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It’s Trump, Trump, Trump all the time

Behold the top of the New York Times front page at this moment in time:

It's not that all the Trump stories are positive. They aren't. It's that Trump is allowed to set the agenda for political coverage almost single-handedly. Do they even know they're doing it? I wonder sometimes. It's like Steve Jobs's infamous reality distortion field: you get sucked in whether you want to or not. That's Trump and the media these days.

32 thoughts on “It’s Trump, Trump, Trump all the time

  1. gs

    This is how Trump won in 2016. The print and audio media led with the latest outrageous Trump story .every. .single. .day. Free advertising for his campaign then and free advertising for his campaign now.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      Yes, it is. What the media is most effective at is telling the nation what is important. If TV is showing an empty airfield awaiting the arrival of Trump’s plane, as it regularly did in 2016, it is telling the nation what, and who, is important. When it cut away from a Clinton policy speech (boring!) to comment on Trump walking down to the tarmac, the viewers were getting a lesson on what mattered. The coverage of Trump on CNN, NPR, and in the NYT, WaPo, and other papers was more instrumental in Trump winning than all that Fox and other right-wing media did combined.

      What has mainstream media learned? I’m afraid the answer is that he’s profitable. That, sadly, is more important than preserving democracy.

      I’m afraid that they do know what they are doing. The double standards, the sane-washing, the heavy thumb on the scale doesn’t happen by accident.

      Exhibit 78263:
      https://x.com/mattgertz/status/1844410550278869001?s=46&t=ItVtC79AmXYdssEcGGydmg

  2. akapneogy

    The NYT is just following the trend of Trump watches, Trump boots and Trump bibles. I am sure they have as much contempt for their readership as Trump has for his supporters. But it is a free country and, more importantly, a free market.

  3. Josef

    The bafoonish clown gets the attention he craves by people who should recognize when they're being played. Then again maybe they want to be played.

  4. bebopman

    Calling back to a concern you had earlier mr. Drum, Huff Post has an article about how little attention the Harris proposal on home health care has gotten:

    Still, the relative lack of attention to Harris’ proposal is more than a little ironic given all the grief she has taken for not putting forward enough policy, or not outlining a vision, or not distinguishing herself from President Joe Biden. Now she’s doing all three and the response is … a collective shrug?

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-medicare-home-care-attention_n_67094dc3e4b0f3da6456d7f1

    Yes, Trump nonsense is crowding out Harris substance.

    1. OldFlyer

      agree ( i think 🙂 Am amused how many journalists think Harris needs to "Describe and detail her plans more".

      Like Trump has done ???

  5. jdubs

    This is not new. The NYT has amplified Trumps messages and attacked his enemies very consistently for the last 8 years. Definitely a different approach than FoxNews, but theres always more than 1 way to support a mission.

    1. SeanT

      The Times is worse this time because they should know better but can't help themselves and they continue to try to rationalize the batshittery

      1. jdubs

        Sure, but its just like FoxNews and other Trump supporters. I guess its worse for them to continue their support given what we learned about Trump over the last 8 years.....but its not a mistake, its not as if they dont understand exactly what they are doing.

        It might be hard to believe that the NYT is taking this approach with clarity of mind, but...here we are.

  6. politicalfootball

    It's not that all the Trump stories are positive.

    All of them soft-pedal Trump's loathsomeness, and they are all therefore positive relative to reality -- which is the proper measure.

    Even the superficially negative story on the Colorado town doesn't capture Trump's relentless racist smears. He and Vance have been talking about Springfield, Ohio repeatedly for a month now -- an essentially identical set of lies that are, in turn, part of a pattern going back forever. But the NYT barely acknowledges that conduct, to the point of not mentioning Springfield at all.

    And that's the negative story.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      +1

      One element that is confounding is that many of Trump’s worst comments are intentional. E.g., his disparagement of Detroit this week didn’t happen bc he can’t control himself. It happens bc many Michiganders in the burbs and rural areas don’t like Detroit themselves, and Trump wants to signal he’s got their back. He may be racist and condescending, but that’s okay with them. Hating on Detroit is old sport for many of them. When mainstream media (neutrally) and Dems (negatively) report on Trump’s over-the-line comments, they only amplify the message that Trump wants everybody to hear.

      I’m not saying that it’s going to work this cycle in flipping Michigan or winning the election, but that’s the dynamic at play.

      1. Anandakos

        Bibi did the hard lifting of flipping Michigan. I think Trump is going to repeat the Blue Wall Sweep of 2016, and drag that millionaire over the line in Wisconsin. I hope not, but it looks inevitable. ALL on the Refused are Trumpies trying to make Dems over-confident and lazy.

  7. Justin

    He’s going to be the next president… by legitimate or illegitimate means… he’s the King. The media is reconciling with this reality to save their lives.

    It’s a shame that kid missed. He’s a hero… even if he was crazy. 😔

    You’ll turn too. Eventually… you’ll turn. Save yourself.

  8. Special Newb

    Well what do you do? Ignore his crazy statements?

    Harris using his own strategy of going to alternative outlets to reach low info voters.

    1. SeanT

      Yes. Ignore him. Or be much more selective He wants the attention. it is not like the coverage is providing any accountability or fact checking. He is just flooding the zone with shit. That is the strategy

    2. JohnH

      What do you do? Of course not. But you don't have to play them up to the entirety of the front page, no more than the non-story of Comey's potential "discovery" on Wiener's laptop of Clnton's emails.

      The media, especially the NYT, just let themselves be played. They eat it up.

  9. Brett

    It's because there's always some new thing with him, and the people around him leak constantly - I remember during his Presidency, the first two years in particular was just a constant leak of anything that was happening in the White House.

  10. CaliforniaDreaming

    This is the single worst thing about the Orange POS. I remember NPR's Weekly News Round Up. Before Trump it was a normal thing, then, by 2017 it was almost all Trump, all the time and almost always some insane shit. Every fucking day, it never stopped.

    Man, I hope Harris can pull this off.

    1. Batchman

      It's the same thing on late night. Seth Meyers' A Closer Look has never been about anything but Trump for the longest time. I can't say about Colbert but I stopped watching most of it largely because it was 99% Trump and I'm sure it still is. John Oliver, and Bill Maher to some extent, are the only ones who manage to create meaningful content about other things. And there's still next to no coverage of Harris, negative or otherwise.

  11. D_Ohrk_E1

    The correct headlines of a truth-telling journal should be:

    - "Trump visits Aurora Colorado, a target of his disinformation campaign on immigrants"
    - "Trump erroneously blames immigrants for housing costs"
    - "Trump is considering Brooke Rollins as his chief of staff to implement Rollins' Project 2025"
    - "Elon Musk is attempting to buy votes for Trump"
    - "JD won't answer questions that would get him in trouble with Trump"

    But the NYT is not a truth-telling journal; it's a seller of print.

  12. tango

    Thee are so many things to loathe about Trump. But something that particularly irks me is that he is excellent at making everything about him. He is the world's greatest troll. It is utterly exhausting. It is impossible to escape him. He makes reading the newspaper or listening to the news or reading this blog an exercise in irritation. He makes my life worse.

    I am rooting for a fatal heart attack for him right now. Literally now.

  13. CAbornandbred

    NYT, the paper of record - for the people in the know in NY and DC. The average reader never sees the paper, in print or online.

    1. jdubs

      Comically, the NYT mouthpieces use this very logic to excuse their approach. 'Literally everyone doesnt read us and what we say doesnt matter much' is an odd approach, but it is used.

      Other political news orgs say similar things as well. Come to think of it, Oligopolists use this to excuse a wide variety of their actions.

  14. Narsham

    This is simple: political reporters are overwhelmingly cynical and they have contempt for government. They aren't interested in how it functions or what it does or even what is legal or illegal for a politician to do. They're interested in the horse race; what the horse does in office doesn't matter to them.

    And that is why they are effectively amplifying Republican candidates for president since Nixon/Ford. Reagan campaigned on contempt for the government, and so have all the successful Republican Presidential candidates since. That's why Republicans start hating the government during an election year: that's the rhetoric coming from their leaders. Democratic candidates fundamentally believe in government and think it can do good, and they campaign on the good their government will do; Republicans run on government being dangerous and wrong and only they can protect the nation from it.

    Since political reporters overwhelmingly hold the government in contempt, their reporting reinforces the central Republican messages.

    Worse, their cynicism means they don't believe what any candidate actually says or promises. They want Harris to take policy positions not because they want to know what her policies will be; they believe Harris would lie anyway. They want to cover the kinds of lies she tells because that's horse-race coverage. Similarly, Trump can call them "Enemies of the State" and threaten to jail or execute them and they won't react, because they cynically assume that he's throwing red meat to his base and would never do anything to actually harm them because he needs and feeds off their coverage of him. He could shoot a member of the press on 5th avenue and political reporters would assume it was a stunt.

  15. cheweydelt

    I think it’s Matt Yglesias who has noted that, regarding this kind of blanket coverage, the problem is the audience. The New York Times audience loves to be outrage baited and they read all these stories. Naturally, the Times is gonna write more.

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