This reporting presents it as a debate with reasoning on both sides, rather than a brazen act with no defence supplied. It's not good journalism to legitimise a position that didn't even attempt to legitimise itself.
Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, summarises its mechanisms and intent quite succinctly: “This is the path that Viktor Orbán took in Hungary, where you use the power of the state to ensure that the media is compliant, that outlets are either curbed and become much less willing to be critical, or they are sold to owners who will make that happen."
- Do something wildly unacceptable
- Media writes an article declaring the action is indefensible
- Those involved complain publicly about the unfair nature of the story; their supporters back them up
- Next time to avoid controversy media writes a slightly more fair story
It doesn’t even require state power because technically in the US they cannot. There is clearly threat of power kicking journalists out of the pentagon is a clear example. But it’s much more about creating a permission structure through public airing of grievances.
The net effect is that when Trump says "we are going to fix housing prices by deporting fifty million people" the Times writes that while the policy may not work it does seem like Trump is trying to tackle the rising cost of housing.
Counter to what? Most news sources are owned by people who support this administration’s positions, and are glad they don’t have to do this whole charade of pretending to care about the truth or normal people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/us/politics/trump-fake-vi...
And I'm including the "leftists" who decided a second Trump term was preferable to the "status quo" under Kamala Harris, or that it didn't matter because "both parties were the same." There's a special circle of Hell reserved for that lot.
Why don't more people feel insulted when lied to?
What should I expect from the same administration that also altered the (tiny fraction of) Epstein files before releasing them.
Independent of your views on immigration, or law and order, or anything. Juvenile shit like this does absolutely nothing to advance any policy goals.
Even worse, why should you average normie trust any image that comes out from the White House? If there's a serious national security issue, why are we going to trust a group of people who are willing to doctor a photo for such stupid ends?
It is a politics of meanness.
or trust that whatever is released by the DOJ on the Epstein files is genuine
Their voters wanted exactly that tho. Although they did not wanted harm for themselves, conservatives and republicans actively wanted this kind of "owning the libs" and insulting "the libs".
This part is literally what the vote was about.
This is precisely the thing they voted for.
Democrats, too. They, collectively, made decisions that allowed a guy like Trump to win, twice. They screamed about the risks every day, but that was only a campaign tactic. It was massively selfish and incompetent for them not to make major policy pivots with the goal of just annihilating Trump and his movement. Instead they just treated it as a regular election, where the goal was to eek out a victory for their partisans.
When when you say your opponent is a fascist, it's time to tell your partisans to be quiet, and expand your tent massively.
> This is precisely the thing they voted for.
Come on, that's obviously false. Your response to misinformation and deception is to spread your own misinformation and deception? Any kind of "every X" state describing a large group of people is almost certainly false, and is really just evidence of your own black-and-white thinking and partisan battle mentality.
It's the partisan battle mentality that got us here, and if we're going to get out of it, vilification needs to be limited to only a very small number of people. Do you really think it's smart to bind people closer to Trump by attacking them?
The Biden administration slow-rolled prosecution of Trump for his crimes because they wanted to court moderates and republicans. That failure enabled Trump to run again from somewhere other than prison.
"If only the dems had run Romney for president, then they would have won" is not serious.
- trying to appeal to the "center" instead of going the other way and channelling the more radical elements' rage against Trump. I believe Bernie would have beaten Trump as the nominee. Yes, the GOP would have painted him as a "Communist destroying the American Way of Life", but they did that to Harris anyway so being centrist gave the Dems nothing.
- not focusing on prices and jobs from day one, in simple terms the average uneducated worker could understand, and mostly, trying to say "things are good/better" which may have been true, but everyone else thought they were not when they went to buy eggs
- Biden trying to stay in for a second term instead of bowing out at the start
It sounds a lot like you actually agree; those are all reasons why every Democrat constituent should be livid with the party "establishment". Instead, any time this point is brought up, people respond instantly with the "it's not a 'both sides' issue" thought-terminating cliché. In this case, one person says, "Okay, but obviously the other people shot themselves in the foot" and the response is "I disagree, here's how they shot themselves in the foot".
"Both sides" is also often a thought-terminating cliche. It is always important to look at the larger context these points are being made in.
Here, the original comment was taking individual Republican voters to task for supporting this performatively-cruel societally-destructive con man. This is something that every individual Republican voter directly did, while Democrat voters did not do and would not have ended up doing [had Harris won]. Harris, for all of her faults and would-have-been letdowns, is not a piece of human trash who overtly promised to destroy our society. Reasonable people can disagree with her policies, but she appeared to be poised to at least lead the country rather than deliberately divide us.
But the comment responding to that then tried to equivocate that blame to "both sides", going so far as to use the word "collectively" to try and bootstrap personal responsibility from the (obviously terrible) actions of the Democratic party.
And no, that is not an equal criticism in the context of criticizing Republican voters who actively voted for overt evil! The many failings of the Democratic party is something that definitely needs to be discussed, but not in the context of the much larger and more serious problems in the Republican party. Rather, bringing it up here seems like yet another instance of the only-Democrats-have-agency fallacy.
The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.
Did you pay any attention at all to the 2024 election? Biden's age? Inflation? The half-hearted, too-late pivot on border enforcement? What you say is nonsense. It's twisted misinformation. There was a lot more going on.
> The idea that the left need to go high while Trump and the GOP...
Yeah, it's cathartic to act like a kid on a playground, and unleash your inner asshole because some other kid was mean, but it's stupid and immature.
> The fact that the dems are weak assholes unable to make even symbolic measures towards someone that's openly violating the constitution and harassing citizens is symptomatic of the deeper rot of attempting to be a 'big tent' party and having zero actual spine or policy.
The dems are weak, but that's because they want to stay exactly as they are instead of becoming a truly majoritarian party. If the dems make Trump-like power grabs (as many liberals fantasize about), it'll just make Trump stronger, because he can and will use the backlash.
Did you? Biden and the Democratic party was entirely focused on attempting to appeal to 'centrists' and Republicans, exactly what you wanted and they lost because of it.
> Yeah, it's cathartic to act like a kid on a playground, and unleash your inner asshole because some other kid was mean, but it's stupid and immature.
No, it's called having an actual policy and stance. If someone's behaving like a dumb asshole then they should be called out on being a dumb asshole. We should expect more from our politicians and one of those things involves actually calling this shit out.
> The dems are weak, but that's because they want to stay exactly as they are instead of becoming a truly majoritarian party. If the dems make Trump-like power grabs (as many liberals fantasize about), it'll just make Trump stronger, because he can and will use the backlash.
At this point, the only recovery from the damage Trump has inflicted upon this country is going to be a massive power grab. That means dissolving ICE and arresting everyone involved, packing the supreme court, pulling out all of the Trump appointees and criminally investigating everyone involved with this administration. And let me be very clear: any Dem that does not agree not only deserves to lose, but they deserve to be harassed for the rest of their life and never, ever hold another job again. There is no middle ground anymore.
Why do you think this is what they wanted?
> At this point, the only recovery from the damage Trump has inflicted upon this country is going to be a massive power grab. That means dissolving ICE and arresting everyone involved, packing the supreme court, pulling out all of the Trump appointees and criminally investigating everyone involved with this administration. And let me be very clear: any Dem that does not agree not only deserves to lose, but they deserve to be harassed for the rest of their life and never, ever hold another job again. There is no middle ground anymore.
This just ignores the point from the parent comment it is in response to; regardless of how agreeable these actions would be to you and others (myself included), there are many who could be easily convinced that the result will be harmful to them pretty much "because it's 'the Democrats' doing it". You can arrest however many thousands of politicians and agents; the problem would be exacerbated in that case since the same people who voted for Trump twice would feel even more aggrieved. Many of them like what (they think) he's doing and would jump at any opportunity to vote for someone similar.
What you describe would not be the recovery you hope for, at least not long term. Granted, I don't know what would be, but this issue is one of "post-truth" where significant amounts of people can simultaneously be convinced of conflicting opinions about an event, even given videos from multiple perspectives, as we learned recently. Throwing an easily-contested "massive power grab" into the mix is not a serious suggestion. The political machine that got Trump elected will easily get another demagogue elected off the back of lies mixed with truths about said power grab.
> Others were likely motivated by things Trump is willing to say out loud ... his policies actively make all those problems worse
These two things are not mutually exclusive, but rather they are directly related. Republicans reflexively categorizing people into "good people" and "other" is exactly what made them not listen to any of the substantive criticism of Trump's "policies" in the context of what he claimed they would achieve [0]
Racism, misogyny, etc form the main structure of this dynamic, because they are straightforward categories that can be quickly judged. Even without any societal history of racism, it's straightforward to adopt a 90% rule that white -> ingroup, and nonwhite -> outgroup. Since this categorization system now has "predictive power" [1], it becomes worth augmenting it with more rules and exceptions. A non-white person can become "one of the good ones" by "acting white". A white woman can remain ingroup-accepted by "knowing her place", or can become part of the outgroup by actively rejecting the heteronormative role (eg declaring herself a lesbian).
After this stews for a while, gaining more and more "predictive power" (aka confirmation bias), there becomes a tacit rule that anybody not nodding in full agreement with the Party mantras is also in the outgroup. Essentially everyone "good" is supporting this particular leader and repeating the litanies of a narrow Overton window - if you're not onboard, then the simple answer is you're not "good" and therefore not worth listening to at all - even if you're merely trying to point out how they are not going to get what they themselves claim to want.
The end result is basically a self-reinforcing cult that goes off the rails of all reason, and here we are.
[0] it's understandable that people reject criticisms of policies that come from a place of judging them with different values. For example, someone arguing that tariffs are bad because free trade is inherently good and brings benefits somewhere else, handwaving about the manufacturing economy being disrupted - not going to be very convincing to anyone that sees the lack of manufacturing jobs as a problem. But here I am talking about criticism within the policies' own stated goals. For example, even accepting the goal of wanting to bring manufacturing back, the current tariff policies are abjectly terrible.
[1] also given an effectiveness boost by most people not seeing a significant number of people from the "obvious outgroup" in their day to day lives, and instead mostly only sees them through mass media which highlights the worst examples
> I'm sure some people were motivated by animosity, racism, misogyny.
A lot of them were, in fact. But that was not my claim. Above all, they wanted to see this kind of behavior. That is what was Trumps main attraction the whole time.
> Our oversea imperialism does not benefit average Americans.
Trump is pure imperialist. His international politics is literally imperialism.
> We need to "drain the swamp".
Trump is the swamp and made corruption much much worst.
> Our trade policies are hurting average Americans.
Trumps and republican politics in general hurts average Americans even more. And it was the plan the whole time, Project 2025 is all about hurting average Americans.
That said, I think "Trump's voters are all assholes" is a talking point NOT of liberal voters, but of the Democratic party, because it conveniently avoids any discussion of policy, particularly where the party and its typical voters may differ.
Trade is a good example. The bipartisan consensus since Clinton has largely been that unfettered trade is good. However, if you work in manufacturing, or are in a labor pool that competes with former manufacturing workers (or workers who might have chosen a career in manufacturing, or mechanical engineering, or processing engineering), then there are certainly some drawbacks to consider.
To be clear: I do not in any way endorse Trump's policy. I am not trying to discount "owning the libs", or violent racism, certainly both motivators for a good chunk of the MAGA camp. I am saying that it is worth considering policy issues that may have convinced people to vote for him. Especially if you separate campaigning from implementation. Trump's foreign policy has been intervention-heavy, but his rhetoric was frequently isolationist.
I agree with what you said, that's definitely a talking point meant to maintain a feeling of righteousness while avoiding self-reflection.
I disagree with distinction between the "Democratic party" and "liberal voters," if anything, I'd say it's the opposite. By and large, I'd expect the professionals of the party to not be so stupid to use "Trump's voters are all assholes" as a talking point (even if they think it). IMHO, it's a talking point of extremely polarized liberal voters, who are letting their emotions get the better of them, and themselves thinking and acting in a more Trump-like manner.
Both the party and its voters seem extremely reluctant to think about their role in this, and seem to prefer to continue to make the same mistakes, hoping luck or other-side incompetence brings them a better result next time. It's so stupid.
Released and back with family in Venez.
Wait, what?
Please don’t misread: I am genuinely curious how I one may have read this another way and how that could have been helped with rewording.
1. "Defends" suggests some level of explanation and justification; the White House did not present any here.
2. "AI image showing arrested woman" could mean a fully-generated image of a woman, rather than editing an image of an existing person under law enforcement control to disguise the actual facts. The first one would be bizarre, the second one is much more problematic.
The image is AI, whether AI added a tiny cloud in the upper corner, or completely fabricated it from a prompt.
Your example shows two things that are obviously different from a moral standpoint. The first would not be news and the second would.
"The government... the American government - they're sneaky, they're very deceitful, they're liars, they're cheats, they're rip-offs. I mean, the American government is one-- is one systematic government that... that nobody can trust. I don't trust them myself"
That's some post-constitutional anti-democracy bullsh*t right there that should have zero tolerance because that means everything else is likely a lie.
It's like a virus since he came down the golden escalator, first every single thing he said was a lie or wild exaggeration, and then he recruited exclusively only people around him to do the same.
There's good reason the highest power positions in the government are HIS PERSONAL LAWYERS with legal obligation first to him beyond anything else.
Trump did not have enough pay the money from his rape case. Now a year later through bribes and making Americans poorer with tariffs he personally has earned over a billion dollars. Greenland conquering gave him a couple extra weeks to break the law and only release the 1 percent of photos from the Epstein files that had Clinton in them.
Say it isn't so . . .