Yes, This is the US Media's Political Coverage in 2024: Trump Continues to Channel Nazi Language, but (Gasp!) Walz Caused a "Kerfuffle"
Last weekend, Donald Trump said this (time mark 2:54-3:24):
Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world ... to prey upon innocent American citizens. ... They're very, very, very sick with highly contagious disease, and they're let into our country to infect our country. .... These people are the most violent people on earth ... and they're bringing drugs, and they're bringing crime, and they're rapists.
And that is an edited version that leaves out even more of Trump's choice full-on racist/fascist xenophobia.
Reflecting on that outrage, I was initially tempted to write something like this; "Did The New York Times report any of that? I assume so, but they clearly have not highlighted it." Because I have limited bandwidth, I lack even the residual strength to look into that simple question. I am, however, no longer willing even to assume that The Times reported Trump's latest insanity. Maybe they did. Maybe not. If they did, however, it was clearly in their usual "day ending in a 'y'" approach to covering Trump.
How are those incendiary, unapologetically fascist claims -- along with Trump's repeated "poisoning the blood of the country" language and his new depths of "we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now" -- not the entire media focus for the remainder of the time between now and January 20, 2025? In a column last week, I wrote:
[The] overarching story of media malpractice is not my focus here, mostly because there are only so many ways that one can mock big-time media types who reveal themselves to be as shallow as a tea saucer. I will surely have reason to go back to that subject again -- most likely very soon, unfortunately -- but for now, I want to focus on something a bit less familiar.
Is nine days later soon enough? I will be mercifully brief here (by my standards), contenting myself with one simple comparison between the press's uneven coverage of Trump/Vance versus Harris/Walz. In a from-the-campaign-trail piece of dreary, tiresome reportage last week, a Times writer offered her editorial musings (in the guise of factual reporting) under this headline: "Tim Walz Takes His Folksiness on the Road, Trying Not to Say ‘Stupid Things’"
"Oh damn!" I thought. "Is Walz turning into a gaffe-prone liability for Harris?" I have no idea why I am still so gullible, but I dove into the piece imaging that Walz had said a series of goofy (if not stupid) things that would make any anti-Trumper cringe.
Instead, the piece was simply the "normal" hypercritical and breathlessly inane coverage of Democrats that we have come to expect from The Times. What was Walz's sin?
That morning, Mr. Walz, the governor of Minnesota and the Democratic nominee for vice president, had charmed donors at private receptions in Seattle and Sacramento with jokes about Minnesota weather, debate prep and Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Walz had also, twice, expressed support for getting rid of the Electoral College, the system of presidential vote apportionment laid out in the U.S. Constitution.Oh my god!! He uttered a thought that everyone in their right mind has had at least a thousand times in the last twenty-five years? And he did it twice?! The horror. But the article goes on to explain why all right-minded people should find this so shocking:
This opinion did not reflect the official position of the Harris-Walz campaign, a Walz spokesman was quick to clarify in the ensuing kerfuffle. But, more broadly, it did reflect the gamble that Vice President Kamala Harris made in choosing Mr. Walz as her running mate: that his unscripted, freewheeling rhetorical style might break some china but might also endear him to the American electorate.
How in the world is it a "kerfuffle" that the VP candidate said something that is not canon for the campaign -- on a topic that no person living on this planet could possibly imagine will be in play politically in the next fifty years? The campaign says, "Nothing to see here," the Trump people feign outrage, and we move on. How is that news, much less a "stupid thing"?
More importantly, that sole anecdote is the entire story. That is, when The Times tells us in its headline that Walz is "Trying Not to Say ‘Stupid Things," that is their only example. The reporter offers some "here's the vibe" stuff, saying that Walz offered ideas with "almost breathless optimism, in discursive speeches that defied punctuation" and that he "calibrated his remarks to each audience, elaborating on policy proposals and talking points with neighborly riffs and knowing jokes."
OK, that is getting close to character assassination, but why stop short? "Mr. Walz has a tendency to speak his mind — and a penchant for exaggeration, if not outright fabrication. But he also has a knack for speaking to people candidly and directly, telling them what he intuits they want to hear." Later, we learn that "he also appeared to be treading carefully" when speaking about his military record, which Republicans have succeeded in convincing the national press is somehow a liability for Walz.
Walz, meanwhile, was of good cheer, and rather than adopting a Trump/Vance don't-give-an-inch stance, he simply said that he has "a habit of speaking before I think on some things" and that he is "trying to do my best, at times saying stupid things." Get it? He himself allowed that he says "stupid things," so how can the reporter (and headline writers) be faulted of literal accuracy in quoting him? So much for getting any credit for self-deprecation.
This is a minor story, sort of. In fact, I am probably the only person who even remembered the piece five minutes after reading it. It is disposable in the style of pre-2016 campaign coverage press bullsh*t. But 2024 is post-2016, and for those who need reminding, Trump said this last weekend:
Kamala has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world ... to prey upon innocent American citizens. ... They're very, very, very sick with highly contagious disease, and they're let into our country to infect our country. .... These people are the most violent people on earth ... and they're bringing drugs, and they're bringing crime, and they're rapists.
Remember that? Oh yeah, I quoted it at the beginning of this column. But now people have moved on and are laughing about Trump's sway-a-thon on Tuesday night. And to be clear, it is a big step up that people are finally focusing on Trump's mental unfitness. Even so, we are still being treated to an unending series of media stories, like the Walz non-kerfuffle, that seem almost consciously designed to miss the point.
The satirist Andy Borowitz has lost a bit of his fizz over the last few years, but he still occasionally hits the mark. On Tuesday, the headline to his latest piece said it all: "New York Times Admits Sean Hannity Has Been Editor-in-Chief for Past Four Years." If there is an explanation that fits the facts better than Borowitz's, I cannot think of what it might be.