“Journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetimes”
Donald “91 Counts” Trump hopes to be reelected president so he can prevent himself from facing justice. Meanwhile, he misuses the justice system’s very due-process features intended to prevent an innocent person from being wrongly convicted to stave off facing a jury of his peers, journalist Mark Jacob tells Greg Sargent.
“These are not the actions of an innocent man,” says Jacob, criticizing the press for whitewashing this as politics as usual.
Sargent writes:
Over the weekend, The New York Times published a news analysis titled, “The Biden-Trump rerun: A nation craving change gets more of the same.” This has become a constant refrain in the press: One of the candidates is running on an explicit set of promises to destroy American democracy, yet the press keeps calling this a “rematch” of 2020, almost as if it’s all a sporting event.
Trump “wants to be a fascist dictator of the United States,” and the press treats it like old news, Jacob complains. “Trump said he wanted termination of the Constitution, and NYT put it on page 13…the media has utterly underplayed the story of an attempt to kill democracy.”
“Some journalists seem bored by the biggest story of our lifetimes,” writes Jacob at his substack.
“They call it a re-run, and sigh a heavy sigh on behalf of voters who say they don’t want either candidate,” summarizes Jay Rosen.
But 2024 is not 2020. The Dobbs decision for which Trump takes credit has shifted the political landscape. Religious extremists are now targeting birth control and in vitro fertilization. Biden has overseen a historic economic recovery. Something has shifted as well in Trump himself.
“Not enough people are sounding the alarm that, based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented,” psychologist Dr. John Gartner tells Salon’s Chauncey DeVega. “In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public.”
Jacob writes:
Yes, it’s a race between two old white guys we already know. But the choice is stark. When the Times argues ridiculously that neither Biden nor Trump is a “change candidate,” it’s ignoring the fact that both of them have clear visions for transforming American politics.
Biden’s agenda calls for making the super-rich pay more taxes, capping prescription drug prices, restoring abortion rights, addressing the climate crisis and creating stronger alliances to confront the growing threats facing the world’s democracies.
Trump’s agenda calls for him to become a dictator and create alliances with other dictators, as well as to harass his opponents with the Justice Department, send troops into American cities, put millions of immigrants in camps and crack down on the press.
Trump on Monday promised one of his first acts as president would be to free prisoners convicted for Jan. 6 crimes. He’ll use the fanfare to obscure quashing federal investigations into himself.
Preposterous
By the numbers: “In the 38 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,358 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol,” per the latest Justice Department statement.
Zoom out: The description by Trump and others of those convicted over the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as “hostages” was denounced by a Reagan-appointed federal judge in D.C. as “preposterous.”
But that’s Trump: preposterous. So is press coverage of him.
Jon Stewart Monday night said what I’ve said for years. MAGA represents the monarchist strain in American politics that never died out after the American Revolution, just uniformed in red, white and blue instead of red coats.
Trump means to abuse due process, absolve himself of his own crimes, and wield the power to have dissenters and looting suspects shot on sight, as Stewart points out at about 10:15 into this clip.
Trump has always been a lunatic. He’s just sunken deeper into lunacy since 2015. Jon Oliver invites viewers to simply read transcripts of Trump speeches.
Thankfully, Trump has begun bleeding support. Will it be enough to save the republic?
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