Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
This is how the New York Times covered Trump’s apparent desire to cancel all future presidential elections if he wins in 2024. It’s included as part of a series of short wrap-up pieces under the gang-headline, “Election Live Updates.”
“Here’s the latest on the presidential race.
President Donald J. Trump told Christians that if they voted him into office in November, they would never need to vote again, as Vice President Kamala Harris began wrapping up her first week as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
In the closing minutes of his speech late Friday to a gathering of religious conservatives, called The Believers’ Summit, Mr. Trump said, “Christians, get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Having disposed of that nettlesome little detail about Trump’s fascist plans, it was onto —
“Here’s what to know about the presidential campaign this weekend:
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Harris events: Ms. Harris will headline a campaign fund-raiser in Pittsfield, Mass., and virtually address a conference in Atlanta hosted by Voters of Tomorrow, a youth-focused group that recently endorsed her candidacy.”
Note how The Times refers to former president Trump as “President Donald J. Trump” while our current Vice President is referred to as “Ms. Harris” in its coverage. This kind of slanted sexist crap has been going on too long. They did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they’re doing again to Kamala Harris in her campaign for presidency. What the hell is going on at the New York Times? Why aren’t Times women, and for that matter all Times reporters up in arms about the blatantly misogynist way the Times is treating Vice President Kamala Harris?
The quotes from the Times above were copied and pasted directly from the Times website this morning. Sometime after I first saw their story, the Times added “Former” to “President Trump,” deleted “Ms” and added “Vice President” to Kamala Harris. Maybe somebody at the Times noticed what they had done and demanded the edit. Who knows. But my remark about the Times treating Hillary Clinton abominably in 2016 and some of the way they’re reporting on Harris now stands.
The only paper to devote a full story to Trump’s guarantee to his “beautiful Christians” that he’s going to “fix it” so they don’t have to vote anymore is The Guardian:
“Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’”
Every reporter from a mainstream media outlet covering Trump should be all over his speech yesterday, firing questions at his campaign asking them to explain exactly what Trump meant when he said “it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
If I had the resources of a major news organization behind me, jumping on planes and covering Trump rallies and speeches, that is what I would be doing. But what do we get from the New York Times? A few lines in a wrap-up piece about what’s happening in the presidential campaign…and they buried it on the Times website.
What is happening in the Trump campaign is this: He is promising his followers that if they return him to the White House, this will be the last American election, that he will be president for life for his “beautiful Christians.”
This election is a national emergency. We’ve got 100 days to get behind Kamala Harris and beat Donald Trump in November. Our country is having a heart attack. It’s time for Democrats to give it CPR at the ballot box.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.