The New York Times did everything it could to get Trump elected in 2016 and I guess this time around they’re going to run the same playbook. Mark Sumner at Daily Kos diagrams how their game is being played, while Charles Pierce in Esquire responds to the astounding piece of wish fulfillment that they published yesterday, wherein the reporter attempted to present MAGA pathology as objective fact– pretending that Trump’s appearance and affect was somehow more youthful [?] and confidence-inspiring [?] than Biden’s. “Where was Rebecca O’Brien Davis’ [sic] s brain when she was typing this?” Pierce writes. “And where were the editors to give this avalanche of nonsense the editing that it deserved?”
The sad fact is, Trump looks like an embalmed fairground attraction. His cult following enjoys that, because 1) they have been indoctrinated to respond to politics as spectacle and entertainment, and his bizarre, macabre appearance fits right in with the sideshow, and 2) all the art forms that idealize human behavior have been marginalized, and the corporate entertainment product we’re left with puts a premium on freakiness, and 3)Trump’s dystopic appearance feeds into his cult’s subliminal contempt for him, creating a kind of sympathy-vote appeal.
And there are undoubtedly reasons no 4, no. 5. et. al. none of which are explored by the Times.
The headline to O’Brien’s piece is something about why age is proving less a liability for Trump than Biden. The obvious reason is that the Times and its corporate media affiliates are determined to make Biden’s age, and not Trump’s, a campaign thing.