It's a big deal that veteran journalist Mike Barnicle has now called out his media colleagues for failing to adequately cover Trump's visibly worsening mental state. It should spur a real discussion about how to do this, before it's too late. 1/
New piece
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
“We have a damaged, delusional, old man who might get reelected to the presidency," Mike Barnicle said on @Morning_Joe. He said the media doesn't really cover Trump's daily insanity as a window into his mental fitness for the presidency. This is right. 2/
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
Some in the media will reject this, claiming they do cover Trump's crazier claims. But this misses the point. His mental unfitness for the presidency is *itself* the big story. It merits sustained scrutiny as a topic with its own intrinsic importance. 3/
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
You can find some examples of reporting on Trump's mental state. But it's not remotely adequate. A lot of stuff gets overlooked entirely. Trump's deranged claims about gender at Moms for Liberty event were not adequately covered, as @mtomasky noted. 4/
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
As @jbouie notes, the whole premise of Biden age coverage was that his mental capacity for the job is a matter of national importance. Why not apply this to Trump's addled incoherence, lack of curiosity, serial lying, and sadistic verbal abuses? 5/
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
To imagine what real coverage of Trump's mental unfitness might look like, I took 10 real Biden age headlines and rewrote them around Trump's unfitness for the presidency.
Read them below; the effect is striking. Why don't we see saturation like this? 6/
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
Those are real headlines about Biden's age at top news orgs, reimagined as heds about Trump's mental unfitness for the job. We should treat those Trump traits and the politics around them as *themselves* being the news.
Link to full argument below. END
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
Related, important point from @JRubinBlogger: Inadequate scrutiny of Trump's mental unfitness ends up insulating Republicans more broadly from hard questions about their continued enthusiastic support for him. Also citing @JeffreyGoldberg
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/…
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