The New York Times Edition

The Grey Lady still doesn't get why Trump won.

 

1. What The New York Times Still Doesn’t Understand

In the wake of Kamala Harris’ defeat, The New York Times, widely viewed as the mouthpiece of elite liberalism, is doing some soul searching. Yet even in its attempts at self reflection, the paper is clinging to the same ideas that pushed ordinary voters away.

Reflexively bash Trump: Times columnist and podcast host Ezra Klein’s recent sit-down with MSNBC host Chris Hayes was ostensibly centered around how Dems are “losing the war for attention.”

  • According to Hayes and Klein, attention has become “the most valuable commodity” — a fact that was weaponized during the 2024 presidential campaign by Republicans like Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

  • Klein argued Democrats are trapped in an old-school mindset, treating money as the “fundamental substance of politics,” while Republicans understand leveraging attention is more valuable than cash.

  • But it wasn’t long before the discussion on why Dems lost the election turned into a tirade against Trump’s cynical media tactics.

Hayes: 

What Trump figured out is that in the attention age, in this sort of war of all against all, that just getting attention matters more than whatever comes after it.

And one way reliably to get people’s attention is negative attention — if you insult people, act outrageously. … Shock jocks said outrageous things. They weren’t trying to get someone to vote for them. They just wanted you to know that they were running the morning zoo.

No coloring outside the lines: In his recent interview with the right-wing writer Curtis Yarvin—whose unconventional and sometimes radical ideas on how the government should be structured are thought to resonate with figures like Vice President J.D. Vance—The Times’ David Marchese seemed more focused on voicing his discomfort with Yarvin’s “anti-democratic” views than on exploring them in depth. Here’s a sampling of his questions and comments:

  • “Your ideas are seemingly increasingly popular in Silicon Valley. Don’t you think there’s some level on which that world is responding because you’re just telling them what they want to hear?”

  • “I have to say, I find the depth of your background information to be obfuscating, rather than illuminating.”

  • “I can’t believe I’m arguing this.”

  • “Are there ways in which your insecurity manifests itself in your political thinking?”

  • “Do you think your trolling instinct has gotten out of hand?”

Whenever possible, invoke fascism and Nazism: The Times joined the rest of the corporate media in drawing parallels between the Nazi or fascist salute and a hand gesture made by Elon Musk at a Trump rally this week.

  • Per an analysis conducted using the search function on The Times’ website, in the past month alone, nearly 70 of the paper’s articles have contained references to Nazis or the Holocaust and 19 have mentioned fascism.

Bubba’s Two Cents

So let’s take these examples one by one.

Klein’s interview with Hayes: First off, it’s laughable for any member of the mainstream media, let alone one that works for MSNBC, to pretend that saying outrageous and negative things is unique to the GOP. As one Harvard study found, press coverage of Trump’s first 100 days in office set a “new standard for negativity.”

Secondly, I think it’s just plain inaccurate to say Republicans are savvier about media than Democrats. For as long as I can remember, Dems and liberals have dominated media infrastructure — Hollywood, mainstream news outlets, etc. It’s just not true that Dems don’t understand the political power and value of propping up media ecosystems.

While there’s some truth to the idea that Trump is particularly good at modern day media, I think what’s actually going on is Hayes and Klein are trying to avoid the explanation that’s right under their nose—Dems lost the attention battle in 2024 because their ideas are unpopular. Whether it’s immigration, crime or gender ideology, the American public just wasn’t buying what Democrats were selling. And that has nothing to do with media tactics.

The Yarvin interview: Yarvin’s arguments reflect a growing undercurrent in American politics. While some may find his ideas unsettling or even extreme (I admit, a few struck me that way), the last decade has taught us that dismissing these perspectives with labels like “racist” or “fascist” does little to address the forces driving them, which leads me to the next point…

The Musk salute: This strategy just doesn’t work anymore.

Zoom out: The broader takeaway for me is that a tiger can’t change its stripes. I think The Times and the rest of the mainstream media are actually trying to understand the current moment. But they’re fundamentally incapable of it. You could write a book on all the reasons why—the point is that the way news media is built and the way it functions is broken. And that’s why people are turning to all these alternatives in the podcast and personality space.

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