Aaron S. Veenstra

@asveenstra.bsky.social

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FAU Journalism Prof and UFF-FAU Steward, political communication & digital media // The Press and Democratic Backsliding from Lexington Books, LXFANDF30 for 30% off // he/him

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The underlying story of the elections in both the UK and France is that FPTP sucks.

Hey you guys wanna see the dumbest plan to replace Biden possible? www.semafor.com/article/07/0...

I honestly think it would be enormously beneficial to our stupid discourse if everyone who writes about "the media" would remove the term "the media" from their vocabulary.

If National Review did this it would be (rightly) seen as an indication of their capture by Trumpism.

I don’t even know where to begin with this.

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Aaron S. Veenstra

I just want to save this series of tweets for posterity. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to go back over what’s going on here when tempers have cooled.

This is true broadly speaking of misinformation – that is, the state of the public being misinformed. If you look at a misinformed public as a journalist and think, wow, that sucks but idk, like what actually is the point of your life? It may not be possible to succeed, but still you have failed.

one of the most cowardly arguments i keep seeing from columnists is that nothing breaks through with trump supporters, so it’s a waste of time reporting on what he believes. this should be seen as a critically damning failure on behalf of the fourth estate. this means you failed. it’s not a pass.

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The discourse around biden needing more sleep is fully insane. Does no one remember "Executive Time," the thing Trump spent the majority(!) of his schedule on where he would just watch TV and tweet? Dude was categorically unable to fulfill any of the demands of the office and the press barely cared

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really great that prominent political journalists won’t just say that trump is lying and here’s why

Huh

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I have no idea the best path re Biden but I do know a solid week straight of “Biden Old” and “Rich Dems Worried” above-the-fold stories are *obscene* in the face of SCOTUS using the Constitution to wipe their asses purely in the service of reinstating a felon rapist as president. Crazy-making shit.

Maybe you could argue that the political commentary sector had value at one point, but today it is raw trolling and has metastasized into every aspect of the political press.

IMO this is a straight-up ageist and ableist image, no?

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Aaron S. Veenstra

gotta say between this and the "learn from Abraham Lincoln how to distinguish yourself from people who believe in Black equality" published on Juneteenth it's clear that the vibes at NYT opinion are extremely hostile

i really am going to be logged off for the holiday but i would like to drop off a parting thought: publishing a monarchist anti-voting take on the fourth of july is the strongest possible indication of someone's core, true values

Happy early July to those who celebrate.

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Aaron S. Veenstra

Why I Don't Vote (OK, I Do Vote, but I Would Like to Discourage You, NY Times Reader, For Doing So For Some Reason) Via @bubbaprog.ilovecitr.us

Man, if it turns out that the right winger telling NY Times readers that they should follow his example and not vote did in fact vote in the last two elections, the Times should add this to the piece. Better than a retraction, since it illustrates a willful hypocrisy.

#Journalism

Here it is, the dumbest thing you will read today www.nytimes.com/2024/07/04/o...

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Either the Democrats will run Biden, or he'll say he can't continue the campaign and Democrats will run Harris. Either is newsworthy, but neither is nearly as radical as running a pro-insurrection convicted felon with legal immunity he's eager to use.

Our horrible present moment is a lot of things, but it's also perhaps the long-awaited Murc's Law singularity. What do editorial boards think they're doing when they call for Biden to step down *because of the threats faced by American democracy* and not Trump? What is the public to take from this?

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'We'll kill you if you try to stop us' is terrorism.

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

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the New York Times has descended into total nihilism; it doesn't give a damn about the truth, only about damaging Democrats and helping Trump. So it presents a video it acknowledges to be misleadingly edited as evidence for its thesis.

Setting the particular topic aside for a second, this is a truly spectacular case of the Times' pathologically incompetent "Where there's fire, there's smoke" theory of writing up high-stakes investigative stories

Imagine going back in time a couple decades and trying to explain NYT going all out to undercut Joe Biden, of all people, in favor of Donald Trump, of all people, the latter having been convicted in one trial and facing three others, one of which was attempting to overturn an election.

I have been saying since February that major media are 100% devoted to But Her Emails 2, but I didnt imagine it would get this bad. The day after SCOTUS stops the law applying to Trump, we have to scroll thru 4 fucking top stories on “Biden old” & an ad before getting to anything on SCOTUS decision

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Looking for one person to join me today in donating to flipping both statehouses in Arizona to create a new trifecta for democracy. This is the smartest political donation we can make this year.

Flipping Arizona | The States Projectwww.grapevine.org Learn more about Flipping Arizona such as its mission, community impact, and how you can join or make a one-time online donation.

The fact that the case is called Trump v. United States is a little on the nose, idk.

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Aaron S. Veenstra

I've seen several posts of people saying that Bidens speech was him saying "I cant do anything about this," which is a fundamental misunderstanding of what he said & indictative of a deeply shallow/unserious understanding of politics & the stakes. Biden is *rejecting* this power. Full stop.

The president went out tonight and basically said "I reject the power being offered to become an unaccountable dictator and I think its dangerous to even be offered" and there are ppl that are pressed by that! Like, do they not get what happens if this new lawlessness is legitimized by Dems?

Miami has two companies that produce news in both English and Spanish, and I don't think it's a coincidence that in both cases the Spanish-language newsroom fronted the arrival of monarchy to the US and the English-language one didn't.

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In awe of this tweet, which truly captures everything bad about mainstream journalism in 2024

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NYT, eight bluesky posts so far today. Trump is a king posts: 1 Biden is old posts: 3

President Biden’s top campaign official is scheduled to hold a crucial conference call with donors on Monday to try to convince them that Biden can still beat Donald Trump despite last week’s debate debacle.

Biden Campaign Will Try to Reassure Big Donorswww.nytimes.com President Biden’s top campaign official is scheduled to hold a crucial call on Monday to convince donors that the president can beat former President Donald J. Trump.

Ordering DOJ to detain Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh on suspicion of corruption and to jail Trump pending trial would be more facially legitimate and get around the problem of the House vote.

Question: After SCOTUS ruling, can Biden now order DOJ to prosecute Manchin/Sinema on trumped up charges if they refuse to vote to end the filibuster and appoint four new justices? Wouldn't order to DOJ be absolutely immune, and wouldn't threat to the senators be at minimum presumptively immune?

#Journalism

Trump: I would like to see televised military tribunals in which my enemies like Liz Cheney are tried for treason and then put to death. New York Times Politics page 18 hours later: Democrats are in disarray!!!

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"CNN Defends Decision to Not Do a Journalism"

Merci, Macron.

Breaking: Le Pen’s far-right party is projected to come first in French vote Read more: www.bloomberg.com/news/live-bl...

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Aaron S. Veenstra

john yoo understood better than most that even a frivolous constitutional argument is all the permission the right needs to pursue its autocratic ambitions and the legal establishment still hasn't come up with a good response

just finished gary wills’ “Bomb Power” and the chapters on the dubya administration are a good reminder of a) the horror show of those years and b) the remarkable fact that in an administration of degenerates, john yoo stands apart as the absolute worst