Jamison Foser writing at Finding Gravity on Substack has an extended look at just how uncritically the press is embracing fascism and enabling it by the clueless way they are reporting on what’s happening right in plain sight.
You ever have one of those days where nothing surprises you but the sheer volume of things not surprising you is kind of overwhelming?
Here’s Politico reporter Natalie Allison with an extremely unsurprising yet deeply stupid bit of not-journalism:
There appears to be a new softness to Donald Trump, with people
who've talked him describing him with words like "existential" "serene,"
"emotional" and even "spiritual."
I say “extremely unsurprising” because one of the regularly recurring features of the Trump era is journalists touting a new, kinder, gentler Trump. And I say “deeply stupid” because every time they do this Donald Trump remains, as he will always remain, the same old racist prick he’s always been. Whether they are mindless rubes who fall for Republican spin like your dog falls for the fake-throw trick or are deliberately trying to put a friendly face on Trump’s fascism is, at this point, a question I find extremely boring. Either way, this is what they’re doing:
emphasis added
Foser finds this headline from August 20, 1939, which reminds us that The NY Times headlines framing Trump in a positive light are part of an old tradition at the Gray Lady when it comes to Fascism.
Foser: “Things got worse from there.”
Foser pulls up multiple examples of how the press is publishing uncritical stories about Trump and his followers that completely paper over just where they are coming from. To cite one particularly egregious example, he looks at a glamour puff piece on the Republican convention fashion on display in Milwaukee.
That Washington Post article featured nearly two dozen glamour shots of Republican convention-goers, accompanied by fluffy text like this:
“I’ve been with the Trump campaign from Day 1, and I’ve been to 79 rallies. I’m known for wearing a green hat in the front of his rallies, but I put it aside for this gold one because it represents the sunrise on the horizon and the dawning of a new day for the Republican Party. And this groovy shirt with cartoons of Trump surfing was given to me by my sister as a Christmas gift,” said Edward X. Young, an attendee from Brick, N.J.
Foser does what the WaPo can’t be bothered to tell us: who these people are when they are at home. According to Foser, just some light googling turns up some disturbing facts about them.
Foser closes with a reminder that no matter how much the press does its best to normalize Trump, this is the reality:
...Anyway Donald Trump is a cruel and virulent racist who became president after asking for and receiving Russia’s help in the 2016 election and then as president fired the FBI director for investigating Russia’s attacks on our electoral system and then spent four years as president encouraging his supporters to use violence on his behalf, laying the groundwork for the violent insurrection he incited in a desperate attempt to cling to power after losing re-election, and since leaving office he has been convicted of 34 criminal counts stemming from his attempts to overturn that election in addition to being found civilly liable for slandering a woman he sexually assaulted.
That’s who he has been, who he is, and who he will remain.
Do I need to tell anyone here how differently the press treats Democrats, from Biden on down?
Now that Trump/Vance is officially the ticket, the media shows some signs of beginning to talk about how awful they are and will be — but the drumbeat of doom for Biden and the Democratic Party continues.
SSDD.