The Race For 2024

[Shadowy Man]

It is amazing the lengths the MSM will go to in order to get their preferred candidate into office.

Exactly! Just look at what Fox News does, though they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements in the process.

 

[TSwizzle]

It is amazing the lengths the MSM will go to in order to get their preferred candidate into office.

Exactly! Just look at what Fox News does, though they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements in the process.

I don't consider Fox News to be part of the MSM establishment. They are a cable news network, set up in the mid 90s (I think) aren't they?

Even so, Harris is still a dope.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not MSM ??? They're the biggest "news" provider in the nation.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It is amazing the lengths the MSM will go to in order to get their preferred candidate into office.

Exactly! Just look at what Fox News does, though they have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements in the process.

I don't consider Fox News to be part of the MSM establishment.

You would be in the minority then for thinking that:

Broad agreement in U.S. – even among partisans – on which news outlets are part of the ‘mainstream media’

We asked U.S. adults whether they consider each of 13 different news outlets to be a part of the mainstream media or not.

www.pewresearch.org

Maybe you have a different definition for "mainstream", but isn't it Fox News themselves who are always bragging about how high their ratings are, if not the highest? If the highest rating news show isn't "mainstream" then I don't know what is.

 

[TSwizzle]

I don't consider Fox News to be part of the MSM establishment.

You would be in the minority then for thinking that:
Maybe you have a different definition for "mainstream", but isn't it Fox News themselves who are always bragging about how high their ratings are, if not the highest? If the highest rating news show isn't "mainstream" then I don't know what is.

I am not obsessed with Fox News. I don't watch it, I never have. I always considered them an off beat cable news program. I guess they have grown since '96.

But in any event, the establishment MSM (including print versions) are all in on dopey Harris to such an extent they edit her interviews to try to get her look coherent.

 

[Copernicus]

Is this more what Washington had in mind for a president?

60 Minutes has been blasted after eagle-eyed viewers exposed the programme for editing out Kamala Harris’s word salad reply on a question about the war in the Middle East. The journalist asked why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the United States when it came to the war and Kamala Harris offered up this lengthy word salad of an answer.

Good grief, the woman is such a dope.

All we heard from Harris was a non-answer to an awkward question about ongoing negotiations with Netanyahu. She reportedly has some differences with the way Biden is handling that relationship, but she wasn't about to get into that on national television, especially when the entire Middle East is a powder keg waiting to blow up. So she gave an awkward answer to a difficult question.

Compare Harris's small ramble with the video clip of a typical Trump megaramble:

Trump teased over rambling ‘word salad’ at rally as he insists he is ‘cognitively very strong’​

The reason for the rightwing echo chamber meltdown over Harris "word salad" is that Trump is literally famous for word salad Gish gallops. Comedians lampoon him for this all the time. For example:



So now there is a coordinated campaign in the rightwing echo chamber to accuse Harris of "word salad" because of his own major weakness in that area.

 

[TSwizzle]

All we heard from Harris was a non-answer to an awkward question about ongoing negotiations with Netanyahu. She reportedly has some differences with the way Biden is handling that relationship, but she wasn't about to get into that on national television, especially when the entire Middle East is a powder keg waiting to blow up. So she gave an awkward answer to a difficult question.

Seth Meyers, really?

Anyway, the issue I brought up is with CBS 60 Minutes, a supposedly reputable news program editing dopey Harris' response to make her look not quite so bad as she is. I don't think any establishment news stations are editing Trump videos to make him seem coherent. Quite the opposite where Trump's faults are well, Seth Meyers for example and I understand SNL has been lampooning Harris and Biden of late but these are not news programs, they are comedy shows.

 

[Elixir]

So now there is a coordinated campaign in the rightwing echo chamber to accuse Harris of "word salad" because of his own major weakness in that area.

S.O.P.
Every accusation is a confession.
Damn, that Apricot is stupid - even for an apricot.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I don't consider Fox News to be part of the MSM establishment.

You would be in the minority then for thinking that:
Maybe you have a different definition for "mainstream", but isn't it Fox News themselves who are always bragging about how high their ratings are, if not the highest? If the highest rating news show isn't "mainstream" then I don't know what is.

I am not obsessed with Fox News. I don't watch it, I never have. I always considered them an off beat cable news program. I guess they have grown since '96.

Yes, Cable turned out not to be just a fad of the 90s. In fact, many people get all of their television programs over cable, rather than the airwaves.

But in any event, the establishment MSM (including print versions) are all in on dopey Harris to such an extent they edit her interviews to try to get her look coherent.

My point is that "all in" is not an accurate description. Fox News is definitively part of the mainstream media and they are not in the business of trying to help get Harris elected.

 

[Elixir]

the establishment MSM (including print versions) are all in on dopey Harris

Not so much that. The establishment MSM plus the radical left, plus all the Republicans who worked with Cheato when he was pretending to be President, plus all the Republicans who hate career criminal fraudsters, plus all the independents who value democracy - they’re ALL “all in” on not letting that pervert back in the Whitehouse. They’re not all in love with Harris, but most would wisely vote for a rotten head of cabbage before endorsing the 80 IQ treasonous Russian tool.

I guess that leaves the stupid, the ignorant and the greedy & deluded to vote for the apricot. Should be enough. Murka is fucked.

 

[TSwizzle]

But in any event, the establishment MSM (including print versions) are all in on dopey Harris to such an extent they edit her interviews to try to get her look coherent.

My point is that "all in" is not an accurate description. Fox News is definitively part of the mainstream media and they are not in the business of trying to help get Harris elected.

Fox News, is an outlier and outside of the establishment Main Stream Media, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, NYT etc. and those institutions are all about trying to get dopey Harris elected.

 

[cycomiko]

But in any event, the establishment MSM (including print versions) are all in on dopey Harris to such an extent they edit her interviews to try to get her look coherent.

My point is that "all in" is not an accurate description. Fox News is definitively part of the mainstream media and they are not in the business of trying to help get Harris elected.

Fox News, is an outlier and outside of the establishment Main Stream Media, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, NYT etc. and those institutions are all about trying to get dopey Harris elected.

MSNBC was founded in 1996 so you can take them out

 

[TomC]

Fox News, is an outlier and outside of the establishment Main Stream Media, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, NYT etc. and those institutions are all about trying to get dopey Harris elected.

What kinda makes Fox News an outlier is the casual disregard for reality and ethics.

In the Internet world, the "legacy media" is struggling to survive. Fairness and fact checking is no longer popular with enough media consumers to be completely viable as a business model.

But let's face it.
60 Minutes put a bit of polish on a complex answer to a huge and complicated problem given by Harris.

Trump dropped out of the 60 Minutes agreement. Because his handlers explained how bad actual fact checking, by real journalists, would make his lies look.

I'm not sure why you think Trump is a better bet than Harris, but it does give some insight into you personally.
Tom

 

[Swammerdami]

Is this more what Washington had in mind for a president?

60 Minutes has been blasted after eagle-eyed viewers exposed the programme for editing out Kamala Harris’s word salad reply on a question about the war in the Middle East. The journalist asked why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the United States when it came to the war and Kamala Harris offered up this lengthy word salad of an answer.

Good grief, the woman is such a dope.

All we heard from Harris was a non-answer to an awkward question about ongoing negotiations with Netanyahu. She reportedly has some differences with the way Biden is handling that relationship, but she wasn't about to get into that on national television, especially when the entire Middle East is a powder keg waiting to blow up. So she gave an awkward answer to a difficult question.

Compare Harris's small ramble with the video clip of a typical Trump megaramble:

Trump teased over rambling ‘word salad’ at rally as he insists he is ‘cognitively very strong’​

The reason for the rightwing echo chamber meltdown over Harris "word salad" is that Trump is literally famous for word salad Gish gallops. Comedians lampoon him for this all the time. For example:



So now there is a coordinated campaign in the rightwing echo chamber to accuse Harris of "word salad" because of his own major weakness in that area.

Here's another video, pointing out some of Trump's cognitive defects^*. He brags about the audience applause he heard when debating Kamala Harris -- despite that there was zero audience!

* - In his particular form of psychopathy, lying has become completely routine for him. Perhaps he doesn't even notice that he's lying. The very concept of "speaking truth" doesn't map to any node in his limited intellect.

Trump is famous for his "word salads" -- which really ARE word salads -- , e.g.

Look, having nuclear my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world it's true! but when you're a conservative Republican they try oh, do they do a number that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fort. you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners now it used to be three, now it's four but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

It is predictable how the Trump crowd DOES know their weaknesses and incompetences and "gets out in front" by accusing their enemies of those very faults. I wonder if Mr. Swizz understands this much. Or is he just following Tucker Carlsen, Mike Lindell and his other mentors?

 

[laughing dog]

All we heard from Harris was a non-answer to an awkward question about ongoing negotiations with Netanyahu. She reportedly has some differences with the way Biden is handling that relationship, but she wasn't about to get into that on national television, especially when the entire Middle East is a powder keg waiting to blow up. So she gave an awkward answer to a difficult question.

Seth Meyers, really?

Anyway, the issue I brought up is with CBS 60 Minutes, a supposedly reputable news program editing dopey Harris' response to make her look not quite so bad as she is. I don't think any establishment news stations are editing Trump videos to make him seem coherent.

Perhaps because it is not possible to make him seem coherent.

 

[Swammerdami]

Numbers? The most tangible numbers in recent Presidential elections are

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Polling Advantage circa November 1 // Popular vote on Election Day // Popular Vote in Pennsylvania
Clinton 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +4.1% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +2.1% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -0.7%
Biden 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . +8.0% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +4.5% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +1.2%
Harris 2024 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (+2.6%)

In the two prior elections in which Trump participated, the latest polls overestimated D voting by 2% or 3.5%. And with the EC system, it's not the nation-wide popular vote that matters, it's the vote in the Tipping State, Pennsylvania. Judging by these results, the D needs a 3% advantage in the nationwide vote to win PA (and hence win the WH). AND a 5% (or more) advantage in polls to get a 3% popular vote win.

Obviously we don't know now how Harris will be polling 3 weeks from today. But today she is up 2.6% nationwide. Sounds good? If the recent elections are predictive she needs to be up 5% to make the EC race close.

 

[TSwizzle]

Trump is famous for his "word salads" -- which really ARE word salads

Indeed but do CBS, MSNBC etc. edit them out and replace with something a bit less word salad-y?

 

[Swammerdami]

Trump is famous for his "word salads" -- which really ARE word salads

Indeed but do CBS, MSNBC etc. edit them out and replace with something a bit less word salad-y?

I dunno. BUT it seems VERY hard to find the audio of that Trumpian word-salad quote on-line. (I think I DID hear it years ago.) There may be 1 or 2 hits BUT I think in those Trump's words are read by an actor.

If MSM is so eager to disparage DJT, why is that audio so hard to find?

 

[Copernicus]

Trump is famous for his "word salads" -- which really ARE word salads

Indeed but do CBS, MSNBC etc. edit them out and replace with something a bit less word salad-y?

Actually, there is a new term out there for the way the media report on Trump: sanewashing. That is, their reporting seldom mentions his incoherent or demented ramblings and paraphrases his content to make it sound more mainstream. Unfortunately, it just isn't all that newsworthy to report that he said something totally stupid or looney. Good for a chuckle, but people are tired of chuckling. You can google "sanewashing" and find a whole host of links pointed directly at stories about news coverage of Donald Trump.

For example, from Oct 1:

The ‘sanewashing’ phenomenon​

...

In just one example, Trump offered a meandering response to a question at the Economic Club of New York last month about his plan to make child care more affordable. His basic answer was that tariffs imposed on foreign nations would cover the cost without offering further details beyond, “It’s about Make America Great Again.”

However, some news outlets initially covered Trump’s comments as if they made sense. An Associated Press headline read, “Trump suggests tariffs can help solve rising childcare costs in a major economic speech.” The New York Times led with another piece of news from Trump’s remarks, “Trump Calls for an Efficiency Commission, an Idea Pushed by Elon Musk.”

“By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former — and potentially future — president,” Parker Molloy wrote last month in The New Republic.

In response to another wild claim — Trump’s suggestion that children were getting gender-changing surgery at school — longtime Los Angeles Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Hiltzik wrote that none of the coverage he read gave “anything like the flavor of his diatribe.” He also noted coverage of Trump’s claims about transgender athletes competing as women made him sound “almost rational (though not quite), compared to what he really had to say.”

“The rule at The Times is that we shouldn’t apply language associated with mental illness to people who aren’t known to be mentally ill,” Hiltzik wrote. “But sorry, who can listen to this and not think, ‘This is abnormal.’”
...

 

[Copernicus]

See also

Sanewashing? The banality of crazy? A decade into the Trump era, media hasn’t figured him out​

‘Sanewashing’ creates an alternative narrative, some say​

Molloy first used the phrase “sanewashing” this fall to describe a tendency among journalists to launder some of Trump’s wilder or barely coherent statements to make them seem like the cogent pronouncements of a typical politician. One example she cites: CNN distilling a Trump post on Truth Social that rambled on about the “radical left” and “fake news” into a straight news lead about the former president agreeing to debate his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

At its best, polishing Trump creates an alternative narrative, she said. At its worst, it’s misinformation.

During a Wisconsin rally the last weekend of September, Trump talked of danger from criminals allowed in the country illegally. “They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat,” he said. The New Republic writer Michael Tomasky was surprised not to find the quote in The New York Times’ and Washington Post’s coverage, although The Times noted that Trump vilified undocumented immigrants, and there were other media references to what Trump himself called a dark speech.

“Trump constantly saying extreme, racist violent stuff can’t always be new,” Tomasky wrote. “But it is always reality. Is the press justified in ignoring reality just because it isn’t new?”

One likely reason the remark didn’t get that much attention is because Trump — at the same rally — referred to Harris without evidence as “mentally disabled.”

That comment merited quick mention on the ABC and CBS evening newscasts the next day, in the context of criticism from two fellow Republicans, and after stories about Hurricane Helene’s devastation and war in the Middle East. NBC’s “Nightly News” didn’t bring it up at all.

In other words, Trump said something wild. What’s new? More than sanewashing, political scientist Brian Klaas calls that the banality of crazy, where journalists become accustomed to things Trump says that would be shocking coming from other candidates simply because they’re numbed to it.