Hey, that's my theory! 😅
(Except I usually say "villains" and am keen to point out that this includes Republicans themselves, they 100% act like they know they're the villains and are proud of it)
A few years ago, Jon Lovett floated a theory that media treats Democrats like protagonists - to be challenged, accounted, and forced to be behave in growth-oriented ways - while the GOP are treated like antagonists - immutable, expected to disrupt, thematic obstacles.
Thinking about that a lot.
Yeah, I was just thinking about this with regard to the NYT calling for Biden to withdraw. They see themselves as serving, and only able to influence, the good guys, so it’s not even worth trying to appeal to the bad guys, and they’re wrong about both.
NYT is especially galling, because they act like Dems are their only audience, but then are like "anyways, here's some more Op Eds from Bretbug, Douthat, and a special from Tom Cotton calling for the military to murder you all"
Right! It’s like “we believe our only audience is Dems and our job should be to serve them up not only stuff they don’t want to hear, but actively repugnant shit, in the name of hearing both sides.” If you’re gonna be a partisan paper, do it with your whole chest.
Like it might not be worth trying to appeal to the bad guys but it's sure as hell worth talking about them/covering them on the premise that a national political party is not supposed to just openly be a pack of villains!!
*Republicans say that if their leader is held accountable for doing crimes they will do revenge prosecutions of their political enemies*
VSPs: hmmm let me stroke my chin about this
NO YOU DOLT, you have your headline right there, it's "GOP openly operating by the logic of a crime syndicate"!
I guess they’re thinking of it in terms of being a paper that tends to endorse democrats, but they’re free to stop doing that too, because it’s stupid and outdated and doesn’t matter.
If they think it’s bad that Trump tries to overthrow the government and committed so many crimes that he became president and, you know, *everything*, they should say so! Making this purported principled case only on the one side can’t help but point up that they’re not doing it on the other.
Partisan newspapers were very common in early American history, and the media is currently bleeding itself dry. I think we should try a different model than depending on pundits that clearly dislike Biden personally - what’s the worst that can happen?
