Get access to Brad Slager's "Riffed From the Headlines," a daily VIP feature where he looks to bring accountability to the mainstream media. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.
Presentation Paradox – THE BULWARK
Enforcing authoritarianism in order to prevent authoritarianism is a unique strategy.
Okay, there is a lot to unpack in this brief clip. At The Bulwark, a post-election cope-session had writer J.V. Last grappling with how we got to a Trump victory, and he bemoaned that Biden lost due to his moderate presidency (we swear, he says this.) What Last theorizes should have taken place was Biden forcing policies such as making Washington, D.C., a state, as well as packing the Supreme Court, in order to stymie the return of Trump.
These are radical and Constitution-defying moves that would have altered the democracy — done in order to prevent Trump from altering our democracy. If this is not dumb enough for you, Last goes on to state these would have been unpopular moves — in other words authoritarian in nature — and it would have still led to a big Democrat loss in the election. The impacted thinking here is amazing.
Well, this happened.
— Lie-Able Sources (@LieAbleSources) November 7, 2024
Here is the @BulwarkOnline clan declaring that in order to have defeated Trump’s authoritarianism Joe Biden needed to…behave like an authoritarian.
The seething is tangible. pic.twitter.com/b3voxrL0pR
Prose & Contradiction – MSNBC
Recommended
First question: Why would you want to reach out to Nazis, Rachel?
As the members of the media class continue to grapple and struggle with the reality of a Trump landslide victory, the amusement is in high supply. The latest comes from Rachel Maddow, as delivered by Megan McArdle of the Washington Post, where it seems the part-time hostess is now suggesting that it is time to do some outreach toward the MAGA Nation crowd.
Tonight's Rachel Maddow monologue is amazing. She is urging people to unburn bridges with (I infer) old Trumpy friends and relatives, book clubs, etc, to join groups ... to connect with people who voted for Trump so you can try to persuade them.
— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 7, 2024
Is this a new version of Kamala’s cliché? “We need to be unburned by what has been voted?”
We here are not sure how exactly one “unburns” something, but what needs to happen in her proposal here is bridge building – and that needs to take place on her side of the ledger.
After eight years of perpetual Nazi-Fascist-Russian-Collusion-Death-to-Democracy accusations, it is pretty clear who has been responsible for igniting those spans, Ms. Maddow.
Reporting on the Mirror – CNN
This is not the behavior of those claiming to be heroic in nature.
More coping and seething is taking place in the nation’s capital, as CNN’s media maven Brian Stelter reports that journalists in town are feeling bereft. We seem to recall immediately after the 2016 election that a number of news outlets increased their staffs in a move to thwart what they were convinced would be an oppressive Donald Trump regime.
It would appear that pitchforks-and-torches mentality has dissipated entirely, as Stelter reports that there is a wave of dismay sweeping through the town and they feel sapped by the prospect of four more years of Trump coverage.
So much for the press that called themselves brave firefighters rushing into burning buildings, and such.
Will there be a journalistic brain drain in DC? A talent agent said what I've also heard anecdotally: A lot of reporters are "questioning if they have it in them to report on another Trump cycle."
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 7, 2024
Reporting on thhe Mirror – WASHINGTON POST
Anyone who is affected by politics to this level should not be in journalism.
In another contradiction of the self-styled mythos of the brave and vigilant journalist, here we have WaPo columnist Shadi Hamid discussing how he cried over the 2016 election result. Now, he offers this up primarily as an object lesson for those currently wailing over the reemergence of a Trump presidency, discussing how he has since grown from that position and sees the nobility of fighting another day.
But to still admit to being that moved over one person gaining an election win is a sign of imbalanced priorities, let alone coming from a journalist.
Opinion | I cried when Trump won. I won’t cry over elections anymore.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 4, 2024
Low-Octane Gaslighting – PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE
Anything less than 100% fealty is unacceptable!
Visiting at CNN was Laura Barrón-López of PBS, one of the dependably leftist journos on a deeply leftist network. She moans that Trump won because there are too many outlets where conservatives can have a voice and get their news.
Despite the press being largely left-leaning and having the support of most social media platforms outside of Twitter, the fact that there are any that permit a conservative viewpoint is considered unacceptable.
No self awareness! @lbarronlopez, a correspondent for PBS, while on CNN, blamed Kamala Harris loss on how “there is an entire right wing media ecosystem that doesn’t exist on the left and it does not exist in the center or mainstream.” pic.twitter.com/QKPjTGHhvO
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) November 7, 2024
Anti-Social Media – THE ATLANTIC
“We can no longer support this platform that…we are promoting our article on…”
There is a recurring item that elements from the left are rage-quitting Xitter, mostly due to Elon Musk facilitating the reelection of Donald Trump. Following at least on the theme comes this polemic from The Atlantic, which has written a piece declaring Xitter has become a de facto home of undiluted Nazi accounts. Writer Charlie Warzel appears to be exiting the platform himself:
To stay on X is not an explicit endorsement of this behavior, but it does help enable it. I’m not at all suggesting—as Musk has previously alleged—that the site be shut down or that Musk should be silenced. But there’s no need to stick around and listen. Why allow Musk to appear even slightly more credible by lending our names, our brands, and our movements to a platform that makes the world more dangerous for real people? To my dismay, I’ve hid from these questions for too long.
We here at RFTH have to admit to confusion; we rarely ever come across these Nazi-White Supremacist entries. It is much like QAnon: We mostly hear about them from the media, without direct involvement.
And, if you were wondering if they promoted this article on the very same hellsite they declare to be inhospitable – why yes, yes they did.
"X is no longer a social-media site with a white-supremacy problem, but a white-supremacist site with a social-media problem," Charlie Warzel writes. https://t.co/jP0l8r1tfx
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 7, 2024
