US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

interesting to think about what punishment these conservative 'influencers' wouldn't have faced in 1959 for accepting Russian money to distribute propaganda domestically

^^^ WOULD've

I know it was a long weekend, but what he said last Friday about public schools as trans factories should've gotten end-to-end coverage. We know why not.

Yep. Its pathetic that this insane assertion that public school employees are doing sexual reassignment surgery has gone nearly unmentioned. But he also gets to keep repeating his assertions that immigrants are from insane asylums and countless other lies constantly with no pushback

"We know why not" = gays are cool, trans people aren't cool, as we know from the NYT's coverage.

The Times was doing to gays in the 80s what they’re doing now to trans people.

1) Yes, the column by @GregTSargent is very forceful and important.

2) Yes, @mikebarnicle had an important and on-point blast this morning about the incredible, irresponsible, and un-changing "normalization" by main outlets.

3) Yes, Trump's performance last night would lead to… https://t.co/ECUy5jXMxV

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) September 5, 2024

fallows always been such a resistance dem or is he losing it a bit

Fallows has been leaning more into media criticism lately, esp. in his newsletter Breaking the News (an extension of a book he wrote in the '90s with that title). I think he generally makes some astute points on the subject, in the vein of folks like Jay Rosen and Margaret Sullivan, who have also examined how the media's biases and incentives often benefit Republicans and downplay the danger they pose, but this kind of thing can sometimes tip into hysterical exasperation when expressed on Twitter.

I know my boy Rick Scott has never won anything but a nailbiter but this surprises me:

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) are locked in a dead heat in Florida’s Senate race, according to polling released Friday by The Hill and Emerson College Polling.

Scott leads Mucarsel-Powell 46 percent to 45 percent among likely Florida voters, well within the survey’s plus or minus 3.4 point margin of error. Nine percent of voters said they are undecided.

Among independent voters, 47 percent said they back Mucarsel-Powell and 34 percent broke for Scott, while 19 percent said they are undecided. Mucarsel-Powell leads Scott by 5 points among women voters, and Scott led Mucarsel-Powell by 8 points among men.

The poll also found Mucarsel-Powell polling ahead of Scott with the state’s Hispanic vote by 6 points, while Scott led Mucarsel-Powell by 19 points among white voters.

The Hill/Emerson College Polling survey shows the tightest race yet between the two Floridians.

A Florida Atlantic University poll released last month found Scott leading Mucarsel-Powell 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, while a University of North Florida poll also released last month showed the same margin. Prior to the poll’s release, The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ average showed Scott leading by 4.3 points.

Greg Sargent touches on the most frustrating aspect of all this for me, it’s absolutely wild that the media cannot just come out and say the man has no fucking clue what he’s talking about, he has no actual policy, he is rapidly losing his mind and at this point would likely fail literally any job interview. It’s one thing to launder his extreme views, they’ve been doing that for years, but now they’re laundering how utterly incoherent he is, pretending he actually has something to say, it’s maddening. Fuck I’m getting mad about it right now!!

why wouldn't they do this? they want him to win

Rick Scott looks like that weird dude from The Hills have Eyes.

That guy is afraid of Rick Scott

“Critically important column” is an oxymoron

I would suggest that it really helps to have an idea both what the ideological purposes of major legacy American media outlets actually are, but also what strata of media professional is responding to which incentive and which limitation, because it’s not the same between reporter, editor, and publisher, shall we say.

One of the examples of this is the self-selecting nature of who gets hired for what media job, and how that person isn’t getting the job who will actually call this shit out. There’s a reason why guys like Chris Hayes won’t say things on the air that he might on even on his own podcast. Not that the things he says on-air don’t necessarily have value, but there’s a more than likely a reason why there’s a difference.

Similarly, shit like why most major American political media just sounds like upper-middle class types talking to other upper-middle class types.

Part of these reasons would probably relate to why they just can’t say that Trump’s been in obvious decline or that it’s a big sign of massive problems across all system-wide that our ruling class types are all senescent.

because it hurts their bottom line

I mean I think it's true that the main MSM bias is in favor of drama, they love shifting narratives and drama, if they stated the obvious that one of the two candidates literally cannot answer a single policy question it would upset the balance they're trying to strike

that said it really is so fucking irriating to see, like Biden took so much shit for saying things like "we defeated Medicare" at the debate that he was basically forced to drop out, well guess what Trump says shit like that every time he opens his mouth

that thing the other day where trump was talking about people in new hampshire voting for biden in this election...

don't remember if someone put that clip on here.

Alexa stanning for Harris

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant has caused an uproar among conservatives after viral videos showed the device giving supportive answers about voting for Kamala Harris, while refusing to respond to similar questions about Donald Trump.

The issue was due to a software update intended to improve the quality of Alexa’s functions and its artificial intelligence operations, according to leaked documents obtained by the Washington Post.

When asked why someone should vote for Harris, videos showed the device listing positive qualities of the Democratic nominee. Asked the same question about Trump, Alexa gave a stock answer that it could not promote or give answers about specific political candidates.

at some point we need to accept that the simplest explanation is that the NYT (institutionally and at the individual reporter level) wants trump to win. i don't know why people tie themselves in knots to avoid that when they're happy to assume it about CNN or Fox News or the WSJ or whatever.

to be fair Trump does not really have a single positive quality, in fact it's actually difficult to imagine a worse human being, unless you looked at say his running mate

well guess what Trump says shit like that every time he opens his mouth

To what extent is this the same ol' literally-but-not-seriously / seriously-but-not-literally divide?

Similarly, shit like why most major American political media just sounds like upper-middle class types talking to other upper-middle class types.

Part of these reasons would probably relate to why they just can’t say that Trump’s been in obvious decline or that it’s a big sign of massive problems across all system-wide that our ruling class types are all senescent.

― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Friday, September 6, 2024 1:54 PM (forty-three

Actually, even Morning Joe has devoted two consecutive shows to "this guy is losing it" this week

Trump's mental incapacity would get more coverage if Republicans were the ones pointing it out, because then the story would be "Senator So-and-so breaks with Trump," which would be a surprising, exciting news story and would allow the media to air the idea without having to bring it up themselves (and subject themselves to accusations of liberal bias). On the other hand, if Trump is saying crazy stuff, and Democrats are the only ones getting worked up about it, then that's the status quo and seen as not newsworthy.

Actually, even Morning Joe has devoted two consecutive shows to "this guy is losing it" this week

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 6, 2024 1:40 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

its not even the "we're gonna deport 13 million people on Day 1" stuff anymore it's him turning simple questions about abortion and the budget into long rants about Venezuelan crime gangs and how he's been treated worse than every president in history

Indeed, there's been so much additional media coverage of his rambling lately that Trump felt compelled to issue a defense, the Theory of the Weave, which purportedly greatly impressed his alleged coterie of English professors.

lol that was in response to YMP's post actually

I'm not invested in the Greg Sargent and Jay Rosen takes because I do consume some media and, yes, while Peter Baker-type hacks still cling to their on the one hand/on the other hand reporting style, shows like, as I pointed out, "Morning Joe" devote 15 minutes to showing, "Here's Kamala Harris addressing tax policy, you may disagree but she sounds coherent; now here's Donald Trump, who sounds like a sixth grader faking his way through a book report of a book he didn't read." That was just this morning (I happened to be flipping channels as I exercised).

MSNBC shows are a pretty notable exception to that rule

People younger than me don't watch Lester Holt -- they're on TikTok. I've no idea how they consume news or if they care. So I don't know who needs convincing. The Trump-is-crazy-don't-you-SEE approach has an overtone of pleading. Hence the success of the Harris campaign -- they're pointing out his insanity without asking why. "Here it is, aren't they WEIRD?"

I'm not saying the media needs to make the case that Trump is insane, I'm saying they need to present what the man is actually saying. Do not write headlines like "Trump reveals his plans for curbing inflation" to cover a press event where he rambled about crowd sizes and Hannibal Lecter for 90 minutes and then said some bullshit about tariffs where he gets all the facts exactly wrong. Cover him the same way they did Biden!

OK, maybe Jon Tester is running the right kind of campaign for Montana after all. He held an event in Bozeman (the state's most expensive and newcomer-stuffed city) yesterday alongside Planned Parenthood Action Fund President & CEO Alexis McGill Johnson and said this:

“We’re all here tonight because of freedom. That’s what’s on the ballot. If there’s one thing that makes you a Montanan, it’s your love of freedom. You don’t want a politician, or a bureaucrat, or a judge, telling you – especially if you’re a woman – what health care decisions you’re gonna make. Roe v. Wade being overturned was the biggest reduction of freedom in my lifetime, and yours too. But we’ve got some things we can do about it: We’ve gotta go to the polls this November and vote. Elections matter.”

The only way this video from last night's meeting of the Saline County GOP could have been any better would be if a vagabond squirrel had started the fight by jumping onto the head of one of the participants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSBLPyfxwGk

Okay so apparently Overalls Guy said "go polish your nose ring" to a woman named Kandi Cox. Pink Shirt guy rose in defense of Cox, and believes himself to have been acting in self-defense when he threw the first punch. He later blogged, "I am like country music—I’m here to stay."

But I agree a squirrel would have improved things.

incredible story. tbf “go polish your nose ring” is both an objectively funny thing to say and also acknowledged as fightin’ words in all 50 states iirc - yet somehow not the most legendary thing to be said that evening

man that is a beautiful punch. he has to jump to land it, which isn't ideal, but he plants both feet first, he's thinking two steps ahead, and he drops the guy like a sack of potatoes.

tired - "go get your shine box"
wired - "go polish your nose ring"

Enjoying all the tut-tutting in this piece:

https://www.bentoncourier.com/news/fight-breaks-out-at-saline-county-republican-committee-meeting-saline-county-officials-call-for-abolition/article_0031132a-6c66-11ef-b3ae-fb0095165179.html

If you want to know what kind of guy Overalls Guy is, well, unsurprising:

https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/04/18/things-got-wacky-in-fight-over-childrens-books-at-saline-county-quorum-court-meeting

Ha, I've been to Saline County. My ex-gf's mom used to ask me to drive to the next county to buy beer... I think there was 'Last Chance Liquors' on one side of the road, and 'County Line Liquors' on the other

The creativity of the species at work.

how is Kandi Cox not a porn name

It’s hard to know how much of the “media needs to talk about Trump’s incoherence more” talk is reacting to a real thing and how much is just an expression of frustration at how little any negative framing of what Trump does seem to matter. And then how much of the issue is a feedback-loop mixture of the two: we’re perceiving the media not bothering to focus on the issue much because they don’t feel like their attempts will be received as newsworthy.

It’s useful to compare with the media coverage of Vance, which feels more relentlessly negative. I wonder if it actually is, or it’s just that we and the media implicitly acknowledge that by them writing and us reading these takedowns we are joining hands in a project of defining who this person “is” for political purposes - so what feels like a harsher tone is really just an awareness of potential real world impact. I think if Vance had said the exact same thing about gender affirmation surgery in schools it would have been a much bigger story.

Regardless of tone, coverage of Trump’s awfulness always has a world-weary feel to it. “Trump said this awful thing, if you even care.”

at some point we need to accept that the simplest explanation is that the NYT (institutionally and at the individual reporter level) wants trump to win. i don't know why people tie themselves in knots to avoid that when they're happy to assume it about CNN or Fox News or the WSJ or whatever.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, September 6, 2024 2:30 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is not true and I can’t figure out why someone would think it was true.

Which part seems untrue to you? The Times has a ton to gain from another Trump term: chaos sells subscriptions, Trump has a weird parasocial bond with Maggie Haberman which ensures them a steady flow of interviews (unlike Biden and Harris, who have frozen them out), the owners are rich and will benefit from Trump's presumed tax policies...

yeah I totally believe the NYT publishers are looking forward to another Trump term, it's pretty fucking obvious

Maybe the money people but the statement was that the reporters want Trump too, which is just bullshit

Dunno how good it is for Harris that the most evil VP in recent US history is supporting her over Trump but maybe it will convince some conservative fence sitters to not vote for Trump

yeah, was thinking the same.. maybe it'll give permission for more of the old guard to follow suit

I was more surprised that Liz Cheney endorsed Colin Allred over Ted Cruz.