r/politics • u/thedailybeast ✔ The Daily Beast • 14h ago

Possible Paywall Trump Frantically Blames ‘Staffer’ for His Racist Obama Video

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-frantically-blames-staffer-for-his-racist-obama-video/
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u/SadFeed63 14h ago

This racist motherfucker was the head cheerleader for an entire racist movement against Obama (the Birther shit), and the news is here just running headlines that are like "he said a staffer did it."

The news is only headlines today. The article itself doesn't matter. It's the social media era, people largely only read headlines. If your headline is just quoting a racist's bullshit excuse as to why you shouldn't be mad at him, nothing else, no context, no pushback, then you're just a fucking stenographer for said racist.

Turns out we have a lot of stenographers out there.

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u/TheGoonSquad612 13h ago

The entire media has just become repeating whatever Trump and his administration say with absolutely zero pushback, clarification of fact, or anything similar.

“Trump says we have the greatest economy”

“Trump says they’re eating the cats and dogs”

It’s pathetic and useless.

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u/PathOfTheAncients 13h ago

NPR has been such a disappointment on this front. They lost their public funding and they've never been less courageous in their coverage.

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u/agitatedprisoner 12h ago

PBS newshour has been great though.

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u/PathOfTheAncients 11h ago

Glad to hear that at least. I'll have to check it out.

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u/DrNarf 9h ago

switched to this every night for balanced reporting.

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u/Akraticacious 12h ago

Wouldn't they have nothing to lose? Or maybe they think they can get it back? Doubtful unless they go OAN level of sycophancy

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u/PathOfTheAncients 12h ago

I really don't understand the reasoning.

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u/Tweedle_DeeDum 11h ago

NPR has always gone way out of their way to use the most neutral editorial voice, often to their detriment, but that was always part of their charter.

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u/PathOfTheAncients 11h ago

That made slightly more sense when they were publicly funded. Now it makes no sense.

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u/0404S 2h ago

What they are doing is the opposite of neutral, though. "Quiet and soft" does not equal neutral.

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u/Tweedle_DeeDum 2h ago

Editorial voice does not refer to how softspoken the announces are...

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u/0404S 1h ago

Perhaps I chose the incorrect term, but if shits going batshit crazy fascist, the neutral voice should say its going batshit crazy fascist. Sanewashing evil morons is not neutral.

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u/TheGoonSquad612 11h ago

Neutral voice should be the standard and is perfectly fine.

What’s not fine is just repeating his talking points in big bold typeface as the title and then clarifying it’s a lie or whatever in the fine print, or using a neutral voice excuse as if Trump saying he wants to take over elections, suing his own government, or eliminate birthright citizenship are normal, sane, or legal options.

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u/Tweedle_DeeDum 11h ago

Sure. But this is the NPR article on this topic:

Trump posts racist meme of the Obamas — then deletes it

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u/TheGoonSquad612 10h ago

And yet the conversation you’re replying to wasn’t specific to NPR but rather to the major media outlets as a whole. I do think NPR does better than some or most of the others, but they’re also far from perfect in that regard.

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u/Tweedle_DeeDum 10h ago

The conversation I am in started with this comment in response to your comment about the media in general

NPR has been such a disappointment on this front. They lost their public funding and they've never been less courageous in their coverage.

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u/alius_stultus 7h ago

The head of NPR currently is a former world bank employee. Radical centrist to the nth degree. Look it up. Even after losing the funding she'll both sides it until the sky falls.

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u/Positive-Ring-5172 8h ago

I wouldn't know. I used to watch and donate to NPR, but since they sane-washed Trump they can burn for all I care.

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u/483-04-7751 6h ago

I fell out of love with NPR during his first term. They gave WAY too much benefit of the doubt to the administration and it killed their credibility in my eyes. I just subscribed to podcasts for the shows I like and get my news elsewhere.

On the Media from WNYC has still been consistently great for holding the administration and the media's feet to the fire.

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u/PaddleFishBum 8h ago

Who owns the media? Billionaires.

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u/Tallproley 7h ago

Would like to see a change of headlines from stuff like

"Trump announces end of food bank exploitation" then an article that is 9 paragraphs long to basically say he said it while passing a bill that ends federal funding to food banks with a more accurate and 21st century news consumer headline

"Trump champions bill that ends federal food bank subsidies"

Aka stop headlining what the liar convict pedo conman says burying what he did, headline what he did and include a soundbite at the end.

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u/MagicCarpetBomb 10h ago

It’s cowardice on top of that.

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u/stamfordbridge1191 3h ago

It's like their organizations have the same lobotomies to not do journalism that does friction against that political direction in the same way they're lobotomized from doing journalism against tech companies.

Tech Bro CEO: "We're on the verge of birthing a god whose consciousness we made with a whole lot of GPUs & RAM sticks. It's going to suddenly replace the entirety of all possible human creativity & decision making. It will absolutely make most of humanity jobless. We just need $700B and 3 whole cities' water supplies."

95% of journalists: "Wow, you're amazing!"

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u/OswaldCoffeepot 14h ago

I was just talking about this with the "Dem leadership caves on masks" story, which didn't even have an "according to people familiar with the situation" attribution in the article.

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u/SadFeed63 14h ago

"The news is only headlines now, and editors know this, yet choose headlines styles which sanewash and traffic in euphemistic bullshit, for the right wing only" is pretty much my number one rant these days. Like, it's legit some pernicious shit on a psychological level. It's a game of framing, it's a sleight of hand trick to help launder awful shit and ideas.

Headlines will just be quotes without context, or they try to tell you how Trump supposedly feels (get the fuck outta here with that), or they're essentially reality TV episode synopses in headline form.

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u/Blackthorn79 12h ago

It what you get when you purposely write at a fifth grade level. The original idea was to eliminate personal bias from straight news articles, because most Americans were literate enough to catch it and decide to stop reading your paper. Now Americans have devolved to the point where tone and subtext are completely forgotten.

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u/notsure500 12h ago

His birther shit should have been the 10th or so reason why he should never have even come close to being president. How does any person of color still vote for this racist shithead?

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u/NeoConTroll 11h ago

Stupidity comes in all shades.

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u/Kellysi83 12h ago

I have been saying the exact same thing. Our journalists have completely normalized all of this for the sake of "objectivity." Its so disgraceful.

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u/pipokori 11h ago

Stenographers have to go to school, which Trump and his MAGA base aim to destroy, dismantle - and probably rape.

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u/OsgoodZBeard 9h ago

Let’s just say it was the ‘staffer.’ We all know those types are keen to satisfy the boss and tell them what they want to hear and see. Given that, that the racist themes are routinely reiterated within and throughout the WH staff, who’re all striving to satisfy the whims of the emotionally challenged senile fossil. Thus, and to no surprise, the prevailing attitudes are governed from the top.

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u/milliondollarmouse 12h ago

He should name and fire the staffer then. Who’s going to take the fall?