Credit Where It’s Due: The Power of the Press

A demonstration of how the press can make a difference.

Last week in this blog I wrote — yet again — about the responsibility of the press to call out the threat that the Trumpist GOP poses to American democracy, instead of engaging in the outdated, pre-2016 faux objectivity and maddening bothsidesism that has helped bring us to this pretty pass in the first place.

It’s a safe bet I’ll harp on that topic again before November 2024. (Mark your calendars.)

But in the interest of being fair and balanced (cough cough), I’d be remiss if I didn’t note some recent examples of the press doing exactly what I asked.

In fact, the week that followed saw a veritable flood of articles on that very topic. “Après moi, le déluge” indeed, motherfuckers.

I’m not saying my essay moved the national conversation, post hoc ergo propter hoc. (French and Latin in the same essay? Gott im Himmel!) I’m just saying that clearly I have my grubby little index finger on the pulse of the nation. Which is good, because I am saving the finger next to it for messaging members of MAGA Nation when they scream by me on the New Jersey Turnpike in their black pickup trucks, flying “Let’s Go Brandon” flags and blasting Lee Greenwood.