic voters are showing that, more than anything else, we want someone actually fighting against Trump and his awful agenda, in every arena available.
Good article. Marshall’s right on.
Look at this fucking headline:
“Trump looks to avoid casting blame”
Avoid casting blame? You mean avoid blame on himself, you dishonorable, dishonest fucks.
NYT is actively allied to Trump and an enemy of Democrats. This goes for most of the “mainstream” media these days.
TBH even allowing that headline to slip through implies a degree of cognitive dissonance happening.
OT1H pulling funding from disaster preparedness and response seems like it would totally affect how well this disaster was anticipated, prepared for and the speed and effectiveness of the response.
OTOH, it can’t be this administration’s fault.
It just can’t be.
You know what democrats would talk about if they were really willing to get in the mud?
Jeffery Epstein
With the latest revelations they don’t even need to worry about some high minded principle about not stoking conspiracies or waiting for criminal investigators to finish their work - we now know the Trump admin was either lying previously when they said they had an Epstein bombshell or are lying now when they say they don’t have one.
They absolutely should. The only possible downside would be (maybe) implicating some old Democrats or donors, and fuck those guys.
The Epstein stuff could be a huge messaging opportunity. At the very least Trump has shown no defense, and real fear, of the issue. He just wants to change the subject.
And Democrats could easily tie this into the overall messaging about the rich abusing their wealth and power.
The Fetterman thread made me think of this – the most recent polling shows that Trump is majorly losing ground on immigration and deportations, and I presume that’s because of the openly-fascist behavior of his thugs in ICE and other agencies. Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to attack on this issue – and they don’t need to focus on undocumented migrants. Attack the administration because ICE is going after citizens and legal immigrants (among other things). Attack the administration because ICE is making it easy for criminals to pretend to be ICE (and I think there are already a few examples of this). Attack them for breaking the law.