Utterly bizarre. I wish we could just shrug this off as irrelevant. But this kind of deliberate distortion of the political landscape is quite common in mainstream media - and most people, I’m afraid, don’t consume this as “Stephens being Stephens,” but as “I read it in the NYT.”
https://twitter.com/LarryGlickman/status/1463478521070768128
Maybe I’m wrong, but I worry that most people - normal people who don’t have the time to delve into who the opinion columnists are and what their political project is - just “read the NYT,” or the WaPo, and trust that if these reputable papers print it, then it’s important.
And their takeaway from “reading the NYT” must be that, wow, there’s really something wrong with the Democrats, “the NYT” is really critical about what’s going on over there! And just to be clear: That’s not the fault of the people trusting the Paper of Record, that’s on the NYT.
It’s also why it’s disastrous that the WaPo provides a platform for far-right propaganda like this. It doesn’t come with a disclaimer saying “Remember, Thiessen’s project is to normalize and legitimize rightwing talking points;” for most people, it comes as “Read it in the WaPo.”
https://twitter.com/tzimmer_history/status/1460257331514687494
Over time, this adds up, and has exactly the effect intended by these “conservative” columnists (and that, at the very least, doesn’t seem to be a dealbreaker for these mainstream outlets): Obscuring the nature of the political conflict, pushing the reactionary political project.
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