We’re well past both sides do it now, in the wrong direction.
My analysis of media coverage in the four weeks surrounding both parties’ national conventions found that her use of a private email server while secretary of State and other alleged scandal references accounted for 11% of Clinton’s news coverage in the top five television networks and six major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. Excluding neutral reports, 91% of the email-related news reports were negative in tone. Then, there were the references to her character and personal life, which accounted for 4% of the coverage; that was 92% negative.
[…]Trump was quoted more often about her policies than she was. Trump’s claim that Clinton “created ISIS,” for example, got more news attention than her announcement of how she would handle Islamic State.
RaflW
Living through the possible terminal decline of the USA is not turning out to be very fun at all.
Though we can still turn this ship and not be dashed on the rocks. Maybe.
Patricia Kayden
It probably doesn’t make much sense to continue to harp on the media’s unfairness to Secretary Clinton. It is what it is. Somehow Secretary Clinton has to find a way to connect with the American people — and get out her voters — despite the media’s attempt to puff up Trump as a legitimate candidate despite all his flaws and shortcomings. I’m still optimistic that she will win in November and that she can turn around the polls. Trump has done more than enough to render himself unqualified to be President and she needs to keep hammering on that.
Doug!
@Patricia Kayden:
I think it does. The media bent over for the right, they’ll bend over for us.
rikyrah
Cultural Ascendancy and Political Complacency
by Martin Longman
September 21, 2016 11:18 AM
I actually like Ross Douthat’s latest column because it’s provocative in the good sense. It’s true that Douthat is uniquely disqualified from having credibility on the subject of Donald Trump’s appeal. After all, no one assured us more emphatically that Trump would never win the Republican nomination than Douthat. But he seems to be slowly coming around to an understanding of what’s been going on in this country.
At first, I wasn’t sure where he was going in blaming Samantha Bee for Trump’s electoral strength. And, while his argument isn’t ultimately convincing, it’s sound enough to explore.
What he’s noticing is real, although his description of it is incomplete. It’s true that liberalism is culturally ascendant, relatively unquestioned among Millennials, and encroaching into areas where politics were previously muted or absent.
The examples he uses are adequate to make his point.
Quibble about the details here if you want, but he’s basically correct. If anything, he doesn’t go far enough. During the Obama presidency, there has been a steady growth of black, brown, gay and feminist voices who have moved from the media fringe or underground into the mainstream, as syndicated columnists, cable news anchors and regular guests, and (as it has aged) even as veterans of the administration. The growth of social media, especially Twitter, has also amplified voices of the cultural and ethnic left, pushing them into the conversation on every major news story.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patricia Kayden:
She doesn’t have to. She’s winning. The outliers are ‘she’s not winning by much.’
PaulWartenberg2016
the next pundit who proclaims anything along the lines of “both sides” should be immediately sawed in half, with one half sent to the RNC HQ and the other half sent to the DNC HQ because, you know, BOTH SIDES.
…goddamn lazy no-knowing assholes…
Mike E
@Doug!: shorter DougJ: both sides…o’my ass!
jl
@rikyrah:
I think this line from your link is particularly funny:
” What Birtherism has in common with other Trump gambits is disrespect for people in power and authority. “
rikyrah
Driving While Black Is Totally Different
by Martin Longman
September 20, 2016 3:23 PM
I don’t know what I was expecting to see when I watched the dashcam video of Tulsa police officers killing Terence Crutcher on September 16th. I guess I expected to see something a little more suspenseful instead of just a mundane segment of footage of a seemingly non-threatening person being executed for no apparent reason.
In fact, the first time I watched it, I completely missed the shooting because it didn’t seem imminent and I was momentarily distracted.
…………………
It didn’t help. I saw a man who had his hands on his car who was clearly shot and killed for no apparent reason. I couldn’t even see any reason why he might have been tased.
It certainly doesn’t show Mr. Crutcher reaching into his car as a Tulsa police spokesperson initially said.
……………….
What’s probably the most disturbing part of this is that he was being treated like a suspect in the first place. His vehicle broke down in the middle of the road. He needed assistance. Yet, he’s there from the first moment of the video with his hands up and a gun drawn on him.
Maybe he was acting strangely. I have no way of knowing how he was behaving before the videos begin, although it appears he was on his way home from the local community college, so I don’t when he was supposed to be doing the PCP.
I just can’t imagine the police treating me this way if my car breaks down and I’m looking for a helping hand. Most likely, they would have helped me get the car on the shoulder and radioed for a tow truck. And if I seemed impaired or something, they would have given me a field sobriety test, not drawn a gun on me.
Back in about 1995, I was in the passenger seat of a car being driven by a black friend of mine when we got pulled over on Route One in New Jersey. I thought I’d helpfully get his insurance information and opened his glovebox. He reacted with furious terror and told me to shut the glovebox and keep my hands in sight.
That was my introduction to the difference between driving while white and black. Even then, I thought he was being a little paranoid.
I don’t think that anymore.
Betty Cracker
@Doug!: I agree, and I think we’re already seeing some results of “working the refs,” which in this case turns out to be reminding them to do their jobs.
Elizabelle
Andea Mitchell should be the poster child for all emails, all the time. Not that I want to see her mug on anything.
That’s straight on NBC, with the emails. On MSNBC too.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Frankensteinbeck: There’s a perception problem where there’s this assumption that Il Douche’s foibles should’ve sunk his campaign. The reality is that he could borrow Henry Gibson’s wardrobe from The Blues Brothers, stand outside the National Holocaust Museum, loudly proclaim Hitler did nothing wrong, and he’s still get 39% in the polls.
It wasn’t going to be an easy ride, fortunately Secretary Clinton understands this. And she still has demographics on her side. She’s got this.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
We can be sure of one thing; the “Hilary Clinton Administration Faltering” articles have already been written for publishing Nov 12th.
jl
I think the guiding rule of our failed corporate media experiment is quick profits. They worry about how news and public affairs can be turned into a reality show that brings in the most bucks for the least work. The HRC script was written years ago, the narrative arc is known, and exactly how to pitch it to keep audience tuned in for the next commercial spot is well known.
Thanks for that LA Times story. Glad that some good analysis gets into the news once in awhile. I been thinking whether I should send complaints to some of the crappy corporate media outlets to complain. Now I have some stats to back up my complaints and will do it.
Edit: maybe BJ blog can get up a list of good links to miserable corporate BS media outlets to fire off complaints to?
Walker
Never gets old:
Both Sides!
Kay
The things speaks for itself. Is there another Presidential election in your memory where ALL of the investigative reporting came from a single reporter?
Everyone knows his name because there is ONE. WTF? One? That’s all we get? He seems like a great guy but he can’t do this by himself.
Why isn’t there any competitive energy? You would think someone would say “I could do this too!”
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Is there a both sides to the white supremacist Skittles meme? Yes, yes there is. LGM reads the NYT so you don’t have to.
MattF
My guess is that the powers-that-be in the media (except for Fox) are feeling just a teensy bit concerned that they’re going to be deemed responsible for a Trump win. Teensy bit concerned on the way to terrified. Liberals ‘working the refs’ may be having some success in reminding the media of exactly how they’ve failed to do their jobs, but I think the main motivation for recent Trump coverage is that sinking feeling.
Knight of Nothing
@rikyrah: this appears to be a re-tread of an argument made a few months back (that ‘smug liberals’ had somehow caused Trumpism). I don’t think it’s a very good argument. See here and here.
OzarkHillbilly
We live in interesting times.
jl
@rikyrah: I saw the video, which was very disturbing. Apparently this poor guy got this attention from the cops because his car stalled? Wasn’t completely clear from the news reports I read. But seems he got attention from cops because his car stalled. If so, why were the cops talking like they just assumed he was a suspect of some sort,or on drugs? The guy’s car stalled, for God’s sake. Why was he being treated like a criminal? Maybe a broken car is suspicious in that state?
Story led me to links on how often police shoot in different states. Found out that in Oklahoma, police tend to shoot people, all kinds of people, more than in other states. As a white guy, I might have to do a little more than get my car stalled. But still….
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Knight of Nothing: Yes, it excuses white racism. The argument that this is like the 60’s excuses the white backlash against civil rights legislation. Booman is pretty good, but he whiffs with this one.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Agreed. They’ve been running through Pandora’s Box for profits, and they suddenly see the danger.
Hitler could not have been elected without the complicity of protestant churches and the media.
JPL
Even if the media changes, it’s to late for them to say, sorry she really doesn’t lie.
Ken Burns was on Chris Hayes last night. link
mr_gravity
The theory I have, which is mine, is that the “collective media” believed a year ago that Trump had no chance at the nomination or the general and thus felt free to run with him for all the ratings he generated. Post-convention polls (skewed or not) showing a tightening race seems to have put the fear of god in some percentage of the “collective media” that they may have overplayed their hand. It just seems awfully late in the game for them to start talking about Trump’s charitable shenanigans and foreign entanglements etc. As some have suggested there was just so much poo that it was hard to tell where the smell was coming from.
Possibly I give them too much credit.
rikyrah
You Break It, You Own It
by Martin Longman
September 19, 2016 2:32 PM
You might want to take out the tiniest violin in the world to play for the sad, sad Trump-supporting Washington staffers and consultants who are getting shunned by their peers.
Take this guy:
A senior House Republican staffer who works for a committee chairman doesn’t tell his colleagues that he likes Trump or that he has informally advised the campaign.
“Basically nobody knows what I’ve done,” said the staffer, who asked for anonymity for fear of the impact his views could have on his career. “It’s not something I talk about openly at work, because there are a lot of strong feelings, still, among the staff. People talk openly against the guy.”
He worries it might harm his reputation if colleagues discover he’s a major fan of Trump.
This whole article from The Hill is constructed around similar stories of Trump lovers hiding their enthusiasm for Trump or lamenting that they’ve been treated as pariahs for being open about it.
RaflW
@Me a few minutes ago: Though we can still turn this ship and not be dashed on the rocks. Maybe.
OK, not that I’m gonna relax. But I can perhaps be peeled off the ceiling:
jl
@mr_gravity:
” Possibly I give them too much credit. ”
I think you do. When trying to understand the corporate media’s odd behavior, I ask myself ‘What would an ignorant dishonest, passive-aggressive, very very greedy chickenshit do?”
bystander
@PaulWartenberg2016: Right below the article posted by Doug from the LATimes is a link to an article, “Both sides accuse each other of aiding terrorists”. No mention that only one of them is quoting intelligence reports about her opponent.
Eric U.
why doesn’t anyone ever tell Andrea Mitchell she’s an idiot on live tv. She asked John Lewis why Clinton doesn’t inspire blacks. Because Trump does it better
JPL
New Marquette Law School Poll finds Clinton leading Trump among likely voters in WI 44% to 42%.
Patricia Kayden
@Eric U.: And what was Rep Lewis’ answer? Perhaps someone needs to tell Mitchell that among Clinton’s most fervent supporters are Black women. Secretary Clinton will probably get at least 90% of the Black vote.
RaflW
Also, FFS, this ~ Maine: Trump 37%, Clinton 37% (MPRC)
It seems that the idiots in Maine have learned nothing from 3rd parties giving them LePage. Twice.
mr_gravity
@jl: The only time I’ve ever been held at gunpoint was when I had a flat on I-40 west of Oklahoma City.
Airport security guard.
Just sayin’.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah:
A lesson I learned a long time ago in a similar fashion.
Kay
It’ll be good, though, because if she wins it will be IN SPITE of them…oh, forget it.
Won’t matter.
RaflW
@bystander: I will not be able to watch the debate she flagellates. I just cannot do that level of self-harm at this point in my life.
Trollhattan
@Doug!:
Keep their feet to the fire, using their own material. Eventually the Oxy wears off and the nervous system will report “Your feet are on fire!” to the brain. At that point they can either pull their feet from the fire or take more Oxy.
kindness
Not being a reader of the LA Times I was kinda taken aback by the comments under that piece. I had no idea that LA Times readers were essentially Fox’s audience.
OzarkHillbilly
Cue up the butthurt:
Major Major Major Major
@RaflW:
And the only cool-looking Mad Max stuff is at freaking Burning Man.
shomi
Whatever,
You have Republicans from all sorts of places endorsing Clinton or at a minimum, telling people not to vote for the Dumpster fire. There isn’t much more she can do different. If Americans are so fucking stupid as to elect the cheeto colored clown then they deserve the absolute clusterfuck that will result. He wouldn’t last more than a year before being impeached anyways for any number of different reasons that already exist with clear evidence.
I’m not too worried about the polls myself. This was sort of expected because polls always seem to do this around this time after the convention bumps. Then they diverge again. I think at this point in 2012 it got pretty close as well before diverging again and resulting in an Obama landslide.
Cacti
@Frankensteinbeck:
This.
While my mental health would be better with blow-out level polling, Clinton has been in the driver’s seat throughout the election cycle.
At his best, Trump has been almost but not quite tied with her, and has had a hard ceiling of about 45% national support. At worst he’s been in the low 40s and losing by 7-9 points.
dnfree
The quote about lack of context is so true. Last night on PBS Newshour, they were discussing Common Core. Trump is against it. Hillary doesn’t really say, but she’s probably for it. Trump portrays it as a national takeover of local schools. Was there any discussion of what Common Core actually is? Not a sentence. Not enough time, even on a newscast that tries to portray itself as being more in-depth.
Elizabelle
@shomi: Agreed.
singfoom
@shomi:
Congratulations. This is the first time I’ve agreed with you on anything. I wish we could bronze comments.
RaflW
@mr_gravity:
It is rather late to be getting in that game. And as was also pointed out upthread, there is largely only one reporter doing this work. One.
I can’t understand what is going on. When the WaPo started to eat the NYT’s lunch on this line, it seemed the Times just yawned. The lack of competitive desires to scoop is one of the many developing failures of our press.
Calouste
@kindness: It’s a public comments section of a large media entity. They are always a fever swamp.
mapaghimagsik
@shomi:
Kinda, but like Trump. Most of these assholes will not suffer, and even if they do will get off on the idea that ‘the other’ is suffering more. Not to mention those that would live in cardboard boxes as long as it meant an liberal was angry.
And those that are to be hurt the worst, who are going to vote Hillary, would get fucked.
Luckily the odds of this seem low.
jl
@dnfree: Probably too much trouble to find out anything about what they are talking about that day. And history of the program is assumed to be wonky stuff the audience doesn’t care about. Who wants a boring damn whole minute of explanation when you could have talking heads arguing (old farts arguing is DRAMZZZZ!)? The interns are too busy serving as glorified legal scabs doing scut work, so no time to do research while reloading the copiers. The news anchors are too busy waiting by the phone for important people to call them with gossip, and they don’t know how to use google or do any research anyway.
Those are my top guesses.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@jl: The think is, yes, the narrative on Hillary was developed decades ago…but I remember reading an analysis of Obama’s coverage a few years back and the overwhelming tone of the coverage he was getting was negative too. It’s not just that Hillary is getting overwhelming negative coverage, it’s that every Democratic President, or candidate for said office, gets overwhelming negative coverage. The media expects Democrats to be perfect, for reasons that elude me. Republicans can screw up and still get glowing coverage because the media expects a certain level of screwing up from them.
I guarantee you that if it was the Ryan Foundation (as in Paul Ryan) they would have portrayed him as politically savvy to use his office to generate funds for his charitable causes. It wouldn’t have been portrayed as selling influence but as trying to drum up more money for good causes. Sure, it might look like selling influence, but Paul would bat those baby blues and profess no intention to sell influence, only to further worthy causes, and how dare you make that accusation! And that would be the end of it, they’d swallow the excuse hook, line and sinker. It would be ignored because the media expects Republicans to sell influence. They expect Democrats to be pure. Any sign of impurity therefore gets portrayed as a flaw rather than a virtue.
NorthLeft12
I still have confidence in America’s better nature. I still refuse to set foot in your country, but I still think you will pull out of this and stay on the course that Pres. Obama is laying out and future Pres. Clinton will expand on.
Ruviana
@singfoom: This, and shomi’s original comment, give me an opportunity to voice something I’ve been wondering about for the past week or so. If Trump were elected could there be a coup? This does happen afterall (elsewhere I realize) and while enlistees seem to poll highly for Trump, it sounds like officers are much more supportive of Clinton and recognize what Trump could do to national security.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@RaflW: It is really weird that there seems to be only one reporter on the “investigate Trump” beat. As to it being late…it’s late for the Republican primary but probably about optimal timing for Clinton. The first debate is coming up and Trump will be asked about this, and probably not have a good answer. He’ll probably tell a lie about the Clinton Foundation to retaliate, which either the moderator or Clinton will be able to call out as a lie. Most people are just starting to pay attention to the race. The Clinton stuff has been asked and answered already. The Trump stuff, as it emerges (if it keeps emerging) will drive several news cycles. That’ll be bad for him.
Major Major Major Major
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Every Democrat gets crap coverage. I’ll always remember a Jon Stewart line, If Obama made it rain cookies, the New York Times headline would be DEMOCRATS LEAVE MILLIONS MILKLESS.
But Clintons get double crap coverage, and women perhaps double on top of that. Poor Hillary…
I do however for once agree with shomi. All we can do is keep calm, carry on, and GOTV. If the Obama coalition shows up, we win. All the tightening polls are based on likely voter screens, not changing opinions.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Ruviana: I think he’d do something impeachable within 3 months, at the outside, and have to resign in disgrace before any coup would happen.
Ruviana
@NorthLeft12: Can you please let us into yours? :)
jl
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I think that gives them too much credit. Republican administrations are good for their bosses, who hand the news divas a very fat paycheck for pretending to be diligent journalists while the cameras are rolling. What is good for the boss is to be excused one way or another, by hook ro by crook. The human mind is very good at internalizing and rationalizing this kind of corruption.
They are corrupt corporate hacks. End of story.
They all claim people like Murrow and Cronkite are their heroes. But when did any of these corrupt hacks take a risk anywhere near those two, who both were willing to risk doing hard work and report out the truth, even it it meant taking big risks.
nonynony
@shomi:
I mean, they might. But I sure don’t deserve it. And I have to live with it too.
Fortunately I am not terribly worried. The election is proceeding pretty much as I expected it to after the primaries ended. Clinton got a much bigger post-convention bump in the polling than I expected, and it’s taking Trump a lot longer to get the GOP base who didn’t want him to get behind him than I expected, but the race now looks pretty much like Romney/Obama in 2012 – maybe a slightly uglier version of it, but that’s just because Trump is a slightly uglier version of Romney in so many ways. Hell it’s looking pretty much like I expected with “generic Republican vs. Democrat running for Obama’s third term” last year before Trump upended the table and made everything weird.
I think a lot of people raised their expectations given that Trump is uniquely awful and so should be doing worse. But if you set your expectation to ‘generic Republican’ he’s doing poorly. The media always wants their horserace narrative and they’re going to get it no matter what. Republicans will vote for Republicans and they were going to vote for him no matter how horrible he was – the fact that he’s still struggling to cross 45% means that even Republicans aren’t as bad as this old misanthrope assumed they were. Hopefully the Clinton campaign keeps it up and the Trump campaign keeps shooting itself in the foot.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Maybe it’s starting to dawn on lots of people that if Trump is elected, the next day the market will start gyrating with uncertainty as everyone with half a brain and a few bucks starts putting their money back in federally insured savings accounts – the money that they’ve enjoyed watching recover from 2009 in an historically high stock market. Trump is a chaos agent, and markets hate chaos. That’s the first thing I’m going to do, I know that. I’m too old to recover anything from a Trumpian down market.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruviana:
No.
Ruviana
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Of course that’d leave us with Pence who is just a different kind of awful.
Elizabelle
Washington Monthly: Is the Press So Privileged that they don’t care who wins the presidency?
No clue if this journalist actually exists, but I checked, and Jonathan Karl is 48.
Here’s the link to the GQ story about Inside the Mind of the Undecided Voter. It would have to be a feeble mind.
Ridnik Chrome
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: And then we’d have President Pence.
ETA: Oops, I see Ruviana beat me to it. Sorry!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Regarding “working the refs”, I’m of mixed feelings about it’s efficacy…by the left.
The right’s been doing it for decades and it has worked. And continues to work.
So why do I think the left has a harder time of this? I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s literally a generation of scared shitless editors growing up being told “UR LIBRUL!!!!!!”. For the longest time they could somewhat ignore it but with the economic bottom falling out of print media, they had to do anything to preserve readership. As such, as the odious public editor at the NYT has shown, false equivalence and actual reporting in terms of how much of the public sees as it should be done it *not* part of the corporate culture. I don’t see that changing as long as news is still viewed as an income engine.
Calouste
@RaflW: As someone pointed out last week (might have been Adam), there are a lot of Trump branded properties in NYC. Expensive properties that take out a lot of expensive ads in the white-supremacist-enabling New York Times, for hundreds of thousands, if not millions a year. Newspapers don’t like to piss off large advertisers, they’re not doing well as it is.
Calouste
@Elizabelle:
As I said a few days ago: “Fine, why don’t you start with your house, as an experiment to see if the idea works.”
Elizabelle
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: That’s the part I have never understood, about the NY Times’ idiotic and malicious Clinton coverage.
Business likes stability (although there are a few that are into stripmining and shock capitalism). How can putting a chaos agent in be good for the Times and its advertisers? Actually, it would be horrible, for a great number of them. Newspapers are already on the rails, and they are disposable income for readers and subscribers.
The malice towards Clinton seems somewhat personal; it’s someone’s or a clique’s agenda.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Except we actually don’t work the refs. The treatment of Clinton ought to have every Dem politician howling bloody murder, except I hear crickets.
patrick II
@MattF:
I would add that many of the powers that be would prefer a Clinton presidency, but not a Clinton presidency with a democratic senate and house. When she was held a 7% the senate and even the house might have turned. That will not happen at 3%, so they have been backing off.
Brachiator
@RaflW:
It’s surreal. Maybe we are at a tipping point of history, or maybe this will all be much ado about nothing (I hope). But did the people who lived through the fall of the Roman Empire realize that they were coming to the end of an era (“hey, they will be writing about us in the history books!”).
@mapaghimagsik:
RE: If Americans are so fucking stupid as to elect the cheeto colored clown then they deserve the absolute clusterfuck that will result.
I don’t think this is true, and maybe this also explains why Trump is skating by and only getting weak opposition from people who should know better.
Trump is as fundamentally ignorant of national politics and foreign policy as was Sarah Palin. But he has twice the arrogance. It is becoming more and more clear that even if Trump himself is not a hard core racist, his sons, who are among his closest advisors, get excited whenever they get to re-tweet hard core alt right nastiness. Trump gets exited imagining himself to be America’s Putin.
This sets the stage for either a domestic or foreign policy disaster which might envelop everyone. I’m not seeing anyone being able to sit back and note that the other guy has it worse.
Major Major Major Major
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Drum talks about this. The left has people who actually care and respect their work. He calls it the ‘hack gap’.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Elizabelle:
I wonder how many Trump supporters would still support him if they knew his election would most likely wipe out their retirement savings?
nonynony
@Ruviana:
No. That would not happen. Not right out of the gate.
Now, if Trump decides that he wants to drop a nuke on Damascus or something? And gives that order? That’s a different story. I would hope they’d find a way to stop him without actually staging a coup, but there would be a lot of factors involved.
If Trump wins we’re in unmarked territory. Lots of stuff can happen.
Elizabelle
@Calouste: The odd thing is, political journalism has blown up its own damn house this year.
As Kay points out, it’s ridiculous that we all know that it’s David Farenthold — alone — digging into the Trump Foundation over at the WaPost. Paper also home to Chris Cillizza and the pantswetters like Dan Balz and other Broderists.
At the NY Times, following in Judith Miller and Jayson Blair’s shoes, it is Patrick Healy and Amy Chozick and the stupendously awful new ombuds Liz Spayd (formerly of the WaPost; maybe she’s a mole to send NYT subscribers over there in despair)?
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Brachiator: Default the debt, goldbuggery at the Fed, etc., the list is infinite.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Ruviana: Two points
1) We do NOT want a military coop.
2) Everyone on Trump’s enemy list knows Trump doesn’t forgive and is coming for them so they will fight him tooth and nail. Like Shomi was saying it’s likely the Republicans will impeach their own president if Trump gets elected.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
The thing is, the Villagers don’t/won’t respond to Dem politicians howling bloody murder. Sure, Repub politicians for 30 years have been on message about “The Librul Media” but I know from discussions over the years with the former WH reporter I know, her editors didn’t pay attention to that. They paid attention to subscribers. They paid attention to the bottom line as they watched it collapse. Combined with subscribers screaming at them 24/7, over time the corporate interests leaned heavily enough on them to change the tone and focus of their reporting to the dreck we see today.
I can scream all I want but in terms of the scenario I’ve described, I’ve done all I can in that I won’t subscribe to the WaPo (I get around the paywall by clearing cookies out several times a session) and stopped giving to NPR over a dozen years ago and stopped listening to them 3 years ago. I don’t click on a lot of WaPo reporters or columnists in the vain hope that when their clicks go away, so will those people.
We do need to work the refs but it’ll take a lot of time for it to have any impact.
Elizabelle
@patrick II: Yes. I think a lot of the awful coverage is to hold down the possibility of turning the Senate. And I hope that can still be done. And increase Democratic margins in the House.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Major Major Major Major:
Gotta link? I’d be interested in that analysis.
Ruviana
@nonynony: Yeah, it’s scenarios like this that have been haunting my dreams of late.
Keith G
@NorthLeft12:
Too bad. It’s generally a good place with a lot of good people and much fun to be had.
cat
@Doug!:
The Media owners are capitalists and centrists. That fact caused them to make biased conclusions as to why their ratings fell and so their centrist viewpoint moved to the right. They will never go to the left. At best they will return to the center.
Elizabelle
60 Minutes this weekend, about launching nuclear weapons, the command can only come from POTUS — I thought whole segment was “watch out — do you want Trump with nukes?” They never mentioned him or Hillary by name, if I recall, but it was frightening.
Even to the old coots who are likely 60 Minutes audience.
Major Major Major Major
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Not really, but the google machines can help. Here’s one I found.
Mike in NC
On President Trump’s first day in office he would direct the commanding officer of Fort Knox to move all the gold bullion to Trump Tower.
mr_gravity
@RaflW: It does say something about the alleged “deep bench” that the republicans were counting on this cycle. Didn’t Jeb! have $130 million behind him? Not to mention Bush 41 who’s voting for Hillary. Didn’t he run the CIA for a while?
Sad.
Gravenstone
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Fucker probably couldn’t even complete the oath of office before doing something provocative.
Kathleen
Regarding media, I go with simplest answer. Reporters and management are shallow, not very bright, narcissistic and evil. They are “down” as the kids would say with Nazis and KKK running the show.
Cacti
@NorthLeft12:
And this will remain as important to us as it was before.
Gravenstone
@Elizabelle: Whoever that anonymous journalist is, against the wall RIGHT FUCKING NOW!
mr_gravity
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Carter builds houses for the homeless. Bush does watercolor. Both keep busy.
Kathleen
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: They would blame it on Obama.
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
If he kept his promises to stick it to the blacks and browns?
Lots.
Calouste
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Depends.
Do gay people lose their retirement savings and have their marriage disbanded and their children taken away from them?
Do Muslim people lose their retirement savings and be forbidden to practice their religion?
Do black people lose their retirement savings and get beaten up and killed by the cops as soon as they show up in the wrong neighborhood?
Do Hispanic people lose their retirement savings and get deported to a country they have never lived?
They’d be on board not just with their retirement savings collapsing, they’d be ok with Trump Gov., Inc. forcibly taking them.
gogol's wife
@Walker:
that’s great!
low-tech cyclist
For me, the most striking thing at the link in Doug’s post is the near-total absence of any discussion by the media of the candidates’ proposed policies. (That had been my own impression, but I’m not a big media consumer, so I couldn’t say for sure.)
I know what’s going to happen: the Sunday *after* the election, the newspapers and the Sunday talk shows will be filled with talk of “now that X is the President-elect, here’s what s/he’s likely to DO.”
And that’ll be just a wee tad too late for voters to factor into their choice.
Major Major Major Major
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: How many Brexiteers did that stop?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Major Major Major Major:
Interesting. I think one reason we have one is that as Dems, it’s not “our way” to just mindlessly spin. When things blow up, we explain and analyze. Thus, I think there will always be a hack gap.
That being said, we do have a noted lack in good 2nd and 3rd tier surrogates. I was discussing this elsewhere today: take Robby Mook on Morning Blow this morning. Awful. Now, put Joe Biden (1st tier surrogate) in that position taking the same questions and it’s night and day.
We should put together a highlight reel of Biden and use it as a training tool for those surrogates.
JPL
@Cacti: The FDIC still insures funds. The danger of course is the dollar is going to tank, when he goes after trade policies. Forget shopping at Walmart. Trumps own brands would go up in price.
Brachiator
@shomi:
Oddly enough, some Republicans (for example, one guy on Bill Maher recently) seem to be using this as a justification for voting for Trump.
The idea is that constitutional checks and balances and Republican know how will keep Trump in check. But I don’t see an egomaniac like Trump going down easily, And he is surrounding himself with bitter, resentful goons like General Mike Flynn who seem itching to cause harm before they can be contained.
The Republicans have seen Trump become angry, demanding, inconsistent, irrational, and disloyal, and yet they keep insisting that he is their man. And even Republicans who previously denounced Trump are now eager to jump on the bandwagon now that it seems that he has a chance of actually winning the election.
Matt McIrvin
@shomi:
Most of the Americans who will be killed will not be Trump voters.
Matt McIrvin
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Impeachment is a political act. Trump, if elected, will have a Trumpist Congress, ergo, no impeachment. Eventually he would have a Trumpist Supreme Court too.
Redshift
@rikyrah:
My two quibbles would be:
1. Like all conservatives, he pretends that “liberal” things happen in a vacuum, and that there are no conservative things preceding them that might be partially responsible. There can only be conservative backlash; a liberal direction is always deliberately inflicted on unwilling people. (Or in fewer words, he’s pretending, like most conservatives, that Shrub doesn’t exist and everyone loved Reagan.)
2. More diverse voices didn’t have to be a “liberal” thing. (Gay and feminist, maybe, but not diverse ethnic groups.) Conservatives used to have significant representation from many of these groups, and they drove it away. On the other hand, I’ll give him credit for essentially admitting that bigotry is central to conservatism, even if he doesn’t say it in so many words.
hovercraft
@Kay:
It amuses me the way they all say he’s doing wonderful work and deserves a Pulitzer (which he does), as though they are incapable of you know actually doing something other than picking up the phone, and getting talking points spoon fed to the.
A pox on all of them.
Mike E
shomi=voice of reason
What’s next? srv has his “road to Damascus” moment?
Keith G
@RaflW:
I doubt that this is the terminal decline. Geography. geology, climate, the long ago historical narratives of people living a various continents , and even dumb luck gave the aggressively acquisitive Europeans who took over this place quite a cushion to develop a lot of prosperity. All those advantages are gone and the cushion of prosperity is tattered, but we still have some of the advantages left due to a bit of historical momentum.
We have always been an artificial construct – a place where many unaffiliated “others” traveled (or were shipped) to and not the homeland of a single people having linguistic and cultural homogeneity. With most of our previous advantages gone, it’s harder to paper over how much like everyone else (in the world) the people of the US are – in fact maybe worse since we are a bit spoiled and our sense of national unity might well be a very thin veneer. Weirdly enough, I don’t think it is terminal. I think we will figure it out and adjust. Some of it won’t be pretty, though. Seldom is.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
OT, but Propane Jane will be a contributing editor at dKos. Good pickup for them.
jl
@JPL: I don’t think going after trade policies will tank dollar in the short run. Trying to manage national debt by threatening to stiff debt holders, and trying to use treaty obligations as an extortion scheme will cause more than enough financial chaos though.
Edit: BTW, Josh Marshall is using his twitter feed to highlight some gems from Trumps twitter history. We see Trump’s obsession with using foreign policy as an excuse to take other countries’ stuff is like a universal constant, like speed of light in physics. Would be comical if he were not on presidential ticket.
Major Major Major Major
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I saw that! :)
Of course, they’re still absurd during election season.
Matt McIrvin
@Keith G: If Trump opens a thousand Dachaus, outlaws all opposition and grinds us up in industrial death factories, there are no Allied Forces coming to invade us and stop it. The Red Army is on his side.
A boot stamping on a human face forever.
Calouste
@Major Major Major Major: DKos seems to be fairly ok during the election season. Of course it was overrun with disciples of the bullshitter from Burlington during the primaries, and most likely the first posts about how Clinton sold them out will be up 3 minutes after California is called on 11/8.
hovercraft
@RaflW:
It’s Northern Maine, and the last poll I saw had him up by 11 points. Apparently it’s very heavily white blue collar will no college education, who work in industries that have been decimated in the last 20 years. At this point it looks like they will probably split the EV’s.
jl
@Matt McIrvin:Suppose midway through term, Trump is in deep trouble after his attempted purge of military officer corps fails and various executive branches of executive (probably military) refuse to obey his unconstitutional executive orders, he has to relocate to a bunker in Waco after Abbott gives him refuge. Trump outsources reconquest of those US states that are guilty of high crimes and not being nice to him, not nice at all, to recent Trump Inc. acquisition, ACME Golf Course Security and Event Services.
Then, things will get interesting.
Major Major Major Major
@Calouste: The primaries are part of election season, dontcha know.
hovercraft
@kindness:
At this point there are very few comment sections that aren’t infested with deplorables. Off the top of my head the only one that’s readable is the detested NY Times, other than that liberal blogs are the only other safe haven.
Brachiator
@jl:
Putin sends in a helicopter and rescues Trump, who finds a way to escape with half the US gold reserves. He later becomes governor general of Ukraine.
Mike E
@Brachiator: Wolverines!
jl
@Brachiator: Trump will surely find a way to take the US oil with him. We know that for sure. He’s been obsessed with that technology for decades, ever since he tried out for a political career as a center-conservative Democrat, and said the same damn crazy grifter shit about foreign relations.
Daniel
@Cacti: but he is one of many
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Ridnik Chrome: Unless…unless Pence is caught up in the impeachable offense too, which leaves us with…President Paul Ryan. Jeesus that guy is clever. He’s setting this all up for a shot to be POTUS without the pain in the ass of having to run.
Keith G
@Matt McIrvin: I guess that is a conceivable outcome, but it would take a lot of very good hash to get to that concept.
Calouste
@Major Major Major Major: Well, there’s a difference between the primaries and the general. Kos was overrun with Berniebots during the primaries, it’s somewhat sensible now.
Davis X. Machina
@hovercraft: The cultural divide between ME-1 and ME-2 is as intense as anything in the racially-gerrymandered South.
My daughter — a nice Cumberland Co. college-educated suburban type — canvassed and phone-banked for the Maine SSM referendum for Equality Maine and she was stunned by what she heard on the phones or on front stoops in Somerset, Washington, Aroostook, Piscataquis counties — absolutely floored.
Davis X. Machina
@Mike E: srv is more like a ‘driving southbound on the northbound lanes of the road to Damascus’ sort.
Bill Arnold
@shomi:
No. This would be collective punishment.
RaflW
@Calouste: I don’t mean to be argumentative, but is this actually true? Are Trump hotels actually advertising in the Times? Any NYC folks regularly read the paper see such ads?
I think key players at the Times have personal animosity towards the Clintons and it seriously clouds their news judgement. But that’s just my hunch.
Trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
One hand on the bible, the other on his daughter’s ass.
Trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Great surprised is registered when the White House private zoo is discovered.
RaflW
@Keith G: It’s been decades since I took the class, but when I was at U.T. Austin I took a poli-sci class that had a semester-long thread running through it about regime stability (and by regime, I don’t mean a particular ruler or figurehead, though that was often the case, but rather stability of a regime mechanism – ours has been a mash of democracy/republicanism + capitalism/modified oligarchy).
There is nothing really that magical about the US system that immunizes us, even with the benefit of resources and space, from just fvking it all up and ruining what’s been more-or-less working since the late 1700s. Indeed we may just be at a rather nasty inflection point. But until we turn the corner, we don’t really know if we’re on a devastating slide or a painful bounce. Either way, it isn’t fun.
I think the coming destabilization via climate change will make things worse even if we elect HRC. If we saddle ourselves with Trump, pasta help us, the next 4 years will be rough.
sukabi
@Trollhattan: undoubtedly.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
Watching the DNC, they would broadcast a speech, which we would listen to carefully. Then Andrea Mitchell would come on camera, and lie about what I had just seen.
She had to know the vast majority of her audience had just seen what she was “reporting” about, yet was willing to distort what was said by the famous Democratic speaker, regardless of the fact that everyone watching knew she was lying.
I haven’t watched a second of NBC/MSNBC news since the night of the DNC where I saw her vapid disaster.