Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

[NotMiki]

Chiming in to 100% agree with SnowFire on this.  I do not see the two-sidesness false equivalence in it that y'all do, and I say this as someone who caneceled his NYT subscription during the runup to the election for precisely that reason.

[Grefter]

But there is a massive difference between expecting your readers to understand that a robbery is illegal, but you would still also say that police have a suspect under arrest!  You would still call it a criminal investigation.

I am not even asking for “I think this is the rose to American Fascism without some intervention” at the end.  I am asking to not use passive voice and “neutrality” to paint a position which legitimizes and normalizes this kind of thing.  All this article does is say literally this.

Talk of “absolute” power and a noted affinity for foreign strongmen have fueled fears of authoritarianism. For the most part, Mr. Trump, with some notable exceptions, has demonstrated more bark than bite. But that bark has become a power unto itself, and the question remains whether he will follow through on his threats in the next stage of his tenure or whether his attacks will prove ultimately self-defeating.

This sentence immediately precedes the next sentence and primes it with the part in bold.

Mr. Trump is creating precedents that may outlast his tenure. He is making the presidency more authentic or more autocratic, depending on the vantage point. Either way, it may never be the same.

Depending on the vantage point that clearly is NOT this NYT author.  If it passes through editorial as news article and not an editorial/think piece I am sure as fuck painting it as their official stance.

He acts like an Authoritarian most of the time but is only really good at it on a few outlier issues, so we aren’t going to call him one (or mention which things it happens to be).

Now again, NYT can run how it wants, hire who it wants, but if it is going to ride a wave of subs on being the bastion fighting against Trump and the rising Authoritarian Right then I am going to be mad about it.

I have no idea how much more to explain to you how using passivity and neutrality for the sake of your own image as a publication is self serving and only serves to help people in power who are prepared to abuse both truth and positions of power.

[Magetastica]

I'm going to chime in to agree with Grefter here, because there is an important aspect missing from your example, Snowfire.

If someone hears about someone who robbed a bank and got away with it and is now in a position of power then anybody who is considering robbing a bank will be more inclined to do so because "hey, that guy has a sweet gig now! I want to have that too!"

So, yes. If you merely outline the facts, then it does actually make a difference, because simply outlining the facts emphasizes the importance of the outcome. And in this case, the outcome is something that a lot of people find awful and truly terrifying and are actually afraid for their very lives.

[AllTheseDangCats]

The article linked does not simply "state facts" but rather seeks to what I'm going to call (and for reference I am not trying to positively or negatively spin with these terms and will happily substitute if someone can think of neutral terminology) "soften and justify" why they put things the way they do.

Presidents are human, too, a blend of varying degrees of idealism, generosity, empathy, ambition, ego, vanity, jealousy and anger, but they generally hide their unvarnished traits behind an official veneer. Call it decorum, call it presidential. Mr. Trump essentially calls it fake, making no effort to pretend to be above it all, except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else. To him, the presidency is about winning, not governing.

This is basically both "softening/justifying him" (first line, emphasizing that he, as president, is human too and therefore must be having or exhibiting empathy/generosity/etc - it is safe to assume that other words could have been chosen if those traits were not desired to be pushed, even generically positive ones) and emphasizing what he ran on and what he has ruled on in a generic way - perhaps conservatives would say it is too "harsh" and liberals too "kind" as to how he rules, but it fails to take any real stance outside of its existence. It lists multiple controversies and issues that Trump has been involved in during his time but then provides a list of people commenting about it either being good (his supporters, vast and unspecified) or norm-breaking (experts not really followed up with on impacts), all through that section. It's just "this all happened, supporters think it's good, experts think it's new".

There's one direct attack on how he's performed in the third section (Axelrod) - again, couched by other people trying to more emphasize the norm-breaking over anything else. Basically, it all just returns to this cycle of "a Twitter thing happened from Trump, here's how people reacted". There's nothing actually taking him to task, nor any explication as to what damage has been done or will be done by these tweets - just handwringing over whether or not it will do anything.

I'll be honest - it mainly reads to me just like an article that wanted to engage in omphaloskepsis over how "it's changed the American institution of the presidency" without significant factual discussion outside the generic twitterstorm and lashback, or discussion of some of the more extensive damage he's wanted to/trying to do to governmental institutions. I don't think puff piece is unfair because it fails to really do anything outside of "It's a thing, look at it", more or less; "Trump did a thing with social media, people said yay, people said boo, this may change things." I'd expect better writing except I know not to bother from most institutions nowadays. Given both that his twitter dogshit is the least offensive thing he's really doing (which is incredible) and that even if you wanted to focus on media and communication there's infinitely better examples (trying to control how many departments communicate to disturbing degrees, perchance?)... It's trying to write, I think, about the long term effects of the presidency, but fails to really do even that. If you're writing on such a topic, one may want a thesis beyond "things change and he's doing things that will change things" - but that's all the piece comes down to.

[Grefter]

Fuck it have an editorial piece about something else that is less inflammatory for us.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16840170/swatting-death-call-duty-toxic-fandom

Linking editorial rather than news article because news is actually a few days old and I like the breadth covered in the editorial.

Someone died in a Swatting, it was just a matter of time.

[SnowFire]

(I wrote this up before I saw Grefter's last post, so feel free to ignore this first part.  I guess I'll post it anyway, but happy to edit it out and let the matter drop if need be too.)

I guess here's my problem.  Grefter, pick your favorite news source.  I'm going to look through its articles and then pick the lines that appear to be the most matter-of-fact statements about some Important Issue.  Then I'm going to claim that this means said news source doesn't care about it.  Then I'm gonna say "Fuck Grefter's news!  It's enabling Trump!  Yeah!"  Is this "fair"?  Ignore the long-form explanation of some issue, pick on the one (true!) line that said "Republicans scored a win by passing the tax bill", then claim it was just engaging in horse-race journalism?

Of course not.  Analyzing slant requires a holistic view.  And I'm going to fall back to what I said before.  Go find some  conservative friend, or even an assidiously moderate friend, and ask them what they think of the article - paste it into a Google Doc or something and hide the source if you want to be really hardcore.  That should make the question less hypothetical as to how Joe Random will interpret it, if you're worried that this article is going to somehow empower Trump.

(The thing is, per NotMiki, if you want to hit the NYT on this, there are some articles you can find that maybe are offenders....  I can't understand the complaint about THIS article, though.  And I'll add in the NYT's defense that even if you find some article that I agree is too mealy-mouthed, they publish a LOT of articles, and you expect some variation.)

And finally, the part that frustrates me is why you'd even want to pick this fight so vociferously.  Like I said before, if you merely prefer a bit more spice in your news, go for it.  I can see saying the NYT isn't your cup of tea, you want stronger denunciations.  But I'd think it'd be self-evidently obvious that the "enemy" is narratives which deny this authoritarianism completely.  This is cheating a bit since it's an editorial rather than a news piece, but an example from a slightly different Times:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/15/trump-should-exercise-presidential-authority/

On immigration, Mr. Trump announced he would terminate DACA, Mr. Obama’s unilateral amnesty program - a major win for conservatives who disagreed with Mr. Obama’s lawless approach to immigration policy.

And with ObamaCare, Mr. Trump ended the Obama-era illegal subsidies granted to health insurance companies. The subsidies, which Congress had never appropriated, were illegal from the start, and Mr. Trump’s decision to reverse course reinforces the U.S. Constitution’s wise insistence that funds be appropriated by the legislative body.

All of these actions on Mr. Trump’s part reflect a proper understanding of presidential authority. In contrast to Mr. Obama’s embrace of an imperial presidency, Mr. Trump has instead focused on the authorities granted to the president in the Constitution.

Mr. Obama once boasted about bypassing the legislative process simply by using his “pen and a phone,” and cavalierly promised on many occasions that he would sidestep Congress to accomplish his agenda. “If Congress won’t act, I will,” was his mantra, and his disregard for the Constitution’s separation of powers was evident throughout his eight years in the White House.

For conservatives, Mr. Trump’s presidency is refreshing for two distinct reasons - on the one hand, Trump is reversing many of the misguided Obama policies, but, on the other hand, he is rejecting, at a much more fundamental level, the entire Obama approach to one-man governance. And that, undoubtedly, is going to be one of Mr. Trump’s biggest accomplishments.

...

Mr. Obama’s expansive view of the presidency reminded Americans why we need our system of checks and balances. But Mr. Trump’s presidency has already taught an important corollary - that the president has sufficient constitutional authority to reaffirm the rule of law and reverse the previous administration’s unilateral executive actions.

If you want to pick a fight with a media narrative, why would you direct your ire at the NYT, which you agree with that is laying down the facts for why Trump is governing like an autocrat, rather than the very real opposing narrative that Trump is governing like a wise scholar with respect for presidential boundaries, unlike that barbarian Obama?  THAT is the opposing argument!  Not the Times!

--

Mage, I certainly agree with you that people are scared, and that Trump is a Big Deal, and that his actions shouldn't be minimized.  Now, as noted above, I think that this specific article is actually highly slanted against Trump, but let's suppose for the sake of argument that it was just a perfectly neutral recitation of facts.  I think this would still have merit to exist?  The NYT editorial board has been very, very clear what they think of Trump, both before the election and afterward...  they hate him.  Having a more "just the facts" reference is still helpful.  It's like separating the prosecutor's closing argument from the coroner's testimony.  The witness shouldn't need to slant things much.

--

AllTheseDangCats, I might be old-fashioned, but "except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else." comes across as ragging on Trump to me, not justifying him.  "Boast" is not generally a positive verb. 

As far as "explaining" Trump, I guess there's a little of that in the article.  But is that bad?  At risk of a Godwin violation, since Grefter already invoked Hitler...   Would you find an exploration of how Hitler rose to power offensive?  Would you find books like "Hitler's Willing Executioners" offensive because they suggest that ordinary Germans went along with Hitler, and why?  Hitler and the Nazis weren't movie monsters who spawned out of a hell dimension then mysteriously disappeared.  They were normal people, doing evil things.  We should absolutely seek to explain and understand this so that we can stop it, just like those anti-extremist activists.  I saw one of the most effective guys out there for getting people out of Nazi groups at a panel once.  What was his background?  Well, chief recruiter for the Nazis in all of California.  This was his penance after he realized he was being a huge jerk.  But since he know what got people in, he knew how to get people out.   Investigating Nazis in no way "softens" or "justifies" their crimes, it helps fight them better.

Also, for alarming other effects of the Trump presidency, there are so many that any article is going to have to focus only on so many of them.  It's just too big, the article would be five times as long if the writer tried to hit everything.  The article focused more on Trump's personal approach.  Stuff like 1984-esque communication restrictions are bad, yes, but there's also no way that Trump wrote that up himself - that's his staff doing it, probably 3-4 layers deep.  I agree it's bad, of course, but it doesn't fit within this specific article.

[Grefter]

Other article isn’t to say “We Doen Here!!!!11” just a chance to move on/ have some other conversation.

You respond like that quote was a specifically cherry picked line and the only thing in the article that I took issue with rather than what I was trying to communicate it is representative of the whole.  That line is the only place that “Authoritarian” shows up.  I just don’t see what you see into the article without assuming there is an underlying critique there which in what I do read in NYT is just not there (again a fair weather reader because of my opinion of them).

I could do a meta analysis of NYT and link things like exclusive interview they got where the outcome that I read was 3 articles, one pretty neutral post about it, the edited transcript and then a separate 10 point articles of fact checked statements there and how spreading out what could have been 1 good article by a few writers that was impactful instead they muddy the discussion by splitting it into 3 over to drive ad traffic and oh hey the fact checking one also happened to be last one published on a different day, isn’t linked to in the transcript and at least in by browser doesn’t show up in the first batch of related coverage articles (could be tainted by cookies though ofc, I make no assumptions about that).


So why don’t I do this?  Well I like most of our discussions and these (you and I specifically) soon our wheels a lot and they aren’t our most fruitful discussions.  Why this one and now?  Because it was the most recent one and it was frustrating enough for me to bring it up.

[SnowFire]

I thought that interview was a massive takedown of Trump, myself.  He came off completely deranged in the edited transcript.

I do agree that holistic is the way to go.  I just get a radically different impression of that article than you do.

I've said it twice before but I'm gonna say it a third time.  Don't trust me on this.  Actually ASK someone who isn't a leftist (aka, the relevant audience...  leftists presumably already despise Trump) that you trust whether that article is pro-Trump or anti-Trump.  Please.  They are going to be more authoritative than either of us as to the general slant of it.  If you ask that person and they say that the article improved their opinion of Trump, I'll shut up and admit you were right.  (I'll even create an anonymized Google Doc with the text C&P'd in if you want.)

----
For SWATing, I'd be fine if any attempted SWATing was treated as a case of attempted murder.  That said, the police deserves a lot of the blame for this one, maybe even more than the SWATer.  The situation didn't remotely come close to what the phone call described, nor did the home inhabitants.  Wrong ages, no hostage situation, no gasoline ready to catch on fire.  They just shot the guy because....   because.  Made no sense. 

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192147194.html
The mom was reasonably direct: "the cop murdered my son."  I really hope the cop gets prosecuted for this.  (Hopes not high.)

[NotMiki]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/roy-moores-jewish-lawyer-voted-for-doug-jones-raised-money-for-his-campaign/article/2644738

If I may, something we can all agree on: AHhahahahahahahahahahahhahaohgodahahahahahahahaha

re: SWATting, I mostly blame the FBI for not taking this seriously enough.  The fact that the culprit could be found and apprehended within a day with a minimal amount of sleuthing, and he was a repeat offender who was not remotely cautious about talking about it online, all says the FBI is not paying any attention to this brand of internet crime.  Articles said there were something like 400 confirmed incidents in the US last year.  You're talking about a guy who is likely responsible for >1% of the crimes, who was ALREADY arrested for fake bomb threats.  Infiltrating the Call of Duty community can't be a high bar.  Hell, if you told them you're FBI they'd probably just think you're a 12-year-old boy.

(I doubt the cop gets prosecuted but I DO predict a settlement of civil claims for wrongful death in that PD's future.  As for the swatter, felony murder sounds about right, but who knows.)

[Grefter]

Wouldn’t a ruling of responsibility for a SWAT caller causing death imply anything to police shootings (if not this specific one) or do you think is it likely just to be only impacting the likely civil case for this specific incident?

(At work, not ignoring you Snowfire, though also okay if we both want to just let it lie.  You good fam)

[NotMiki]

Not really, no.  All you need for felony murder is for the death to be a predictable and immediate consequence of the felony.  If the cop had acted completely rationally in shooting the victim it would be the same as if the cop shot like a drunk stormtrooper.

The prototypical felony murder scenario is that an armed robber gets in a shootout with the cops and the cops accidentally shoot a bystander.  You can see why we wouldn't want the armed robber to be allowed to escape a conviction just because the cops are bad shots.

[Cmdr_King]

I should clarify that bad sentiments towards NYT aren't about that particular article.  But NYT crosses my desk about once a month, and it's always stuff exactly like that (or worse, like that nazi spaghetti piece).  So either fluff or disgusting.  Pick your poison, or just say fuck those guys and don't give them money. 
(WaPo's not immune to it, but they've put out actual good stuff too if you really wanna invest some journalism dollars.)

That said, the more I thought about it the more that piece actually does bother me.

Find your local Trump-supporter (or Australian equivalent...  not that I think any exist...?  The Libs don't seem crazy enough), and ask them if this is a fair-and-balanced year-end recap; trust them.

For someone still supporting Republicans in December 2017, anything less than print fellatio of Dear Leader is treason.  Such lost souls can only be helped with years of one-on-one counselling to affirm their need to abandon hate groups.

I don't know how you can think the author has anything other than contempt for Trump

Saying "fuck these guys" basically seems to be saying that the Times is secretly allied with Trump, or is enabling him, or something.

Oh, no, the writer clearly wants the reader to understand that Trump is a bad bad man.
Describing these attributes as things Trump was elected for is factual, and perhaps there is merit in stating that for people who don't know anyone who voted for Trump.  I mean, literally every article I was linked to from NYT in calendar year 2017 was about that same goddamned topic, but y'know, sure.

What I clicked to is that this is all still enabling him.

Here's the thing.  True blue Trumpian conservatives... don't read the New York Times.  It's fake news, hit pieces top to bottom.  Liberal media.

Lefties only hate-read it.  I'm not exaggerating much about my exposure to NYT this year (like... maybe you linked me to some decent articles? That's the only way it woulda happened), and you can guess what my twitter feed looks like.

Nah.  NYT fancies itself the newspaper of record, and aside from the occasional viral blowup that means it has two main types of readers:
1) Conservative Democrats, like the sort that would work the New York financial scene and the like.  It's their town paper after all.
2) Capital C  Centrists.  After all, it's the paper of record!  Where else do you get the best facts?  We'll be refering to them as Idiots for the rest of my spiel here.

Now here's the thing.  Idiots think that both parties are more or less equal, that the wheels of government spin on without tending, that creating government deadlock is a worthy goal.  Idiots believe that alternating who holds the White House is all to the good, keep one party from getting too powerful.  Idiots believe that Washington's cesspit of special interests is the real problem, and so someone that can't be bought, and who'll "shake up the system", can only be good.

But most of all, Idiots believe that what happens in Washington doesn't really matter very much.

That's the dereliction of duty here.  You're letting Idiots think that Trump being a very bad man is just a historical curiosity because you've written an entire article about all the very bad things he's done and then didn't explain what very bad things caused.  All the Very Bad Things are a bunch of broken norms in Washington apparently!  They might damage the dignity of the office!  But maybe not, it's pretty resilient!  And he's kinda scary and really likes dictators!  But his worst impulses are held in check!
And that's all fine things to talk about if you provide greater context.

Trump being a very bad man has alienated all our allies!  He tried to start a nuclear war over twitter yesterday!  Sure the article was written before then, but he did it last year too!  That laundry list of awful stuff I said in my last post!  And sure, there's probably other articles in the NYT, it's a big paper.  Maybe some of them are about that.  But you need to provide some portion of that context, as appropriate to the particular topic (since we're talking about Trump as Chief Executive and the powers of the office, maybe his pissing matches with the Courts and that patently illegal travel ban he keeps peddling?), otherwise Idiots will miss it.

Look, NYT wants to peddle in facts, not truth.  So I don't expect them to end every political article to the effect of "Donald Trump is an existential threat to the human race and there is no future so long as he lives".  But I do expect them to print all the relevant facts on a given topic to provide context, rather than just saying "Donald Trump is a very bad man" and letting Idiots think it won't hurt anyone.

[SnowFire]

CK: THere's a lot to unpack, and I'm attempting to disengage anyway, and there's (as usual) multiple layers of assumptions I don't share with here.  So I'll more cover my key points rather than attempt a point-by-point response.

* The New York Times is a newspaper.  It is not the Democratic Party.  Their editorial board famously might as well be part of the DNC "establishment" as far as their endorsements, and yes, corporations have social obligations.  That said, their goal is ultimately to serve the news.  So I wouldn't expect them to be putting out DNC-esque press releases.  It's not that I disagree with the DNC's press releases that state Trump is an existential threat, it's just that this is the DNC's job.

* In the same way, I reject the idea that fact-based coverage is somehow slanted as for Trump.  And if it was, then this would imply Trump was right!  As Stephen Colbert said, reality has a well-known liberal bias.  So why not let that stand?  (Or, put another way, would the Russia investigation have more or less credibility if it was run by Bernie Sanders instead of Mueller?)

* This is a bit off-topic, but since I know you read and respect Nate Silver, to go back to the hiring of Bret Stephens for a bit: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/  (you can argue the Times overcovered the emails because it was so obvious that Clinton was going to win...  for all that I doubt the Times itself mattered that much, their readership in Pennsylvania among swing voters isn't that huge.  That would be more CNN if you want to blame someone.)

* As a reminder, there's three other notable papers here in NYC, two of which are the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.  They're both owned by someone you may have heard of, called Rupert Murdoch!  And further, he's clamped down on whatever independence the Journal at least used to have ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/01/the-sorry-state-of-murdoch-media/ ).  So it kind of cheezes me off when it sounds like certain liberals want to paint the Times as the "true" enemy here.  Again, I'm not saying you even have to LIKE the Times, stick to The Nation or Ramparts or whatever if you want.  And the Times is far from above reproach, they make mistakes.  But "fuck the Times"?  At worst, ignore it and don't support it.  Save "Fuck you" for the actual Trump outlets, not the left outfits who don't match the exact tone you'd take if you were in charge of it.

* So one of the key arguments Grefter and you are making is that articles like this empower Trump, or won't turn "Idiots" to your side.  If you don't want to ask a Trump supporter, fine, "ask an Idiot".  You and others have suggested that this article and others like it somehow empower Trump.  So find some swing voters and ask 'em about the article, if it's pro-Trump or anti-Trump, if it convinced them of anything about Trump.  Don't make this hypothetical when it can very easily be made real.  Like I said to Grefter, if you can find some swing voters who are more impressed with Trump after reading the article than before, I'm willing to change my stance.  I only ask that you be open to persuasion as well.

* At risk of pointing out the obvious, we (and yes, *we*, you are stuck with 57 flavors of leftist & skeptical centrists in your coalition with slightly contradictory goals, sorry) lost in 2016.  You get that this means turning "Idiots" over to voting Democratic, hence why you are annoyed at the Times not doing this well in your opinion.  What might be worth a moment's consideration as well is figuring out how to woo these people who voted the wrong way in such a way that makes it clear that they done messed up, but it's a fixable problem and we love you anyway.  If we screw that up, if the meme of leftist contempt for the Common Man who can't resist saying I Told You So, is intensified, then prepare to lose and lose some more.  Which I dunno about you, but I think that would suck.  I want to win.

[SnowFire]

Anyway, in the room of (probable?) good news, using the forbidden source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html

[Cmdr_King]

*raises eyebrow*  I think you're having an entirely other conversation here man.

But "fuck the Times"?  At worst, ignore it and don't support it.  Save "Fuck you" for the actual Trump outlets, not the left outfits who don't match the exact tone you'd take if you were in charge of it.

What did you think "fuck those guys" meant?

What might be worth a moment's consideration as well is figuring out how to woo these people who voted the wrong way in such a way that makes it clear that they done messed up, but it's a fixable problem and we love you anyway.

And presenting Trump as an isolated Political Problem divorced from Real Life does the exact opposite of that?  Which was my entire point?

There's other stuff to quibble there re: terminology and shit but eh, that's not really interesting, especially if we're not actually interested in continuing the discussion.

[SnowFire]

So the New York Times is a pro-Trump outlet because one article focused on one aspect of Trump's badness rather than a different aspect of Trump's badness.

Okay.

(more serious reply: you realize that the Times has run plenty of human-interest stories on people affected by Trump's policies as well...  right?  Right?  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/economy/united-mine-workers-retiree-health-plan.html  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/us/politics/obamacare-trump-cuts-open-enrollment.html  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/health/trump-travel-ban-doctors.html )

[SnowFire]

Anyway, since it seems an article of faith that said NYT article will be used to convert people to Trumpism via understating his terribleness, but nobody else seems to want to bother to test this hypothesis.  I called up the closest thing to a centrist I could get - a Trump-skeptic conservative cousin of mine (I think he backed Rubio), and asked him to read the article.  Here's what he said, paraphrased:

I don't think any newspaper article, anywhere, is really going to change anyone's opinion of Trump.  There are very, very, very few people who haven't already formed an opinion of Trump, and for those who have, a newspaper article isn't going to be enough to change it.  It'd have to be something way more dramatic - the economy crashing, say.  So I really doubt one newspaper, no matter how slanted or bad or biased in any direction, has political heft.

He also ragged on Pelosi & Schumer for claiming the sky was falling every time Trump did anything, since the parts of Trumpism that are "implement vanilla conservative goals" come across to him as No Big Deal.  So presumably a more "alarmist" article that even more explicitly said TRUMP IS RUINING EVERYTHING would not have worked on persuading him, at least.

So he doesn't think (like I would) that the NYT has any useful role in slowing Trumpism, but also doesn't think it could possibly be accelerating it either (as others here seem to believe).  Make of it what you will.

[Sierra]

That quote aptly captures what's been my impression for a while: there won't be any sea change of established opinion significant enough to change the political situation until everything's in pieces, by which point it's too late. (Specifically, "Complete economic collapse" has long been my guess as to the one and only extreme that could possibly alienate Trump's supporters from their avatar, and even then only after many waves of blame have been dumped on easier political scapegoats).

And I'm guessing it's part of what makes this such a heated conversation for CK et al, because it sure as hell is for me: feeling like Cassandra's no fucking fun.

Anyway, I'm gonna suggest that a group of people who obviously all hate the guy already could maybe deal with it better than just sniping at each other about the proper manner and degree of expressing that disapproval (why is this kind of infighting always the left's most significant self-inflicted handicap?) The horse is truly dead.

[Grefter]

NYT is a leftist publication though?   Compared to Breitbart or the Daily Mail?  Sure, but I do respect their drawing their lines as Neutral (not Centrist) and their right to present as such.   My critique tends to try and be either where I think the framing of their Neutral POV drives a right wing/populist agenda (not necessarily Trump) or where they have sold themselves as a force against Trump specifically previously but I think provide a much softer focus than they should if they are just doing facts based reporting.

I also may do a horrible job at that.

Left attacking left? well that would be why I don’t sit here and cuss out Snowfire for being a Centrist Socialist fuck who will be one of the first against the wall when the war comes, because well really most of the time that isn’t how I feel.   Besides that’s what Facebook is for.

[Fenrir]

I feel this less political article shows our issue with the NYT approach well

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/dining/raw-water-unfiltered.html?referer=https://www.google.fr/

NYT spends most of the article legitimizing this new phenomenon, the only counterpoint is two small paragraphs citing a doctor saying that it might be a bad idea.

Only our own knowledge allows us to say that this phenomenon is absolutely fucking stupid and these people are dangerous and mental. Anyone with no knowledge on the subject reading the article could think that, hey, fluoride is maybe a lot worse than dysentery


Also in 2020 NYT recruits an editorialist actively promoting drinking unfiltered water

[Fenrir]

I should add that I’m not saying the NYT had to do a hit piece - just give a bigger choice to experts on the subject, explain more thoroughly why tap water is filtered, compare the potential dangers of both, etc

[Dark Holy Elf]

I definitely agree with Fenrir that the article on water is a frustrating one and doesn't give nearly enough time to experts on why this is a bad idea. Someone could read the article and come away thinking the idea was fine.

I don't get that same sense at all from the linked article on Trump. It's pretty obvious to me that the writer is saying "these are things Trump has done that are bad". I'd dig out quotes but Snowfire already did it. Heck, the article looks a lot like ones that have made the rounds in my family's e-mails accompanied by nodding of "Yep, look at all the ways this man has damaged the institution of the presidency", some of which have even been from the NYT.

[Pyro]

Ah hell. VA republicans get to have control of state legislature because of a 50/50 namedraw from a hat.

I wish I hadbbeen more motivated to canvass.

[SnowFire]

Fenrir: Yeah, we've had our debate on this one before.  I agree with you on this issue.

Grefter: Two issues in there, slightly conflated IMO.

* I'm sure we can have a great conversation about what counts as leftist, by which definitions, etc. etc.   But for purposes of this thread, by "leftist" I've meant "the 50% of Americans who usually vote Democratic", which is a more conservative set than in, say, Norway.  And just as a point of order, however bad you think the NYT is, there are plenty of media sources that routinely favor Democrats and yet are to the right of the NYT, even the worst Bret Stephens hiring caricature-of-the-NYT.  This is part of why I was taken aback by a denunciation of them on political grounds.

* Left-on-left disputes are fine, and that leads to a different discussion that I personally would have been a lot less heated in, as this is a perfectly respectable criticism of the NYT.  I'll say that I disagree with my cousin's comments above on one thing about the role of the media: maybe the media doesn't have much effect on converting centrists anymore (what CK thinks were the swing voters weren't; well-meaning peaceful transfer of power, dignity of office types saw every single newspaper endorsing Clinton), but the media CAN maybe affect the policies each side favors.  Classic example of this is global warming; in 2008, McCain basically said "yeah the Democratic answer to climate change sucks, ours is way better and less onerous regulations & stuff."  By 2010, it was treason to even talk about climate change except to laugh at the scientist conspiracy, thanks to Republican elites on Fox News and the like.  In the same way, I'm sure Rachel Maddow & MSNBC and the like can sway the terms of what counts as an acceptable Democratic candidate.  And to the extent you, Grefter, want something even harder left than the NYT, sure, I can see ragging on the NYT for that, that they're dragging the Dem true believers who also read the NYT the "wrong" way.

But!  That's both a different kind of ragging, and a different kind of article.  This would be an article endorsing, I dunno, the NYT isn't as "corporatist" left as some people think, but global trade deals or some such maybe.  And it probably wouldn't be a pure hate "fuck you" level denunciation on political grounds.  I'll make the occasional "eh, not really" comment to some not-my-flavor-of-leftist memes on Facebook, but I'm not gonna go hunting them out and saying FUCK YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR because their proposed policy is slightly different than mine.

So this is why it gets the incredulous, strong response from me.  It's wrong on two levels.  One, it's treating a boring end-of-year-wrapup article like it was making some treasonous policy suggestion.  Second, even if it WAS some policy idea you hated and/or thought would empower President Trump, it's not grounds for unperson, go fuck yourself everyone who is supporting this vile rag (aka me, if not obvious...) level rhetoric.  It's a left on left debate at most.  It'd have to be something really, really crazy to merit the full-throated dual shotgun blasts - something like a liberal equivalent of Roy Moore.

--

Anyway, here's a nice article from NotMiki's mom of all people:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/never-mind-churchill-clement-attlee-is-a-model-for-these-times

On the achievements of a certain British politician who brought socialism and decolonization to the UK, and knew who the real enemy was and who the political rival of the day was.

[dunie]

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I dug my own grave by reading a NYT article when I've been pretty good about avoiding them since Nov 2016. Dammit. Dammit. And so I respond out of obligation not knowing anything about this article or its reception before the forums:

RE: NYT and Legitimization

I agree that this is a puff piece article, and I would say the author emphasizes that point by consistently building a maverick-super hero image of Trump. People call this normal reportage, but it's really slimy in my opinion because the writing style contributes to masking clickbait in a presumptively neutral article. In fact, this is so slimy that I would have loved to incorporate it into some kind of syllabus to discuss criticism and reading comprehension. The question is what would I prefer? Well, in anything that's not an editorial: balanced reporting, which I don't think this one is successful at doing. Instead of doing what I did last year, RE: Fuck the NYT, I'm doing something else...

These are some of the many moments throughout the article that I feel run the risk of actually undermining any clear characterization of Trump as a tyrant, a racist, yadda yadda: silly color-coded commentary~

WASHINGTON —
Mr. Trump is the 45th president of the United States, but he has spent much of his first year in office defying the conventions and norms established by the previous 44, and transforming the presidency in ways that were once unimaginable.

a maverick showing us new horizons, despite every president over the last century doing such

Under Mr. Trump, it has become a blunt instrument to advance personal, policy and political goals. He has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of no-holds-barred, crystal-breaking, us-against-them, damn-the-consequences blasts borne out of gut and grievance.

a blunt penis maverick who busts them walls

The presidency has served as a vehicle for Mr. Trump to construct and promote his own narrative, one with crackling verve but riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and outright lies, according to fact checkers.

this little flourish ending the sentence places the observation entirely within the perspective of fact checkers, and the author happily takes a backseat on the rollercoaster ride until....

That indifference to the way things have always been done has energized Mr. Trump’s core supporters, who cheer his efforts to destroy political correctness, take on smug elites and smash a self-interested system that, in their view, has shafted everyday Americans.

... the author uses "in their view," validates the perspective of Trump's core supporters as fact. Were they to treat this sentence comparably, it'd read: ..... "The indifference to the way things have always been done has energized Mr. Trump's core supporters, who, in their view, see Trump destroying political correctness and smashing a system they view as self-interested with Trump taking on individuals they see as smug elites."Just my opinion but I see that as far more neutral than what's in the text. There's a weird positive/negative occurring throughout the article and rhetoric in support of or against Trump are not handled evenly.

Not just push. Mr. Trump has shattered boundaries, at least those his predecessors observed. “Everyone else seemed to play within a certain box,” said William M. Daley, who served two presidents, first as a cabinet secretary under Bill Clinton and then as White House chief of staff under Barack Obama. “But this one is totally outside the box.”

What post-1980s child doesn't interpret "thinking outside of the box" as being creative and a positive contribution?

Talk of “absolute” power and a noted affinity for foreign strongmen have fueled fears of authoritarianism. For the most part, Mr. Trump, with some notable exceptions, has demonstrated more bark than bite. But that bark has become a power unto itself, and the question remains whether he will follow through on his threats in the next stage of his tenure or whether his attacks will prove ultimately self-defeating.

"has demonstrated more bark than bite" betrays any assertion (which doesn't exist) in this article that Trump could evenly possibly be an autocrat

Mr. Trump is creating precedents that may outlast his tenure. He is making the presidency more authentic or more autocratic, depending on the vantage point. Either way, it may never be the same.

especially here, since this is definitely handwaving something that should be a total stop sign were the author willing to reveal their actual opinion. if this is an editorial (not sure, only clicked on the link) then it most certainly should reveal an opinion. if this is just reportage, then it does nothing more than blow hot air, imo.

A portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. Mr. Trump “very seldom asks how other presidents did this,” said John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff.

It's not like the newbs would know anyway~

Presidents are human, too

SCREED: frfr?

He distorted a comment by the Muslim mayor of London to paint him as soft on terrorism. He accused Mr. Obama of tapping Trump Tower, calling him a “Bad (or sick) guy!” — a claim Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department rejected. He said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. He endorsed an accused child molester for Senate.

He called various targets of his ire “crazy,” “psycho,” “short and fat,” “crooked,” “totally inept,” “a joke,” “dumb as a rock,” “disgusting,” “puppet,” “weak and out of control,” “sleazy,” “wacky,” “totally unhinged,” “incompetent,” “lightweight” and “the dumbest man on television.” Among others.

"Among others." How dismissive. So here's a master list, yeah? And all of these things are vile total trash. But if this was simply reportage, the author noticeably fails to incorporate people's responses to some pretty important events that received very accessible local and international responses. My question is the author's choice to expand or not, and they most expand upon Trumpporters

“You hear all the time he’s not presidential,” he added. “But I say to myself, ‘That’s why he won.’”

Now'd be a good time to also report on how he actually won, through the electoral college...

Even Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who took over in July as chief of staff, has met the limits of his ability to guide the president.

tha' thar meeliterry man culdn' even keep tha' man down, nah!

“I’m not put on earth to control him,” Mr. Kelly said. “But I have been put on earth to make this staff work better and make sure this president, whether you voted for him or not, is fully informed before he makes a decision. And I think we achieved that.”

so what you're saying is our tax dollars have gone to bringing us martian conservative republicans and our tax dollars are going into tracking the screws that broke off from the transportation units and that our tax dollars are going back into sending rich folk away fr fr?

“One way he’s changed the institution is that most presidents see themselves as trustees of the democracy,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “And while every president is irritated by the limitations of democracy on them, they all grudgingly accept it. He has not. He has waged war on the institutions of democracy from the beginning, and I think in a very corrosive way.”

Mr. Trump’s bellicosity may alienate many voters, but it has kept him a force in Washington beyond what other presidents with approval ratings in the 30s might expect. While lawmakers and lobbyists normally smell weakness in an unpopular White House and disregard its wishes, other players in the capital remain reluctant to cross Mr. Trump lest they find themselves on the wrong end of a Twitter blast.

Why the switch up in tone now with "may, but" and respond to a quote with actual text finally attributable to you dear author?

If Mr. Trump’s unconventional presidency succeeds, he could set a new paradigm for the presidency. If he fails, it would be a cautionary tale for his successors.

"Cautionary"? Why so? If his successor is not like him, then...

Mr. Trump is testing the proposition that a president can still effectively remake the country without securing or even seeking a broader mandate.

so legally? gotcha, just wanted to be sure...

edit* just learned mah' color system was busted