The Unbearable Smugness of the Press
10th November 2016
This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.
So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.
And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.
Even CBS can smell the coffee.
November 10th, 2016 at 11:29
They did, in fact, call Trump a liar (which he is). It did not, unfortunately, save the republic.
November 10th, 2016 at 14:25
Clinton was and has been an even worse liar, at the expense of that same republic, so it doesn’t appear to have made a difference.
November 11th, 2016 at 10:27
False equivalency. The splinter in Clinton’s eye does not excuse the beam in Trump’s. But as you say, it doesn’t appear to have made a difference.