Saturday, September 01, 2018


In very broad terms, the difference in how the political poll/voter focused press covers Obama versus Trump is telling.

In Obama's case, the press felt "the story" was always that Obama was not popular, even though he was never really that unpopular (nor was he super popular!), so they focused on all the voters who hated him.

In Trump's case, they feel "the story" is that Trump is popular, even though he is not very popular (though not super unpopular!), so they focus on the voters who love him.

Sure some of this is the usual "must prove we aren't liberal by slanting our coverage towards conservatives," but I think it also does betray, to some extent, the biases of the press corps. While the myth of the liberal media is indeed a myth, both in terms of what's in their hearts and how that "bias" shows up in the coverage, in ways large and small I think it was obvious the press didn't dislike Obama (despite the coverage) and the press does dislike Trump (again, despite the coverage). I mean you can't be sentient, not on the take, and be vaguely aware of how politics is supposed to work in this country and not be horrified by Trump. These people aren't all stupid and whatever his faults and mistakes, Obama was good enough at presidenting and Trump is horrible at it.

But this coverage doesn't please anyone, because despite the obsessive and overly generous coverage of the Tea Party (then) and the Trump Cult (now), it's obvious that reporters saw/see these people as sort of weird. The uncritical nature of the coverage makes it condescending. Reports from the land of the weird. It reinforces the idea of 'the liberal media' while also pissing off liberals who rightly don't think conservatives are the only voters in the country.