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Monday, July 15, 2024

Ballots, bullets, and media narratives (Updated)

Donald Trump won reelection when that bullet whizzed past him on Saturday. This means neither that I wish Trump had been killed nor that the shooting was the Reichstag Fire. Rather, the shooting will affect media coverage of the race in a way that I believe will affect a significant number of voters and that I do not believe Biden can overcome.

First, Trump's reaction--to adorn t-shirts and history books for years to come--reinforces the narratives of Trump as a "fighter" and of Trump as younger and more vigorous and tougher than Biden. It is no longer just that Trump and stand and scream for hours (even if what he says is nonsensical and/or frightening). It is that Trump leaped to his feet after getting shot in the ear. MAGA types had long trafficked in strange images of Trump as muscle-bound strongman. Now a real example feeds that image.

Second, the media narrative will make impossible the accurate Democratic argument that Trump is an authoritarian who undermines and threatens the constitutional order. Any criticism of Trump or discussion of Trump's dangerousness will be criticized by MAGA and reported by the media as the left inciting and calling for more violence against Trump (with constant reminders of the shooting). Biden and Democrats cannot make the core argument against Trump's election without being criticized for raising the temperature and setting the stage for more violence. At the same time, the media will play up (as it has begun to do) the narrative of Trump as a "changed man," seeking to unite rather than divide and finally become President of the whole United States. Anything Trump says at this week's RNC and beyond will be framed around and reported as reinforcing that supposed change and desire to unify, regardless of its substance and as the things he pursues remain inherently divisive. The media has long been unwilling or unable to accurately report what Trump says and does, trapped by what some have called the bias towards normalcy. The shooting and its aftermath offer a different bias through which to launder the danger.

Third, these narratives have developed before we know the shooter's motives, whether this was politically motivated, and whether the narrative of "Trump is dangerous and must be stopped" (even if in context every sane person knew that meant the ballot box) had anything to do with the shooting. The narrative is that it did and thus Democrats must change their message and stop criticizing Trump.

Finally, this from David Frum: "Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life." I would add that even if some people had that language, the media could not and would not present it to the world.

Update: Tom Nichols, also in The Atlantic. He blames bad-faith GOP partisans more than the media for engaging in what Ed Luce calls “an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop [Trump] from regaining power.” But if the move comes from partisans, it "seems to be working" with the media--MSNBC canceling Morning Joe on Monday and The Times apologized for an op-ed, published before the assassination, calling Trump unfit for office. But I think this confirms my original point that it is on the media. Political leaders are going to political leader, especially bad-faith actors such as Rick Scott and Mike Collins. Things fall apart when the media cannot or will not stand up to that bad faith. As journalism professor Jay Rosen puts it, the trust-in-media problem is that the media do not trust themselves.

Posted by Howard Wasserman on July 15, 2024 at 03:12 PM in Howard Wasserman, Law and Politics | Permalink

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