I had some hope last night while watching that dumpster fire of a convention speech by Donald Trump that the media was going to finally take a look at his cognitive abilities and give them the same obsessive focus as they have done with Joe Biden. In social media many of them were aghast at what they saw and weren’t being shy about saying it.l
So imagine my surprise when I wake up this morning and find that the papers never changed their “unite headlines” in the face of his incoherent, divisive freak show of a speech and the news networks are back to the Biden deathwatch without even a moment’s pause. It’s just hopeless.
Joe Alsop at Columbia Journalism review has some thoughts:
Last weekend, Salena Zito became the first journalist to interview Donald Trump after a gunman tried to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania, a conversation published in the Washington Examiner under the headline: “Trump rewrites Republican convention speech to focus on unity not Biden.” Trump told Zito that he had been preparing a “humdinger” of a speech, but that he’d ripped it up. “It is a chance to bring the country together,” he said. “I was given that chance.” As the Republican National Convention proceeded in Milwaukee, Trump’s team continued to push the unity theme and members of the media echoed it, with varying degrees of skepticism. In a piece quoting allies as saying that Trump had become “serene” and “emotional” in the wake of the shooting, Politico noted that, while he had since posted some unstatesmanlike things online, he had also “leaned into the notion of faith and divine providence, lending credence to allies’ private claims that he is engaging in deep reflection.” Last night, before Trump took the stage for his speech, Scott Jennings, a right-wing pundit on CNN, said that he’d already seen a chunk of it. “Buckle up,” Jennings advised, “because he’s about to blow the doors off and rise to the occasion.”
Finally, Trump appeared, framed by a giant sign spelling his name out in lights. (When the New York Post splashed the headline “Everything’s coming up TRUMP” on Tuesday, it surely didn’t imagine that the reference to Gypsy would soon be quite so visual.) As he spoke, he only mentioned Biden’s name once. (Well, technically twice, but the second time was to underline that he would only be saying it once.) “Typically Fiery Trump Calls for Unity at Republican Convention,” one headline read in the aftermath; “Trump urges unity at final night of the RNC,” read another. A news analysis in the New York Times noted that Trump had “attempted a politically cunning transformation.” Sure, he had proved unable to resist “a handful of exaggerations and personal attacks on Democrats”—claiming that Democrats cheated in 2020; calling Nancy Pelosi “crazy”; repeatedly referring to an “invasion” of immigrants and comparing them to “Hannibal Lecter.” But “open threats and nakedly vicious imagery were largely absent from his address,” as he exhibited both a “newfound temperance” resulting from his near-death experience and a “new approach” that “poses fresh challenges for Democrats.”
Even that article, though, seemed to be arguing with itself. (Headline: “Trump Struggles to Turn the Page on ‘American Carnage’”; subheading: “Trump promised to bridge political divides, and then returned to delighting in deepening them.”) And other major outlets seemed unconvinced by the whole unity thing. The Washington Post reported that Trump “wrapped a fresh gesture toward unity around his usual dark view of American decline and loathing for political opponents and immigrants”; other headlines read “Trump Calls for Unity but Shifts to Familiar Attacks,” and “Donald Trump called for unity at the top of his speech. Then he went after Democrats.” When Trump finally stopped talking—after an hour and thirty-two minutes—CNN’s Jake Tapper said that he had “started off with what we were told was the new tone of unity,” but then, “and I hope this doesn’t sound harsh, it pretty much became the kind of speech we generally hear from Donald Trump at rallies.” Chris Wallace added that he’d thought “we’re off to the races here, this is really gonna be a different Donald Trump,” only to come away disappointed. In between, they paused to take in what Trump claimed was “the biggest balloon drop in the history of balloons.”
[…]
The conversation put me in mind of an old cliché from the 2016 election—one coined by Zito, who also interviewed Trump back then and famously concluded that, while his fans take him “seriously, but not literally,” the press “takes him literally, but not seriously.” Coverage of Trump has evolved since then, of course, but as I see it, the literally/seriously balance remains something of a puzzle. His speech last night is a case in point. We now have a Trump record to assess—one that indicates that, when he talks about supposed Democratic election cheating and “invasions” of immigrants, he is being very serious, even if talk of Hannibal Lecter might not be literal. His promises of unity, on the other hand, were literal but didn’t deserve to be taken seriously at all; at least, not in the absence of evidence. Earlier in the week, Sargent suggested that “if media figures are so eager to depict Trump as unifying, then let’s lay down a hard metric”—that, before indulging such claims, Trump must clear “the absolute minimum threshold” of renouncing his election denialism and “authoritarian designs” for a second term. This is a welcome idea. In the absence of his doing so, the designs must remain the biggest story.
He’s actually being more generous that I think is necessary. Trump was a train wreck last night with his flamboyant bandage on his head, kissing the helmet of the dead fireman, going on and on about the shooting trying to portray himself as some sort of hero but really sounding like an old man talking about his gall bladder surgery. The rest was a low energy rally speech and as embarrassing as they all are only this time it was in front of the whole country. Most people were appalled. But the news media is assiduously sweeping it under the rug and back on the Biden candidacy deathwatch this morning.
I’m very worried. The Democrats aren’t just up against MAGA and the right wing media in this election. Even if Biden does drop out, as seems more and more likely, the media appears to be completely unable to properly cover Donald Trump. As Alsop points out elsewhere in his piece, they were working at getting Project 2025 out into the ether and now it’s disappeared again in the wake of the shooting, the convention and the Biden story. Whenever there’s choice, the tough coverage of Trump drops by the wayside for the next shiny object which is often generated by Trump himself. (This idea that he’s a changed man because of the assassination attempt is a perfect example. Please.)
If the Dems ever get their act together the story line might change in a more positive direction but until then we’re stuck in this feedback loop.