Unfit to Print

Is there anything so cowardly as an article from the “editorial board”?

An anonymous opinion piece, supposedly carrying the approval and weight of the greatest journalists at a publication. When it comes to news organizations like the New York Times, who’ve existed for nearly two centuries and boast 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the theoretical impact of such an article is enormous.

In reality, opinion pieces from editorial boards are often ways for powerful interests to “shove their thumb on the scale”. To wield the enormous authority and influence of respected news organizations, and suffocate any potential dissent against the status quo.

In my opinion, there has never been a clearer example than today’s opinion piece in the New York Times: Fight Like Our Democracy Depends on It. From the title, you’d almost expect this to be a radicalizing call to action. In reality, the article is the typical centrist milquetoast garbage that ensured the far-right’s rise to power.

Let’s start off with the usual suspects. When criticizing the “MAGA Republicans” of today, liberal writers have this automatic reaction to reach for a quote from a “good Conservative” (almost always Reagan). They seek to clearly split the far-right Trump faction, and the “classic Conservatives” of yesteryear. Sure enough, the board harkens back to Reagan’s Inaugural Address.

Any criticism of the right must also be twinned with criticism of “the left”. The board is quick to throw shade at Biden and Obama for “overstepping the boundaries of presidential power”, without citing a single example. I have plenty of ire toward those two, but to vaguely gesture at what “they did”, as if to say ‘all presidents go a bit mad with power’ is blatantly stupid at best, and journalistic malpractice at worse.

There’s more minor annoyances to be found. Talking about the Supreme Court “responding sensibly” as if it was still a vessel of judicial independence, and not an institution held hostage by far-right bigots. Implying the “woke left” has restricted speech (albeit, not as much as Trump has).

Then, there is the tone policing. This is all-too fucking common among center-left pro-capitalist writings. The idea that some protesters are just a little too fiery, a little too bold with their speech. We need to dial it down a little bit, else we risk ruining the vibes of this revolution. We need to call him “Mr. President” while we rebuke his comments about trans minorities.

Fuck off.

Even worse, we get this finger-wagging about needing to acknowledge Trump as a president in the same article he’s criticized for violently suppressing freedom of speech. A demand for those actually fighting against Trump to watch their language. Because if they get too loud, other people might realize we need to fix the societal issues that allowed for Trump’s rise to power in the first place, and we can’t have that.

As a side note, whoever wrote the line “many of his actions are legal” needs to be barred from working in any position of power for the rest of their lives.

The normalization of fascism is what allows its rise. The article confines Trump’s criminal conduct to single sentences, briefly brushing over it in the race to the next sentence. Trump “ignored” court rulings. Trump imposed “chaotic” tariffs. Trump’s efforts to enrich himself and his allies were “remarkable”.

He didn’t “ignore” court rulings. He broke the law, and when the judge told him to stop, he kept breaking the law. Trump’s effort to enrich himself isn’t “remarkable”. He’s stealing money from American citizens to fatten his own wallet. Trumps tariffs aren’t “chaotic”. They’re going to bankrupt thousands of businesses and rip jobs away from innocent Americans. Grow a fucking spine, and tell it like it is.

The article’s most ridiculous moment comes toward the end. It talks about the situation surrounding Harvard, praising its president (Alan Garber’s) “wise approach” of acknowledging Trump and agreeing that some of his criticisms toward the university “had merit”. This supposedly strengthened Harvard’s political position, and made them “look reasonable” when they filed a lawsuit against the US Government’s “ludicrous demands”.

Complete and utter bollocks. While the article links a source discussing it, it fails to mention that under Garber’s leadership, Havard was fully willing to bend over backwards to please Trump. They were quite happy to suspend their research partnership with a West Bank university and shut down their “Center for Middle Eastern Studies”.

Rather than “strengthening Harvard’s political position”, we were instead shown yet another shining example of the failures of appeasement. Give a bully what they want, and they’ll ask for more. Neville Chamberlin proved as much when he handed over Czechoslovakian land to Hitler, before loudly proclaiming “peace in our time”, a year before World War II broke out.

The New York Times, as far as I can see, isn’t interested in addressing the issues that allowed Trump to rise to power. The fact that Americans have to fork out thousands of dollars for the crime of getting sick. The fact that elected officials seem less interested in improving the quality of their citizens lives, and more interested in engaging in insider trading. The fact that ICE are nothing more than domestic terrorists, hellbent on ripping apart families and stealing from Americans.

They want a peaceful, quiet, ballot box revolution. One that ensures Trump’s successor is exactly the same, but a little more presentable.