I would disagree that it misses the point - I agree with your assessment of trump, but I think “the point” the article is addressing is not why-do-trump-supporters-support-trump, but rather “why do journalists write as if trump is normal?”
There’s a fundamental break with common sense that the article is addressing. How many of those lines would, by themselves, have been a devastatingly accurate headline if it were in the News (not Opinion) section of NYT, WaPo, or even USA Today?
As an example:
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
More to the point - WHY aren’t news reporters able to state these plain and obvious facts?
My guess is it at least partly has to do with the vast majority of US media being beholden to viewership (advertising) and subscriptions. They are afraid of losing customers, so they bend over backwards not to piss them off.
I would disagree that it misses the point - I agree with your assessment of trump, but I think “the point” the article is addressing is not why-do-trump-supporters-support-trump, but rather “why do journalists write as if trump is normal?”
There’s a fundamental break with common sense that the article is addressing. How many of those lines would, by themselves, have been a devastatingly accurate headline if it were in the News (not Opinion) section of NYT, WaPo, or even USA Today?
As an example:
More to the point - WHY aren’t news reporters able to state these plain and obvious facts?
My guess is it at least partly has to do with the vast majority of US media being beholden to viewership (advertising) and subscriptions. They are afraid of losing customers, so they bend over backwards not to piss them off.
Well - yeah. That, and the owners are all republiQans.