The Media Mask Slips

There’s a refrain on the left that is now so familiar as to be unremarkable. The form runs, “Even Reagan wasn’t as bad as [insert current Republican president here].” It got a workout under George W. Bush, and it’s gotten heavy use under Trump. And already I’ve seen several articles in the New York Times and elsewhere saying, “Whatever the GOP offers us after Trump will be even worse.” To which I say, I can only hope so.

In any case, kudos of sorts are owed to Eric Levitz of New York magazine for keeping alive the flame of Bush Derangement Syndrome, as he argues that in fact Bush was a much worse authoritarian than Trump. Nothing especially notable about this, except that along the way, he lets the mask slip completely about the media:

From the Trump era’s first days, on through the COVID pandemic, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post (rightly) took a more adversarial posture toward a sitting president than they ever had before (or at least, in the case of the newspapers, at any point in their modern histories).

You seldom get such a forthright admission that the media made the conscious choice to be the adjunct of the Democratic Party. And this isn’t fake news, for a change.

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