We're quoting this column by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch at length because it goes to the heart of the failure of American journalism (once again) to explain what's really going on in our politics today. There's a bit more at the link, but this is the heart:
They stood on an arena stage in Milwaukee under a massive sign that read “Democracy” — the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla that loomed over this strange political event but was never really discussed. When the dust finally settled after two hours of the first televised debate of the 2024 GOP primaries, nothing — from the rude kids-table outbursts from the impertinent Vivek Ramaswamy to the doomed efforts by Nikki Haley or Mike Pence to be the grown-ups in the room — actually mattered inside the airy Fiserv Forum except for one thing.
All those not-so-wonderful people out there in the dark. A mob that raged, and which ultimately ruled.
This audience seemed to only care about The Man Who Wasn’t There — Donald Trump, who was too busy refueling his private jet for his next arrest to bother attending. The restive crowd reached its peak when its bête noire, the anti-Trump turncoat Chris Christie, dared try to challenge Ramaswamy’s outburst that POTUS 45 “was the best president of the 21st century.” It filled the basketball arena with boos.
The pro-Trump ruckus was such that Fox News coanchors Brett Baier and Martha McCallum dramatically turned around to face the audience. “So listen,” Baier said, “the more time we spend doing this, the less time they can talk about issues you want to talk about.”
LOL. As the night dragged on, the only “issues” the crowd seemed jazzed about were brash challenges to scientific truths that it considers elite liberal pieties — like Ramaswamy’s false claim that climate change solutions have killed more people than climate change — or authoritarian vows of violence, like Ron DeSantis’s promise to render any drug dealers at the border “stone cold dead.” None of the eight people on that stage “won” — only Trump, his angry mob, and a 21st-century brand of American fascism that is the enemy of democracy, the writing on the wall.
If you watched the hours of TV news coverage during an especially momentous week in August, there was little sense of that reality, and for long stretches of pundit blather, none at all — as talking heads gave earnest high school debating marks to candidates who are all but ignored by the GOP voter base. The disconnect deepened the next night as Trump turned what would surely be his comeuppance — his surrender at Atlanta’s bug-infested county jail for fingerprinting and a mugshot ― into an outlaw display of authoritarian force.
It was a remarkable night of imagery over substance, yet there was little discussion of why this accused felon was getting a phalanx of dozens of motorcycle cops, comprising police who are drawn to Trump’s authoritarian bluster like moths to the light. Trump’s glowering mugshot instantly became the most-talked-about picture in American history — yet not one pundit was able to explain why tens of millions of everyday voters are so eager to return to the White House this man who attempted a coup on Jan. 6, 2021, or why his poll numbers rise with each indictment. I guess the 20th-century author and socialist Upton Sinclair really nailed it when he wrote, ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
He then goes on to call out specific "journalists" whose salaries depend on not understanding what's going on (the pundits' names doubtless will be familiar to you).
What should journalists be about? It seems obvious, but for the zillionth time:
These are the stakes: dueling visions for America — not Democratic or Republican, with parades and red, white, and blue balloons, but brutal fascism or flawed democracy. The news media needs to stop with the horse-race coverage of this modern-day March on Rome, stop digging incessantly for proof that both sides are guilty of the same sins, and stop thinking that a war for the imperiled survival of the American Experiment is some kind of inexplicable “tribalism.”
We need to hear from more experts on authoritarian movements, and fewer pollsters and political strategists. We need journalists who’ll talk a lot less about who’s up or down and a lot more about the stakes — including Trump’s plans to dismantle the democratic norms that he calls “the administrative state,” to weaponize the criminal justice system, and to surrender the war against climate change — if the 45th president becomes the 47th. We need the media to see 2024 not as a traditional election but as an effort to mobilize a mass movement that would undo democracy and splatter America with more blood like what was shed Saturday in Jacksonville. We need to understand that if the next 15 months remain the worst covered election in U.S. history, that it might also be the last.
We're not at all sanguine about the media -- whose salaries and corporate profits depend on not understanding -- doing that. For a reliable predictor, just look at recent history. In fact, looking for the media to "save" us from full- on fascism simply by reporting what is in full view for everyone to see is almost counterproductive. We need to be in charge of our own democratic destiny. We can't leave it to others, especially to dishonest brokers in the media.
As Bunch notes, there was nothing about "democracy" at the Republican "debate" except for the backdrop. What was on display in Milwaukee, from the candidates, the audience, and from "The Man Who Wasn't There" is "brutal fascism." That's the understanding that forms the reality of our politics today.
(Photo: "Blood and soil" too obvious? Irony lives on in Milwaukee / Joshua Lott, Washington Post)
