Blaming Trump on the Voters Who Voted Against Him
(Daily Beast, 9/16/16)
According to Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake (12/2/16), Hillary Clinton campaign manager “Robby Mook was right” to say “that one particular group is especially to blame” for Trump’s victory: “Millennials,” the cohort born toward the end of the 20th century. His evidence: According to exit polls, Clinton did not do as well as Barack Obama did with voters under 30. What Blake doesn’t spell out is that those voters backed Clinton far more than any other age group, with a 19 point margin—compared to a 10-point margin for voters 30–44, while voters 45 and over supported Trump by 7–8 points.
Black and Latino voters also supported Clinton by smaller margins than they backed Obama. So by Blake’s logic, we should blame voters of color for electing Trump—rather than the white voters who actually voted for him.
Protesting a President Is Like Nazi Graffiti
In “Stop Protesting Democracy. Saying #NotMyPresident Is the Same as Saying #NotMyConstitution,” Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak (11/14/16) equated protests against the election of Donald Trump with racist threats issued by his supporters:
From protesters destroying property in Portland, Ore., to racists destroying a sense of safety in Silver Spring, Md., too many people are undermining the foundation of our country in the aftermath of a polarizing election….
Sore losers protesting the democratic process are just as useless as hate-filled winners sneaking around towns painting swastikas and racist graffiti…. Protesting the simple fact of our democratic process is dangerous.
Trump Family Paper Demands FBI Go After Dissent
The New York Observer—the paper owned by Donald Trump son-in-law and close advisor Jared Kushner—published a chilling call for the FBI to investigate anti-Trump activism. “It’s time for the FBI to conduct a detailed investigation into the violence and political thuggery that continue to mar the presidential election’s aftermath,” wrote columnist Austin Bay (12/2/16), demanding “a thorough probe of the protests—to include possible ties to organizations demanding vote recounts.” Also on the Observer’s list for FBI investigation: George Soros, who “has a record for funding leftist political action.”
Corporate Media Diversity: From GE to GM
CNN correspondent Christina Alesci (12/2/16) reported excitedly that Donald Trump was convening a panel of prominent CEOs for monthly consultations on economic issues. The panel, assembled by the Blackstone Group’s CEO Stephen Schwartzman, will be made up of a “who’s who” of “bipartisan CEOs,” Alesci said, including GM’s Mary Barra, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Disney‘s Bob Iger, Doug McMillon of Walmart and Jack Welch, former CEO of GE.
“What we’re seeing here is really historic,” Allesci told viewers. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this…. Like I said before, this list really represents a bipartisan group, so he will have some very diverse viewpoints just to tap into.”
Protecting a Pundit Who Dismissed Trans Rights
In a New York Times op-ed (12/2/16), trans writer Jennifer Finney Boylan began a discussion of the election with an account of TV punditry the morning after the election:
On TV, a commentator speculated that Mrs. Clinton had lost because of her party’s focus on things like trans rights —“boutique issues,” they were called.
The use of the “boutique issues” phrase is a major focus in the op-ed—Boylan went on to discuss comedian Bill Maher’s use of the same expression—so which commentator said it on that morning after? As writer Melissa Gira Grant pointed out on Twitter (12/2/16), it was New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni. In response to host Stephanie Ruhle (MSNBC Live, 11/9/16) saying “Transgender bathrooms in high schools, how many people is that going to impact in this country?,” Bruni responded, “When you do those sorts of boutique issues…there’s a lot of the country that feels ignored.”
The Times op-ed page had no trouble calling out Maher by name for using the dismissive phrase, but somehow the name of a writer who regularly appears on the same page was deemed not fit to print.
Sanders, Warren Don’t Meet WaPo’s Standards for ‘Progressive’
If you want to be progressive, don’t be like this guy, says the Washington Post (11/14/16).
The Washington Post editorial page (11/14/16) accused “the people who are defining themselves as the progressive wing of the Democratic Party”—namely, senators Bernie Sanders (I.–Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D.–Mass.)—of “embracing principles that are not genuinely progressive.” So how does the Post define “progressive”?
Well, you shouldn’t support things like “free college, free healthcare [and] expanded Social Security”—because we live in ”an era of constrained resources.” You should definitely “think twice before vilifying business as a whole” and “declaring that every problem can be solved by soaking the rich.” You can see why this definition of “progressive” would be appealing to a paper owned by Jeff Bezos, the country’s second-richest billionaire.
