Trump's abortion lie knocks out media
Trump's abortion lie knocks out media
How Trump's love of wrestling explains his sociopathic tendencies
Welcome to a Tuesday night edition of Progress Report.
With so much happening around the country, I’ll have a news deep dive for premium subscribers on Wednesday night. Before we get there, let’s talk about the week’s “bombshell” news and why some reporters may want to start watching pro wrestling for a better understanding of how to cover Donald Trump.
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It had all the elements of a classic pro wrestling turn: months of speculation, regular teases to build the hype, a direct-to-camera address from a populist patriotic face character, a shocking revelation, and outraged outbursts from largely loathed heels that validate the bravery of the hero.
It’s just a shame that after more than a decade of covering him as a political figure, the media still couldn’t — or wouldn’t — see the obvious kayfabe of Donald Trump’s big abortion policy announcement.
In a four and a half minute video posted on Monday evening, Trump said that he believed that abortion rights should be handled by individual states, endorsing a deductive depiction of a dangerous status quo that he delivered by choosing the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade. He prattled on like a creep about “precious” and “beautiful” babies and explained how he satisfied imaginary legal scholars. Trump even tossed in some tired old lies about the left wanting to legalize “abortion after the baby is born,” a sop to the people most likely to buy his branded bibles.
The presentation was so over the top and self-aware that watching it, given what’s at stake here in the real world, felt like taking a metal chair to the face. Worse, the subsequent news coverage of the event was suggestive of an industry-wide concussion.
The NY Times called the video “his clearest statement yet on the future of abortion rights,” while CNN described the announcement as “his clearest stance yet” on the issue. Most national news outlets had some version of “Trump declines to endorse a national abortion ban” or “Trump says abortion restrictions should be left to states” in the headlines of their coverage, giving credence to a congenital liar on a subject that he’s described as a bargaining chip.
It didn’t matter that the former president filled the rest of the video with outrageous lies. It was irrelevant that the judges he nominated to the federal judiciary are working diligently to make abortion inaccessible nationwide. It was immaterial that he praised the Supreme Court justices who just invited additional suits aimed at a full nationwide ban. And while their stories may have mentioned that Trump discussed supporting a national ban as recently as last month, those notes were buried in the miasma of detail that people rarely read.
Because Trump said it, these outlets were obligated by outdated mores of “objective” journalism to treat it as gospel, even when their own prior reporting detailed the internal Trump campaign debate over potential abortion stances.
The tradition of “objectivity,” as developed in the 1940s and 1950s, still binds reporters to giving the benefit of the doubt to a sociopath under indictment on nearly 100 counts of fraud and lying. The result is a free daily A1 column for the shameless and dangerous grifters, whose lies take root long before they can be refuted.
Selling the Lie
The political media also dutifully transcribed the angry objections of conservatives like Lindsey Graham, Mike Pence, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. A perfect potpourri of the most annoying types of Republicans, their criticisms give Trump a false credibility with normal people.
Trump spent hours on Monday night posting responses to their criticisms on his tanking app, Truth Social, winning himself a second day of news coverage meant to assuage the concerns of pro-choice swing voters.
In a political system that’s become a hybrid of soap operas and team sports, Trump taunting Graham online is always going to get more coverage than federal lawsuits from far-right, Trump-aligned legal nonprofits gunning to end abortion rights.
It’s the exact sort of thing that a newly turned “face” wrestler would do to gain the trust of viewers not quite convinced by their sudden conversion to good guy status. Trump knows this switch well, given his long-running relationship with the WWE. A close friend of pro wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon, the recently ousted chair who built WWE into an international phenomenon.
Trump gave the fledgling group a boost when he hosted WrestleMania live from his Atlantic City casinos in the late 80s, and he has played key roles in some of most pivotal moments in WWE storylines over the past two decades. He approaches politics like a pro wrestling match circa the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s, playing to giant crowds who want a villain to hate and hero to worship.
I’d venture a guess that the wrestling fan demographic isn’t likely to be hanging on Trump’s every word about reproductive rights, but the principles of showmanship and constructed reality are universally applicable. Rigid adherence to traditional “objective” journalism is a disservice to readers and the nation writ large. The longer it continues, the more likely it is that Trump will take power and shut down the media altogether.
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Don the Con strikes again. Our national corporate media are worthless in my opinion. I’m glad to have the Substack options.
The only thing clear about the orange traitor is that he has no beliefs other than who he can scam next and how much he can get out of it. It is his only reason for existing...to see what he can get away with next.
The media sucks, and should be ashamed for the cowardice and lack of commitment to the country they display.