The Press Is Very Worried About Losing Its Golden Goose

Democrats are, to be blunt, boring as fuck as far as the press is concerned. But the press can go fuck itself.

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Greg Sargent, one of the most vocal and on-target critics of Republican propaganda was inexplicably fired from the Washington Post a few months ago. OK, maybe not so inexplicable. Exposing Republican propaganda in an election year is not what the press is looking for right now.

Anyway, he got a job at The New Republic and he is far less…restrained in his criticism of how the press has been helping the GOP:

This has been an escalating problem since 2018. In 2018, the press really did not want Democrats to take back the House. You’d think they would be excited about the fireworks of a divided government. Hell, everyone knew Trump was a criminal and now Democrats would be able to hold him accountable! Drama!

But that’s not what the press wanted. They wanted more Trump chaos and corruption, not less. Checks and balances might tamp down Trump’s enthusiasm for clownery¹ and that would be bad for business.

So they lied about the polls and insisted for months that no blue wave was coming. After the blue wave smashed Republicans, the press spent literally weeks trying to sell the narrative that it hadn’t actually happened. Blue wave? What blue wave? Eventually, they gave up the charade and started eyeing the 2020 election.

But the press was kind of hands-off for 2020. Trump’s disastrous four years had been great for the news business but overwhelmingly terrible for everyone and everything else.

I know Elise Stefanik thinks we’ve all forgotten but the Spring, Summer, and Fall of 2020 saw thousands of people dying on a weekly basis while the economy imploded. Trump kept insisting it would all go away like magic and Republicans fought tooth and nail against wearing masks or any basic Covid protections at all, thus killing untold thousands more.

The press decided that maybe they would not put their thumb on the scale too much this time. And they really refused to take the bait on the Hunter Biden story that was so obviously Russian propaganda, it might as well have been in Russian when Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald tried shoving it down our collective throat. It was so bad, even Fox News barely touched it before the election.

It must have fucking killed the press to be responsible journalists for an entire election season.

But after Biden won? The press felt a deep longing for the chaos of Trump. The spectacle of Trump trying to overturn the election came and went. The nightmare of January 6th gave the press a Trump fix that lasted a few months as did his second impeachment. But after that? All they had was Joe Biden. Boring boring Joe Biden.

My god, they fucking hated him. He didn’t give the press a single scandal during the election. Barely any gaffes worth reporting. No high-profile firings or mean insider gossip. His White House was run professionally and lacked drama. The press resented every second of it.

The 2022 midterms were their chance to get some revenge. Ohhhh…those boring Democrats were gonna GET it! But then the extremists on the Supreme Court overturned Roe and by the summer, the expected red wave was in trouble.

This did nothing to deter the media narrative, though. Republicans were going to wipe the floor with Biden and the Democrats! Just you wait and see! But that’s not what we were seeing in the real world. Democrats were vastly overperforming in every special election and women were fucking furious.

The press completely ignored the giant blaring warning signs and was astonished when the red wave was little more than a nosebleed. 2023 off-year elections? Crushing defeat for the GOP. It was so bad it nuked the presidential aspirations of media darling Glenn Youngkin.

Every single election since 2016 has been a disaster for the GOP and since the overturning of Roe? Soooo much fucking worse.

So why is the press, as Greg Sargent points out, pretending that none of this happened? Why are Republicans always on the cusp of victory and Democrats perpetually on the edge of defeat? We’ve had seven years’ worth of elections, one presidential, two midterms, four off-year, and countless specials all showing the same thing: Republicans are fucked. And yet the press will not stop pushing the same narrative that says the exact opposite. What the fuck are they doing?

It’s not terribly complicated, unfortunately. As I’ve mentioned before, Republicans are two election cycles away from an irreversible death spiral. Hilariously, the press is wishcasting a future in which Black voters flock to the GOP, an openly white nationalist party. Sure, Jan.

This reeks of desperation. A Republican future will be rife with chaos and corruption and scandals. Sure, there will be fascism, mass murder, and misery but, wow!, think of all the headlines! And book deals! And awards! Even after Republicans seize control of the press, there will be more than enough money and fame to go around for journalists who play ball. Do you think, for one second, that Chuck fucking Todd or Chris Cillizza are going to stand on principle? Please. They’ll trip over themselves to sign up as loyal propagandists for the new order.

But a Democratic future? That’s going to absolutely suck for the press. Democrats have scandals and drama and corruption. Sometimes. But nothing even remotely like Republicans who are unmatched in the depths and ubiquitousness of their depravity. There are no “good” Republicans. Every last one of them is a grifting con artist, a sexual deviant, a psychopathic monster, or a combination of all three.

Without Republicans to provide juicy headlines, the press will have to report on actual issues and real governing. For fuck’s sake! They might have to inform the public about things that matter instead of horse race politics! After decades of teaching the public to only focus on the superficial, this would be lethal to a press now reliant on clickbait.

The solution is to put their thumb on the scale for Republicans as hard as possible. Their collective livelihood depends on it. Keep that in mind as you watch the press scramble to protect Trump and undermine Biden for the next 8 months. If you need a reminder of what that looks like, allow me to help:

Yeah. It’s gonna be like that until election day and even worse after Trump loses. Fuck these people. They can’t take our democracy from us without a fight.

There are 237 days until the 2024 election. Vote blue like your life depends on it.

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1. It’s adorable how naïve this thinking was. Faced with accountability, Trump went even more off the rails, outraged by the very idea.