Contrary to the giddiness from a number of conservatives that “the media is dead,” there’s little doubt that some of The Illusionists in the mainstream—elite!—media will survive Donald Trump’s broad, head-spinning election on Nov. 5th. Profitable companies such as The New York Times will likely ramp up their foaming-at-the-mouth “Democracy is in danger” scare tactics, because that’s the duty of the editorial side of the Times—placate and reassure its base of comfort-food lefties who, in these dark, unprecedented and 1930s Germanic environment need Linus’ blanket—while the digital side churns out profits to pay for all that nonsense. Will Paul Krugman, Michelle Cottle Jamelle Bouie, Gail Collins and David Brooks, for example, scale back their demagoguery in the next year, let alone, four? Unfathomable, for it’s “baked” into their view-from-the-penthouse identities.
Not so, I believe, with The Washington Post. After that paper’s staff threw a tantrum when owner Jeff Bezos nixed a Kamala Harris endorsement, so dim that they couldn’t publicly admit the entire newspaper was a de facto arm of the Democratic Party, and grew further enraged when the billionaire—a dirty word, unless you’re a Democrat—attempted some chumminess with Trump before the election, a few resigned in protest, a “stand” that was only recognized by like-minded colleagues. Media’s infatuated with media. Bezos is a businessman, and he probably wants to unload his monkey-on-the-shoulder Post albatross, for a dime on the dollar, and maybe to a conservative. I suspect that occurs before the Summer Solstice, and the new boss will roam through the newsroom with a machete, firing those he/she can, and offering buyouts to others, like Dana Milbank, Karen Tumulty, Colbert King, E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson, George Will, Jennifer Rubin (if she’s real, and not a pet bot inside joke) and hundreds of less exalted employees on a bloated staff.
Oh, and the association with Bob Woodward will become history, even as his new book War (once again, Woodward got away with concealing real news—such as Biden’s physical deterioration—for his own profit, which wasn’t very Democracy Dies In Darkness if you ask me) was published on Oct 15th. I assume his friends will blurb and write pro forma glowing reviews, and it won’t sell many copies.
MSNBC, the most hysteria-ridden TV network, is now in a quandary. Is there room for Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Joe Scarborough in a year that will be challenging, economically, for a country that’s turned off their doomsday tirades? No surprise if they get booted after Trump’s inauguration—and CNN’s Jake Tapper as well—as cable reorganizes its “priorities.” Besides, if Trump behaves badly, executives have a long line of replacements at the ready.
I’m not sure how many Americans take the current casts seriously, but their shtick is in yesterday’s papers (if there were reputable papers) and they’ll take the tin watch and accumulated earnings to the history bin. Plenty of company there: the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, James Carville, all in the Trump age-bracket, and the condescending Barack and Michelle Obama are kaput in the ongoing politics of this nation. Former President Obama disgraced himself in his several weeks of campaigning for Kamala Harris, talking down to audiences, feigning an angry face (in comparison to Trump’s genuine enjoyment as his McDonald’s stunt) and won’t amount to much in historical rankings, mid-tier if only for his one legitimate, and worthy, accomplishment: becoming the first American black president. Obama was always for Obama, and has preferred making a lot of money and hanging out with celebrities to his time in the White House.
You never know what’ll happen in the decimated magazine corner of the media, and maybe in the next two years Conde Nast will shut down The New Yorker. All the same to me, as I haven’t subscribed since 2004, but its scabrously left-wing staff would have to scurry for the safe haven of The Atlantic, even it means sharing digital space with embarrassments like self-parodist Tom Nichols and the noxious David Frum. Susan Glasser (married, naturally, to the Times’ “chief” White House correspondent), wrote in the still-alive weekly: “At Harris’s rallies, her audiences during these past hundred and seven days would chant her slogan, ‘We’re not going back!’ But, it turns out, we are. Harris fell short. Americans, at least enough of them to tilt the outcome, chose Trump’s retrograde appeal. The question now is a different one: not if we are going back but how far?”
The Times’ David French, a celebrated, at least among his Democracy Is In Peril Never Trump crazies, will remain, for as I said, the Walter-Duranty daily has no need to cut anyone loose. After the election, French wrote (echoing Teddy Kennedy’s 1980 concession speech): “The election is over, but our democracy endures. The end of the campaign signaled the beginning of the next phase of the fight to preserve the American experiment. We can grieve the loss, but the period of mourning should be short. There is work to be done.”
Once again, I must ask, didn’t the United States cease its status as an “experiment” in the late-19th century?
French’s gobbledygook was similar to a Nov. 6th Times editorial, “America Makes a Perilous Choice,” which concluded: “Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat [to the country], but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.”
I’ve no idea how Trump’s second term will turn out—a good start would be to push RFK Jr. to the side, give him a token appointment (Falcon Czar?) and not distract from his agenda with a rancor-filled confirmation process—but it’s not in the cards that “ordinary” Americans will carry water for grandees like affluent Times scare-mongers by doing “the work,” whatever the fuck that means.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023