This column has had a brief respite for a very good reason. During the Manhattan Soviet show trial of former President Donald Trump, the Opinion sections of both the Times and WaPo were pretty one-note and even more tedious than usual. Even my prodigious language skills couldn't turn "These people are all lunatics," into an 800-word column.
This week is a bit of a departure. The New York Times will frequently feature brief virtual roundtable discussions between its Opinion columnists and some guests. They always provide an excellent snapshot of just how insulated the Coastal Media Bubble™ people are. It's like watching an improv troupe that just does inside jokes to amuse one another, but even less funny.
While not a typical TDS meltdown, this does showcase how Trump's permanent residence in the heads of the Democrats' flying monkeys in the mainstream media warps their brains. Even though it's not the whole column, I would like to kick it off by saying that these people are all lunatics.
We have all heard of the "Five Stages of Grief" that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first wrote about in the 1960s. They are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The leftist propaganda pimps in the MSM go through what I like to call the "Three Stages of Trump Depression," whenever their devious machinations to rid the world of Orange Man Bad don't work out. They are, as follows:
- Lie About It
- Get Smacked In the Face by Reality
- Immediately Draw as Many Wrong Conclusions as Possible
Most of them rapidly cycled through these after last week's verdict.
The headline on the discussion we're looking at is: "Donald Trump, Blocking Out the Sun." It's hosted by Times Op-Ed lapdog Frank Bruni, and the guests are Josh Barro and Olivia Nuzzi. People who monitor leftist loons on social media are very familiar with Barro and Nuzzi. They are all sharing their various hot takes on the conviction.
Exercising considerable restraint for Times writer, Bruni manages to make it to the second paragraph before saying, "convicted felon."
What’s the optimal balance between running against a “convicted felon” and focusing on the day-to-day concerns of less partisan, less engaged voters? I for one think Biden needs to be very careful about overdoing the felon part — voters are well aware of Trump’s status, transgressions and, er, character. Your thoughts?
This is rich. The leftmedia's only approach to things not going the way they want them to after the verdict has been to overdo "the felon part." As I wrote in Thursday's Morning Briefing, they've been "squawking 'Convicted felon!' like short bus parrots."
Barro immediately says that the "less-engaged" voters need to be told that Trump is a convicted felon.
There is a lot that can be picked apart here, but I'd like to keep this column under a billion words.
Here is Nuzzi's brief flirtation with reality, which then immediately wanders off into boilerplate lefty dismissiveness about Trump:
The eternal problem for candidates running against Donald Trump is that he sort of photosynthesizes any and all attention to grow bigger and stronger and block out the sun for everyone else around. He manages to define the terms of the conversation, and because he lives in his own reality, these things do not matter as they would for any other candidate.
She knows he's getting stronger but can't quite get to the real reason, which is that the "less-engaged voters" who they spend this whole article looking down on (Barro at one point refers to himself as a "highly engaged voter" to establish that he's not like icky flyover country people.) are sick of the Dems hijacking the judiciary in order to interfere with the election. Donald Trump's "own reality" is reality. Nuzzi and her ilk have no experience with that.
Here's my favorite of the wrong conclusions from Bruni:
My gut tells me that this June 27 debate isn’t going to happen. It was scheduled before the verdict, with terms that were largely set and favored by the Biden camp, and Trump’s thrashing and wailing and claims of the entire universe being rigged against him — well, those don’t fit neatly with showing up and debating. What do you two think?
Almost everyone who thinks that the debate won't happen believes that it's Biden who will drop out. The guy can't speak English anymore and there probably isn't enough Adderall left on Earth to get him ready for an hour of extemporaneous speaking.
Many believe that his handlers will say that they don't want him to share the stage with a — once more, with feeling — convicted felon. It's yet another example of getting a little bit right, then tacking hard to a wrong conclusion.
Trump may back out. Anything is possible in this crazy election cycle.
What Bruni doesn't get is that Trump's quite justified belief that things are rigged against him — at least in the American judiciary — wouldn't make him want to shrink from the spotlight. Seriously, where has Frank Bruni been since Trump came to prominence in the 1980s?
Relevant: Trump Needs to Get Out of His Own Way If Debate With Biden Actually Happens
My guess is that Trump is champing at the bit to get on stage with Biden and his orthopedic clogs at the end of this month.
Those of us who truly are highly engaged voters also can't wait for it to happen.
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