VIDEO: How Trump Normalization Really Works
Why the political media slept on Trump's call for Mark Milley's death and other baffling decisions
On September 22 of this year, Donald Trump accused his former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley of treason and suggested he deserved to be executed.
Two days later, it became news fit to publish on the New York Times website, and then later on the front page of the print edition, over 20 paragraphs into a story titled “As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase.” You can read that story, in all its passive construction, here.
I don’t mean to single out the Times, which was not alone in reacting to Trump’s attack so belatedly, or treating it as ancillary to other developments. (“Gen. Mark Milley, polarizing Joint Chiefs chairman, exits center stage”—Washington Post, September 24, 2023.)
In fairness to the people who cover Donald Trump for a living, he issued the threat during dinner hour on a Friday (east-coast time). In less fairness to them, approximately everyone in the world is familiar with the expression “stop the presses,” which was coined long before newspaper reporters could file copy from their mobile phones.
Eventually they all caught up. The din of criticism grew, and Trump’s attack on Milley (a witness in Trump’s federal January 6 prosecution) soon helped form the basis of DOJ’s motion to place him under a gag order.
But the laggardly reaction told a story of its own. How journalists present news, and how quickly, with what degree of alarm—these are all forms of communication. They don’t affect the content of journalism necessarily, but they do convey whether the people who produce it think they’re chasing urgent stories or not. (In real life, the words “I’m sorry” take on a particular meaning when forced and delivered with rolling eyes.)
We can tell when the couple hundred individuals who comprise the mainstream political media (cable news hosts, their producers, beltway reporters for DC rags and national newspapers) think something ought to be top of mind for the public, because they snap to attention and move fast.
The indifference Trump’s press pool shows to his casual incitement of violence is conspicuous enough that Post media reporter Paul Farhi wrote a column about it last week, attributing the phenomenon to desensitization—it’s hard to stay shocked by a provocateur forever. I recommend the column—it captures something real and important—but I think the issue runs a bit deeper. So I made it the subject of this week’s Decoding the News.
The political media yawns while our democracy slips away. Worse, they are aiding and abetting the demise. It is amazing to me that after covering this lunatic for eight years, the escalation in his threats are just “old news.” I think these deeply cynical journalists actually like taking down dems with relentlessly petty coverage because they don’t like them (“pretend dogooders”) and admire the Machiavellian ruthlessness of the GOP. (“That’s just who they are.”)
They and more importantly, their editors, know exactly what they are doing. When Americans believe we are in a recession and that the economy was better under Trump; that Biden and Trump did the same thing with classified Docs; that Biden is frail and mentally unstable while Trump is vigorous, that our borders are “open”--among many other misconceptions--it is the media’s fault. They have failed in their basic job:to inform. They are ultimately doing the bidding of the Right, who have worked the refs for years, even as these “neutral” journalists deny it.
It used to be the NYT set the trend for the day’s coverage. While that still holds true to some extent, they are now played by RW media and the GOP. When Fox bangs on about a “story” you can be sure the Times picks it up--they don’t want to be seen showing favoritism--and the rest follow. I will give them a bit of credit though; they have refrained from giving blaring headline news to the ridiculous GOP led House committees; no Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi this time around.
There is still good journalism and sources of info out there. Follow Dem leaders you like. Read a variety of sources--David Rothkopf in the Daily Beast (he’s also great to follow in SM); Charlie Pierce in Esquire; Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC, Jennifer Rubin and Dana Milbank in WAPO; Sheldon Whitehouse on SM and Dahlia Lithwick in Slate for SCOTUS (and ProPublica); Margaret Sullivan in the Guardian and here on Substack; the Bulwark (Tim Miller JVL, Anne Applebaum); Tom Nichols in the Atlantic, Rachel Maddow. And Brian, Dan Pfeiffer, and Ben Rhodes.
Excellent entry, Brian. One quibble--their attitude does color the story; the threat against the former top general should not have been 20 graphs in. And now the Times wants to dumb down its coverage because people can’t read or pay attention. But I digress.
Are you able to provide transcripts easily? I can’t do videos. Actually not can’t so much as I don’t like them. I much prefer to read …