The 2016 election season is roughly half over, but already certain tried-and-true trends have emerged in coverage. Generating original content is hard; generating it over and over over the course of an ever-elongated election season is near impossible. With that in mind, here are 10 of the laziest takes of this election season.
10. “Marco Rubio Is About to Turn the Corner”
This was an evergreen favorite of pundits who just couldn’t get over how great the Florida senator looked on paper and how terribly he was faring in the primaries. Ross Douthat of the New York Times was the most frequent peddler of the “Rubio’s just about to breakout” take, writing a number of them before moving onto the sequel: the “Why isn’t Rubio winning?!” piece.
The entire commentariat is going to feel a little silly when Marco Rubio wins every Republican primary.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) September 25, 2015
- “[My Preferred Candidate] Won the Debate”
A necessary requirement for punditry is to have some opinion on who “won” major debates—despite there being no objective way to analyze such a question—and to disseminate this opinion as just a guy callin’ balls and strikes. With rare exceptions, who one thinks “won” a debate happens to dovetail nicely with whom one wanted to win a debate. As I wrote back in October:
Pundits are ostensibly supposed to judge whether or not a candidate said what “the voters” want to hear. But what ends up happening, invariably, is they end up judging whether or not the candidate said what they think voters wanted to hear. This, after all, is why pundits exist, to act as a clergy class charged with interpreting people’s own inscrutable opinions for them.
No law of nature requires anyone to “call” a debate in anyone’s favor. It’s an exercise too fraught with personal bias and horserace blinders to be of any real use to anyone.
- “Why [Biden/Bloomberg/Random General] Should Run”
The Reasonable Center media needs a Reasonable Center candidate to placate some vaguely dissatisfied Reasonable Center that the current candidates aren’t addressing. Somehow exceedingly centrist Hillary Clinton is too “polarizing,” while Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders (often facilely lumped together) are too nutty and extreme.
First was the non-stop “mulling” of Joe Biden, whom TV news gave more airtime to in 2015 than Sanders and Cruz combined, despite never actually running. Then it was perennial tease Michael Bloomberg (trial-ballooned by Sanders-hating Jon Chait during Clinton’s February slump) whose uncalled for campaign involved a strategy of hiring “gig economy” workers to promote his McKinsey & Company-style candidacy. Then some GOP “elites” wanted Gen. David Petraeus, which would have been rich, considering he committed a security breach far greater and far wider than what’s being alleged against Clinton, the GOP’s favorite target.
The disinterested pundit class was searching for a pro-corporate, pro-gay marriage avatar who was a bit more liked than Clinton, despite the fact that Clinton was liked well enough to garner more votes than anyone in either party’s primary.
- <Serious Person Voice> “Donald Trump Isn’t Funny Anymore”
The “Trump isn’t funny anymore” take was designed to give banal and obvious critiques of Trump the appearance of something new and urgent. The angle presupposed that a man who race-baited five innocent black kids for 25 years was ever funny to begin with.
- The Tone Police
Because the central elements of Bernie Sanders’ platform poll very well, criticism of his candidacy tend to focus less on substance and turn into meta-critiques. Generally the argument goes, “I like Sanders, but his tone is wrong/mean/nasty,” and some nebulous constituency of people (though not necessarily the author) will be put off by it. Such criticisms are almost impossible to disprove, since they rely on perception rather than anything falsifiable.
During the Washington Post’s now-infamous 16-negative-stories-against-Sanders streak, four of them were tone-based critiques:
- What Bernie Sanders Still Doesn’t Get About Arguing With Hillary Clinton
- Bernie Sanders Says White People Don’t Know What It’s Like to Live in a ‘Ghetto.’ About That
- ‘Excuse Me!’: Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Know How to Talk About Black People
- ‘Excuse Me, I’m Talking’: Bernie Sanders Shuts Down Hillary Clinton, Repeatedly
Sanders wasn’t the only one tone-policed. Hillary Clinton was the subject of several sexist tweets for “yelling” at a rally, which is sort of what people do at rallies. Unless they’re women; then they’re supposed to gingerly whisper.
Hillary shouting her speech. She has the floor; a more conversational tone might be better for connecting with folks at home
— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) March 16, 2016
- “[Outrageous Statement X] Will Sink the Trump Campaign”
The only thing more consistent this election season than Trump’s lead in the polls has been pundits calling his demise. It was practically a weekly affair:
- July 2015: “Donald Trump’s Immigration Remarks Were Beginning of His End
- July 2015: Donald Trump Disparaged John McCain’s Military Service. Is This the End of His Run?
- August 2015: GOP Debate Marks Beginning of the End for Trump
- September 2015: The Beginning of Trump’s End?
- October 2015: Is This the Beginning of the End for Trump?
- November 2015: Trump Bombs Terribly as ‘SNL’ Host—Is This the Beginning of the End?
- December 2015: The End Is Nigh for Donald Trump
- Jan 2016: The Beginning of the End of the Trump Campaign?
- Feb 2016: Iowa Is the Beginning of the End for Donald Trump
- March 2016:This is the End of the Line for Trump
This trend is so embarrassing that pundits now call attention to how wrong prior predictions have been when making current predictions of his demise with self-aware headlines like “This Time It Really Is the End of Trump. Really.” But is it? Really?
- The Bernie Bro Think Piece
Because what Sanders’ idiot online fans think requires dozens of articles and weeks of debate.
As I’ve written before, there is certainly a cohort of intense Sanders partisans online—some of whom are definitely bro-ish. But the “Bernie Bro” think piece has completely spiraled out of control. As Slate’s Amanda Hess noted in February, “What began as a necessary critique of leftist sexism has been replaced by a pair of straw men waving their arms in the wind.”
What at first meant “hostile online white male Sanders supporters” quickly morphed to “online Sanders supporters” to “any carbon-based organism I disagree with regardless of age, race, sex or demeanor.” Everyone from Sanders himself to women to the Pope has been called a Bernie Bro. One Vice article even asked if competitive gaming had created the phenomenon. The trope had reached peak absurdity, making parodies of the conceit indistinguishable from the conceit itself. We are all Bernie Bros, and yet—none of us are.
- “Why I Support (or Don’t) Candidate X”
One of the most popular—and traffic-generating—election takes, “Why I Support Candidate X” (like its even more popular variation, “Why I Can No Longer Support Candidate X”) is a one-off invitation into the political logic of one person: the facile electoral testimonial that presumes the significance one person’s solipsistic journey. While this may be newsworthy for a big-time endorsement (say a senator or popular celebrity), with your average political writer, one is compelled to ask: Who cares?
Sometimes these testimonials are also highly dubious. Like the half-dozen anonymous testimonials on Blue Nation Review —a site run by David Brock, who also happens to head the pro-Clinton SuperPAC American Bridge 21st Century. Or in the case of Chris Sosa, who said he was a “democratic socialist” who could “no longer support Sanders” in a widely shared article in Salon, despite mounds of evidence he had always been a Clinton supporter (and his unsocialist admiration for capitalist Bill Gates). In a recent Guardian post (4/12/16), Lucia Graves said she felt “betrayed” by Sanders (due to his tone, naturally), despite never having openly supported him.
- “Trump Is an Official US Enemy I Want a Newsy and Topical Excuse to Criticize”
As FAIR has previously noted, the Trump spectacle provides a perfect evergreen excuse for lazy writers to compare Trump to people they hate for entirely unrelated reasons. At last count, Trump is:
- Vladimir Putin
- Nicolas Maduro
- Fidel Castro
- An African Dictator
- Joseph Stalin
- Kim Jong-Il
- Kim Jong-Un
- A Chinese Communist Official
- L. Ron Hubbard
- Saddam Hussein
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Hugo Chavez
Basically, Trump is whatever Official US Enemy the author feels like mocking. As I’ve also noted, Trump is never the leader of a US ally like Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt or King Salman of Saudi Arabia; strangely, Trump only resembles the rulers of nations the US government opposes.
- “Sanders Is Trump, Trump Is Sanders”
Because something something trade, something something angry white men.
Perhaps the laziest take of 2016, peddled mostly by centrist hacks looking to look “reasonable,” the Trump = Sanders takes basically write themselves.
- Daily Beast: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Are Delusional on Trade Policy
- NPR: 5 Ways Bernie Sanders And Donald Trump Are More Alike Than You Think
- Bustle: 5 Ways Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump Are More Similar Than You Think
- Atlantic: What Trump and Sanders Have in Common
- Huffington Post: How Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump’s Campaigns Are Similar
- Guardian: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Look Like Saviors to Voters Who Feel Left Out of the American Dream
Within a 24-hour period in March, four separate publications all ran basically the exact same take:
- Haaretz: The Angry White Men That Gave Trump and Sanders Their Victories
- CNN: Why Americans Are So Angry in 2016:The Rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Many Say, Is a Reflection of the Anger in America Today.
- Fortune: Why Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Both Appeal to Angry, White Men
- Wall Street Journal: Angry White Males Propel Donald Trump—and Bernie Sanders
Media may have their reasons for wanting to tag Sanders and Trump as extreme, but taking one or two demographic points and spinning them into a chinscratcher is lazy social science that does no one, including “angry white men,” any favors.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
This is the most insightful article I’ve seen on the media coverage of the election.
You got that right., as did Mr. Johnson!
Actually, the power combine of billionaires decided that billionaire Trump should enter the race to cut down on the appeal that Bernie Sanders might generate for socialism.
It makes no sense that Sanders, who has views simillar to decades-long European social-democrats, is compared to a right-wing nationalist baffoon like Trump. Trump blames every problem on immigrants, Muslims, etc but does not blame the economic system or wide availability of guns or lack of attention to mental health. Sanders places the blame where it belongs, a rigged economy that only works for the !%. But somehow, they both represent “angry white men!’ Well, I have been an angry white man my entire adult life and agree with Sanders and not the fascist flirting Trump. And who the hell came up with these narratives that it is only the young who like Sanders?. I have called myself a socialist since I was in middle school and I am now near sixty.
I’m tired of hearing about only the young people that support Sanderst, and the angry white men that support Sanders. He has a huge amount of people that support him. Multiple age groups, multiple races, and both sexes. This is such a tired and irritating argument.
I don’t understand. It seems like any man who says something negative about Hillary Clinton is automatically deemed a sexist. Including Bernie… But I read the tweet the author posted as part of #6. I don’t see this as sexist. I’m a woman, I’ve watched Clinton myself, she gets into this almost sole conversation with herself and gets very adamant, maybe loud as well at rallies, I don’t know, but when it happens, she does totally disconnect from her audience. I’ve seen her do this repeatedly. I don’t see how this is sexist, it’s an observation that she disconnects with her audience a lot.
I totally agree. The author speaks to the absurdity of baseless criticisms while offering his own stretch by assuming a critique of Hillary yelling at a rally is sexist.
There’s a surprising pair of omissions here, one that comes up again and again: “[Candidate X] Can’t Win” and “[Candidate X] Will Win”. These assertions just get tossed around, often with absolutely no evidence to back them up, in articles purporting to be news.
I find the only way it makes sense is if you simply read those as “I, the reporter, want Candidate X to win/lose, but I can’t write that because it wouldn’t seem objective.”
I would’ve added,
“If CANDIDATE A doesn’t win INSERT STATE, things we really be over. INSERT STATE is the key.”
“Sanders won INSERT STATE….BUT, he has no chance anyway.”
On Point.
Thank you for clear and straight forward piece on this election. Even the folks at the DailyKOS have been bitten by the #3 bug on this list: everyone is ‘now unable to support ‘XXX’, insert your candidate of choice.
On the one hand, I rarely see this much verbiage spent on Election between all the candidates. Usually by now it’s the top two runners in each party and the snooze feast in the media is underwhelming to the point of tears. The two horses are always ‘neck in neck’ to the finish line with the audience drooling like a 3 month old in a high chair over the lack of anything newsworthy.
This year the pundits have outdone themselves on blather, B.S. and bellowing of “This is the way it is and you just don’t understand”. I wonder if they are working to put enough people off of the election by making them ill, to reduce the vote count again. That always works so well for the common sense and reasonable candidate (not).
Frankly, the one thing that sickens me the most is all the free coverage of Donald Trump. He never has anything new to say–just the same old blather about ” We’re going to make America great again.” But he is given hours of television coverage on cable-TV. Even the pseudo-liberal MSNBC gives him extensive coverage. I just wonder if they are all in the bag for Trump. Sanders never gets this kind of coverage and neither does Mrs. Clinton. Then these political pundits wonder out loud why Trump is doing so well in the election when he does not offer any substance. But they always hang on to every word of Trump’s like it is coming down from Mt. Olympus.
@Adam Johnson: “Clinton was liked well enough to garner more votes than anyone in either party’s primary.”
Excellent example of a specious argument. Hillary empirically has had negative favorability (i.e., her unfavorability rating exceeds her favorability rating in polls–currently by 17%) for a year now, and her negative trend began 4 years ago: see, e.g., http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating . By contrast, Bernie has 9% positive favorability, and has been positive since July 2015: see, e.g., http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/bernie-sanders-favorable-rating . Unless I’m missing something, the fact that Hillary has gotten so many votes in Democratic primaries is probably unrelated to her (lack of) favorability. I suspect it’s much more about the mechanics of Democratic primaries and the activities of Democratic Party bosses (and that means you, Debbie Wasserman Schultz), who, unfortunately for Hillary, will not be able to exclude independents come November.
L. Ron Hubbard is an official U.S. enemy?
The media keep telling us that Sanders does not connect with black voters, despite his embrace of Black Lives Matter. So then he does not do well in primaries because black voters are not voting for him. More of the self-fulfilling prophesy.. Simply tell voters he does not connect with them as well as Mrs. Clinton and whala, they vote for Clinton. Then to bring home the point, line up Clinton superdelegate after superdelegate to repeat what the pundits have to say.
@Ronald Sims: ‘The media keep telling us that Sanders does not connect with black voters’
… but they seem mostly right (as well as right-wing) on that one, though it’s mostly about the Clintons’ lock on the Black Establishment. Bruce Dixon (of Black Agenda Report) discusses this (and related problems) in the first half of this week’s “Behind the News”: http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2016/16_04_21_16.mp3