Quick 🧵 of the wackiest @elonmusk potentially buying Twitter takes vs. what those folks had to say when Twitter booted President Trump. ⤵️
From Twitter is a private company “to which the 1st Amendment doesn’t apply” to “this is what oligarchy looks like” in the twinkling of an eye.
Live by the tweets, die by the tweets, @mmpadellan.
We sure went quickly from Twitter can do “whatever it wants to” because “that is its freedom of expression” to living in “the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany,” @jeffjarvis.
My personal favorite: Schrodinger’s private corporation. When it does something @maxboot likes, it can’t be questioned.
But when it goes against Boot? Cue political outrage.
I…don’t really have anything to add to this from @David_Leavitt
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Whatever happened to Harris and Biden’s “strongest economy ever” that the media spent so much time hyping up in the lead up to the election?
I revisit the claims, and explain why they were off the mark about the economy all along, in my latest @AmerCompass.
Quick🧵thread🧵⤵️
It can be easy, in the wake of an election, to forget just how dominant a media narrative was.
One that’s already fading from view was how “great” the economy was, and why it would benefit Harris on Election Day. americancompass.org/its-still-the-…
As a refresher, check out this headline from @axios about the data.
@YahooFinance upgraded Biden’s economic grade to an A. That captures the press sentiment at the time quite well.
In recent days, the mainstream media has taken nakedly ridiculous claims about the tattoos of @PeteHegseth, Trump’s SecDef nominee, to spin up a story alleging he’s an extremist.
It’s an egregious example of politically driven “journalism.” I unpack why. ⤵️
The story really started with @AP, who ran an article claiming that two tattoos that @PeteHegseth has have ties to extremism, citing an extremely thin (and downright suspect) report.
They used that to label him a potential “insider threat” in their headline.
It wasn’t until 3 paragraphs in that a reader was told what that claim rested on: a tattoo of a Latin phrase. They’d go on to mention “concerns” about a cross tattoo as well.
Would be great if Trump’s unconventional picks for his cabinet inspire the media to consider a nominee’s credentials.
They might want to look at the current HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, who brings to the table the medical experience of being in Congress for 12 terms.
Or perhaps Obama’s former HHS Secretary, Sylvia Matthews Burwell, who had just finished her stint lobbying for Walmart.
Or Donna Shalala, Clinton’s former head of HHS, whose credentials were as a university administrator and feminist.
I know it seems silly, but the media meltdown about Trump working at a McDonald’s is clarifying about why trust in the press has cratered.
Before we get to that, let’s revisit some of the most deranged takes. ⤵️
The press’s response to Trump deciding to troll Harris for her unsupported claims that she worked at McDonald’s by working at the chain himself sent the media into a tizzy.
Here’s @CNN, suddenly apologetic about a corporation in the political limelight.
My favorite take came from @nytimes, who appeared outraged that…Trump didn’t wear a hairnet.
The media is already trying to memory-hole the (first) attempted assassination of former President Trump.
I suspect many of you have felt it happening, but I walked through the details for The Spectator, and wanted to share some of them here.
Follow along ⤵️
First, I just want to level-set to make sure I’m not crazy.
Someone tried to kill the former POTUS, who, according to a variety of polls, is the odds-on favorite to return to that office. Tons of details didn’t make sense.
Seems like the press story of the year, right?
Well…
So far, the press doesn’t seem to think so.
It started as soon as the shots rang out. Do you remember how bad & unhelpful the headlines were?
I’ve got screenshots. @USATODAY @NBCNews (“popping noises”) @CNN (“injured in incident”) @latimes (“loud noises want through the crowd”)