GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: 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.

heads i win, tails you lose: trump and RFK jr’s supporters both already know they believe insane conspiracies, so there’s no need to discuss what believing insane conspiracies says about their mental fitness to lead, but biden voters can be persuaded that biden may be unfit, therefore, biden old

2 of the top 3 candidates for the US presidency have shown a repeated willingness to believe any conspiracy dangled in front of them like a set of keys, including wildly anti-american ones, which are straightforward cognitive deficiencies for what we should demand in a president. neither are biden.

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.

I see this problem with some rank and file Dems too. It's like they conflate Trump loyalists with undecideds and think the undecideds can't be moved by reminding them how awful Trump is. Which is why many of these Dems are so obsessed with replacing Biden with a magical Johnny Unbeatable now.

I feel like these are the same people who don't think running on actually popular policies would make a difference. There are undecideds and ill-informed people out there! Who are willing to roll the dice on "change" just because nothing seems to matter! Or people who can't be bothered to vote!

There are lots of fruitful things you can do that don't require converting the Trump diehards!

"public poorly informed, says public informing industry"

“You need to take Trump seriously, not literally” per correspondents who take Trump literally, but not seriously.

this is also such an obvious opportunity for comparing and contrasting Biden and Trump in stories for the media that's doing lots of "Biden Old" — conveying to people that Trump is old *and* his brain is melting where Biden is old and therefore gets tired more easily is a really useful both siding.

And while people might see it as being bad in a sense for Biden, some only likely voters also might appreciate the phenomenal downsides of being disengaged and/or not voting.

I don’t think they believe this one, honestly. It’s pretty easy to see that while maybe MAGA can’t be moved, low to med propensity voters that lean Biden pretty obviously could be.

also hardcore trump supporters =/= all people who end up voting for trump because he's got an "R" after his name!

They’ve been running non stop Biden is old *and should quit* stories for over a week but “Trump guilty” got what 2-3 days maybe? And none about how it is *objectively very bad* just “do the voters care”

This They don’t discuss the issues anymore, just the public reaction to them… a reaction SHAPED BY THEIR COVERAGE

The analogy that comes to mind is if the media stopped reporting on the weather because everyone knows it’s hot outside.

this feels sort of like the "interesting times" Chinese curse but I feel like at some point you are destined for a columnist slot somewhere

lol, lmao. that will never happen, i don’t even think it *should* happen, there are enough white male columnists in the world, and i’m a gadfly, there are many, many, many people who are more thoughtful, interesting, and better thinkers than i am.

[monkey's paw starts twitching]

Gadfly has historically been the main requirement for political columnist

Sure but the media isn't hiring any of *them* either, so...

Do they not know that swing voters exist? And that they SHOULDN'T be kept in the dark about the implications of a Biden loss?

Also—do they not understand that reporting on how fucked up Trump is clarifies the stakes of the election for ALL readers? My mother reads the NYT and WP every day, and when I mentioned it the other day, she’d never heard of Project 2025.

And it's not just about Trump's base. Trump will get some swing voters or non-Trump Republicans. They should be reachable by this stuff even if hard core MAGAs aren't.

Our so-called "fourth estate" holds power accountable when it is easy. When it comes to chaos agents and bullies in power or trying to attain it, they freeze up and go limp. Play dead. We can not expect it to save us. The 4th Estate is a fantasy.

This contradicts their claim that they're in the business of reporting and not shaping the news. I asked Brian Stelter on Twitter why the reporting is so asymmetrical if it's not a conspiracy to help Trump win. Unsurprisingly he did not answer.

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