- Trump is vowing not to be “nice” after his near-fatal shooting at his Pennsylvania rally.
- He initially softened his tone, calling for unity in a speech at the Republican National Convention.
- But he quickly resumed attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
To the great surprise of no one.
Remember this is the man who, during the Covid pandemic, was handed a softball question from a reporter “What do you say to Americans who are scared… millions who are scared right now?” Basically set him up to provide a reassuring, caring response, to sound presidential for once in his life.
Except his response was: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump snapped aggressively. “That’s what I say. I think that’s a very nasty question. You’re doing sensationalism.”
He’s a hateful, divisive, incompetent person who consistently reminds us how terrible humans being can be.
He was bad before, helped make the pandemic what it was (is), but this would have been a shining point in an otherwise terrible presidency. Like you said, it was an almost trope level question in crisis, one that any leader knows how to approach, and he went sideways. Anyone with any empathy towards others who supported him should have walked away then.
Literally two words like “stay strong” would have been infinitely better. And that was literally the very first thing that popped into my head. I’m sure I could come up with something a little more meaningful given a few seconds of thought.
I think the corporate news have done incalculable damage wrt trump but one of those things they’ve done is refused to present him for what he is - demented, a narcissist, and with strong sociopathic tendencies. That’s not even addressing the adderall and/or coke. snif
The ‘normalization’ program is the default for a couple of reasons but they simply are unable to buck it AT ALL and he’s so far off the scale of normal we get this disonnance between their reporting and what he is.
Personally I think the biggest issue beyond the obvious “this sure will get us a lot of views/clicks” is that some outlets try to maintain the perception of “balance”
“Well we CAN’T call them deranged maniacs hell-bent on destroying democracy, or people will say we’re biased!”
“but sir, they ARE deranged maniacs hell-bent on destroying democracy”
“yes, but if we TELL people that, they’ll decide we’re biased”
Considering the NYT editor said that almost verbatim, I’d agree