Media must cover — not cover up — Trump’s unfitness
The president benefits from the failure to focus on his broken brain
People in the media are journalists, not psychologists. They’re used to covering facts, not fantasies.
So they don’t know how to react when Donald Trump says or does something that’s mentally deranged. Too often, they try to fit it into a rational frame of reference even though it’s irrational.
This sanewashing has been going on for a long time, and I’ve written about it before. But it keeps getting worse, and the mainstream media keep making the same mistakes in their coverage of the King of Crazytown.
Trump’s bonkers behavior is so unrelenting that each new incident seems to push an old one out of our memory. But let’s remember that just over a week ago, Trump posted an AI video of himself wearing a crown, flying a jet fighter, and dropping shit on peaceful “No Kings” protesters. Let’s also remember that some in the news media tried to soften what Trump had done.
The New York Times’ main headline (below) made no mention of the AI Trump dumping anything on protesters, and the summary under the headline said the jet dropped a “brown liquid.” Only in the third paragraph of the story itself did the Times call it “a brown liquid resembling feces.”
What a ridiculous way to present the story.
Coverage like that is way too common. When Trump told graduating West Point cadets an odd story about a real estate developer’s trouble with his “trophy wife,” the Associated Press said Trump was “known for his off-message digressions,” making it seem like an endearing personality quirk instead of a sign that he’s lost impulse control.
Mainstream media have a safe word to describe Trump’s bizarre speeches: They call them “rambling.” Which is too nice a word for what he’s doing.
Among other examples of Trump’s mental unfitness in recent months:
He posted a fake AI video about “med beds,” a right-wing conspiracy theory claiming that the elite use high-tech medical beds to cure almost every illness and are hiding the devices from the public. The video had a fake Fox News report and even a fake clip of Trump speaking. Did Trump think it was really him talking? He later deleted the post.
He tried to justify sending National Guard troops to Portland by claiming absurdly that “the place is burning down” and “You don’t even have stores anymore.”
While spreading unfounded theories linking Tylenol with autism, he falsely claimed that people in Cuba “have essentially no autism” because they can’t afford Tylenol.
When an escalator at the United Nations stopped suddenly with Trump and his wife, Melania, on it, he said it was “sabotage.” Most likely, according to the UN, a videographer with the U.S. delegation accidentally triggered a safety mechanism that stopped the escalator.
Trump claimed his uncle John had taught the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “I said: ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John?’ … He said: ‘Seriously, good.’” But Trump’s uncle died in 1985, 11 years before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber. And Kaczynski didn’t attend MIT.
Trump keeps saying he’s dropping prescription drug prices “1,000%,” which would be mathematically impossible unless he started paying people to use drugs.
When Trump posted on social media that Attorney General Pam Bondi should take retribution against his political opponents, he meant that to be a direct message to her, not a public post, according to a source.
The man’s mental faculties are crumbling like blue cheese, and major media need to write prominent stories about this alarming problem – not just stick a sentence into the 14th paragraph of a news story. A few journalists recognize that Trump is unwell, including people at the Guardian, USA Today and MSNBC. But many more need to.
I still can’t get over the New York Times’ initial coverage of the fighter jet poop video. Last week, I contacted the Times, seeking an interview with an editor to discuss the thought process that led to its presentation of the story. The Times denied my request, and Danielle Rhoades Ha, senior vice president for communications, said in an email: “The article you’re asking about accurately described what was depicted in an AI-generated video.”
Accurately, perhaps. But describing John Wayne Gacy as a clown would be accurate too. And ridiculously incomplete.
The Times’ refusal to explain itself left me to imagine how the internal decision-making might have gone...
Journalist A: Have you seen the video? An AI version of Trump is using a fighter jet to drop huge amounts of shit on peaceful protesters.
Journalist B: We can’t say that. Especially not in the main headline.
Journalist A: Why not?
Journalist B: Well, for one: How do you know it’s shit?
Journalist A: It’s brown and looks like shit when it falls through the air and lands on people.
Journalist B: Is there something else about the video we can describe in the headline instead?
Journalist A: You mean other than the President of the United States dropping shit on Americans?
Journalist B: Basically, yes.
Journalist A: Well, he wore a crown to mock the “No Kings” protests, and he was flying a fighter jet. I guess we could say, “Trump Posts Fake Video of Himself Flying a ‘King Trump’ Jet Over Protesters.”
Journalist B: Good. Say that.
Journalist A: Can we at least talk about the shit in the summary under the headline?
Journalist B: Again, you haven’t convinced me that it’s shit. What if we say it’s shit and the White House says it’s chocolate syrup?
Journalist A: Everyone would know they were lying.
Journalist B: We don’t want the New York Times involved in a public debate over shit.
Journalist A: See, even you know it’s shit. Can we at least call it “poop”?
Journalist B: No. Call it “brown liquid.” If you must, you can put something in, say, the third paragraph that calls it “brown liquid resembling feces.” OK?
Journalist A: OK.
Journalist B: Thanks. Great job.
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Amen. It’s cowardly that the majority of news outlets are not reporting Trump’s obviously debilitated mental state in an honest manner. Don’t the American people have a right to be presented with the facts about something of such importance in all its ugliness? It’s okay to trouble us with reporting on the horrors in Gaza, for example, or any number of disasters abroad, but we should be kept comfortably numb to the mental state of the president? Thank goodness for Substack.
Plain and simple, by design or cowardice, the once mighty NY Times has become a collaborationist tool of Trump. Their “sane-washing” started early and often and practically defines the term. I canceled my subscription months ago (along with the WaPo and others). I urge everyone to boycott all mainstream media until they remember what their role is in a democracy: watchdog not lapdog.