F**king Mondays: Trump's Supreme Court Win, The NYT Screws Biden, and No Labels Flops
It’s that time of the week again! Here’s the latest installment of our “F**king Mondays” roundup!:
Media framing
Having writte about Washington Post columnist and perennial bore Kathleen Parker’s ‘both sides’ masterpiece on Sunday, I was surprised to see The New York Times up the ante on Sunday with this front page arrangement:
As you can see, the lead story is a poll showing Biden voters believe he is too old to be an effective President. The article right underneath the headline story is about Trump allies plotting to steal the 2024 election by fraudulently challenging thousands of voter registrations.
Front page presentation on America’s most respected newspaper is very carefully planned, so the story selection and order is deliberate. This means the Times editorial team decided the poll about Biden’s age was more important than a story about Republican efforts to steal an election.
While more subtle than Parker’s lazy attempt to equate Bill Clinton and the Democrats with Donald Trump and the GOP, it provides hard evidence of the media’s pathological need to turn elections into two-way horse races. Imagine for a moment the inverse were true; the majority of Republican thought Trump was too old, and that Biden surrogates were engaged in a plot to remove voters from the rolls in time for November. How would the media present the two stories?
I’m not suggesting the Times is in the bag for Trump, but they have helped desensitize the public to right wing extremism to such an extent that no one pays attention to their crimes anymore. This is a huge problem as we head into November, and media organizations like the Times need to be pressured relentlessly to change.
An interesting study from the team at The Data Face back in September of 2016 did a comprehensive analysis of media sentiment in articles about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump over the span of eight months. You can see the trends here:
One thing that stands out is that sentiment was basically equal over the eight months, meaning the media treated both candidates in very similar ways. This is stunning given Trump had a known history of sexual abuse, racism, and extreme corruption. To treat him in the same was as a former Senator and Secretary of State was a real testament to the pathology of the corporate media. They had to have a horse race, even if it meant normalizing the most corrupt candidate in US history. Apparently not much has changed.
Insurrectionists are officially allowed to run for president
The Supreme Court ruled today that insurrectionists who attempt to overturn elections get to run for office as many times as they want (via the WaPo):
The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously sided with Donald Trump, allowing the former president to remain on the election ballot and reversing a Colorado ruling that disqualified him from returning to office because of his conduct around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The justices said the Constitution does not permit a single state to disqualify a presidential candidate from national office. The court warned of disruption and chaos if a candidate for nationwide office could be declared ineligible in some states, but not others, based on the same conduct.
“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the inauguration,” the court said in an unsigned, 13-page opinion.
This is a bizarre ruling given the 14th Amendment specifically bars federal, state and military officials who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States from holding office again. Five of the justices wrote that only Congress can enforce the 14th Amendment, citing Section 5 that states:
“Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
The liberal justices criticized the argument that congressional enforcement was the only way to enact the 14th Amendment, but concurred that: “An evolving electoral map could dramatically change the behavior of voters, parties, and States across the country, in different ways and at different times.”
“The disruption would be all the more acute — and could nullify the votes of millions and change the election result — if Section 3 enforcement were attempted after the Nation has voted.”
Not a great day for the highest legal authority in the land, especially after it just agreed to entertain Donald Trump’s insane argument that he can’t be prosecuted for his role on Jan. 6th because he had “total immunity” as president.
No Labels? No chance.
All is not well in No Labels land. The third-party organization dedicated to throwing the election to Donald Trump is running out of time to find a viable candidate to run, and donors are getting worried. Reports Politico:
Those fears have intensified after two high-profile No Labels candidate targets — former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat — passed on the chance to run for president, and as the party’s planned April presidential nominating convention approaches without a clear ticket in place.
“No Labels just missed one heck of an opportunity to potentially be viable, and now I don’t know that they can be viable,” said Jim Teague, the CEO of a Texas oil and gas company and a No Labels donor. “I don’t know who they can possibly get to run that would generate excitement that Joe Manchin would have generated,” he said, adding that it’s “pretty doubtful” he will donate to the organization in the future.
If No Labels donors genuinely think Joe Manchin, the most reviled Democrat in the nation, would “generate excitement,” the organization is probably dead in the water anyway.
Quote of the day
See you next week!
Please consider supporting The Banter by getting a Banter Membership. You’ll get access to Members Only articles, our locked archive, The Emergency Meeting Podcast, and Member chat threads. You’ll also be supporting truly independent media. Thank you!
Listen the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable Podcast! (free):
For Banter Members:
Hey, NYT! How about “(This candidate) is too insane and demented to be an effective president”?
Go ahead, I dare you. 🤔😉😊
Judicial cowardice. I find it VERY telling that none of the SCOTUS decision addressed, even once, whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection. The have overturned the 14th amendment and that is NOT in fact within the powers of the SCOTUS.