People sometimes ask what I mean when I criticize the New York Times and other major news organizations for sanitizing and normalizing the profoundly sick, hateful rot at the heart of the modern Republican Party.
Well here’s a great example: An article today by Michael C. Bender headlined “How JD Vance’s Combative Conservatism Is Shaping Trumpism 2.0.”
Here’s his opening paragraph:
From attacks on “childless cat ladies” to claims of migrants devouring neighbors’ pets, Senator JD Vance is providing many Americans with their first glimpse of an ultra-online, aggressively combative generation of rabble-rousing conservatism.
Yes, hurling racist invective at a vulnerable community to fire up a hateful and bigoted base is just “rabble rousing” to the Times. It’s “combative conservatism.”
(Note, too, how the author jokingly downplays Vance’s blood libel against lawful Haitian immigrants in the lede, using the phrase “devouring neighbors’ pets.”)
Bender continues:
In this version of Trumpism 2.0, publicity is paramount, precision is passé and controversy is often its own reward.
Let me rewrite that for you, Michael:
This version of Trumpism 2.0 centers around attention-getting lies that get massive media coverage.
And typically, Bender describes the obvious, objectively true conclusion about Vance’s conduct not in his own voice, but at arm’s length — as the interpretation of Vance’s partisan opponents:
Democrats see something else — a leading Republican they view as willing to traffic in anti-migrant attacks anchored in racist tropes.
It’s not just Democrats who see that. It’s anyone paying attention.
Bender’s byline includes the fact that he “traveled on Senator JD Vance’s campaign plane this week for events in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
And that explains a lot.
As Bender himself writes, Vance “excoriates the news media” generally speaking, but “regularly takes questions from news organizations and almost never directly criticizes the reporters who line up to parry with him.”
In other words, Vance is nice to Bender. So it would be rude to not be nice to Vance. This is Vance’s reward for granting access.
Bender quotes without any supporting evidence the assertion by a Republican strategist that Vance has been “remarkably effective” with “a younger generation.”
He also gives Vance credit for “his proclivity for the fight, his willingness to push the boundaries in a political battle and his undeniable youth.”
By contrast, Bender waits a long while before even mentioning the most startling, evocative, and newsworthy thing Vance said all week:
On Sunday, during a live interview on CNN, he delivered a phrase that will live in the “alternative facts” pantheon of remarkable Trump-era expressions when he described his willingness to “create stories” to help spotlight important issues.
Yes, Vance openly confessed that he is willing to lie to get attention – in fact, that’s his MO, plain and simple — and Bender only mentions it 18 paragraphs in.
Even then, Bender dutifully covers up for his subject, writing:
Mr. Vance’s point was that the concerns of his constituents who had made the allegations were real and that he had provided them with a much-needed national media spotlight.
Bender doesn’t mention at all Vance’s newest vile racist lie: that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are spreading diseases including HIV and tuberculosis. As Nathalie Baptiste writes for HuffPost, “that’s not true. There has been no ‘measurable or discernible increase’ in diseases, according to Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the state department of health.”
Bender also doesn’t mention that Vance is lying about the Haitian immigrants by calling them “illegal” – when they are here absolutely legally. (To her credit, Bender’s Times colleague Maggie Astor wrote that story up.)
Vance is bombing by any normal standard. He is trafficking in filth and incitement. But all he has to do is play nice with Michael Bender and he gets a glowing write-up. That’s how it works.
The Times should be better than that.