38 Comments

This is an excellent piece by Josh and one I agree with wholeheartedly.

Can I also say - has everyone developed amnesia over the last 2.5 years? We all know exactly who and what Trump is, so to act surprised, to wring one's hands and clutch one's pearls as AOC and numerous lefty commenters did yesterday, is ridiculous. He's the same person he's always been and making his every utterance a hate crime is playing right into his hands. You'd think people would have learned from the last time.

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I don't have a strong view. But the guy did try to overthrow the government, so the idea that the media might want to treat him differently than other candidates seems . . . maybe not entirely crazy?

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Everyone wants to pull the fire alarm but no one wants to fight the fire. So many people keep yelling: “look at how terrible he is!” - and to be clear I agree - but I don’t see what that accomplishes. Stopping Trump means either A) getting some of the people who voted for him to change their mind or B) getting some nonvoters off the sidelines and voting for us or some combo of both. But when I ask the people who love being the 20,000th person to re-tweet some dunk on Trump how that accomplishes either? Crickets.

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CNN isn’t doing this as some project to fairly and completely cover the news. They’re doing it because their business model is in decline and they remember that sweet, sweet rush of Trump ratings.

If this is a one-off, I’ll eat my hat.

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"The complaints are that Trump lies too much, and therefore broadcasting him live will tend to misinform voters; or that he is too vicious and nasty; or that the audience is too vicious and nasty, cheering him on and making his shtick look popular and effective."

I don't know that I disagree with your final conclusion, but I think this a little dismissive of the biggest concern about Trump - his repeated attempts to stoke political violence and erode our democracy. Should a news outlet put a major political party nominee live on air if they repeatedly lie and are nasty? Yes. Should a news outlet put a major political party nominee live on air if they have repeatedly urged violence and taken steps to unjustly install themselves as president? That's a different question that I don't think you really reckon with here.

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I think you are basically correct but I despair of any progress.

Trump's secret sauce is his ability to bait mainstream media into what seem like partisan attacks so he can then tell his base: see I told you they were against you the whole time.

But I'm not sure what can really be done about this. Journalists aren't robots and when Trump personally treats them badly or disrespects their role it requires near superhuman restraint not to hit back.

On top of this add the economic incentives. Nuetral, non-partisan reporting offers incredible societal value. But it's just not what drives clicks or viewers. Absent a public funding model like the BBC I don't see how you avoid this.

My experience online is that the easiest way to get everyone furious at you is to recognize the flaws in both sides arguments. For instance, point out that Trump and his lawyers posed a serious threat to our democratic system with their attempt to deny certification but that it would be a stretch to say that Trump's speech on January 6th triggered the 14th amendment's bar on holding office and everyone hates you.

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There’s always the solution of just not watching. I’m sure if I had watched I would have had to turn it off because I would have gotten frustrated. Instead I went to a brewery with friends. Much better choice!

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I think this is correct. I’m just nervous Trump could win. I think a lot of people are, and that’s why they were outraged. But the key truth is this: If after all the scandals and corruption the American people vote Trump back in and want to go to hell, then so be it. That would be utterly tragic, sad, and maybe the end of democracy, but there would be nobody to blame ultimately than the voters who put him there.

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The format (to say nothing of the audience) mitigated any possibility for a substantive discussion. If you compare what happened last night to Jonathan Swan‘s interview from a few years back, it’s just night and day.

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A lot of the commentary about the town hall format is looking at the problem backwards. The root problem is the audience, not the candidate; that is, the electorate itself is becoming more polarized and spending more time in paranoia-inducing filter bubbles. Certainly, you can always stitch together an audience of lunatics, but these days if you scoop up a randomized handfull of Republican primary voters, most of them will act the way this audience did because they are taking cues from all the podcasts, online discussions, talking heads, etc. that comprise the modern right-wing media. And, ultimately, these are the people who give demagogues like Trump power. Have we already forgotten town hall in which McCain had to correct the assertion of an audience member that Obama was Muslim and that being Muslim is somehow disqualifying? Does it make more sense to be mad at Trump for prompting laughter at a women he sexually assaulted or for the audience having laughed at all? We know from his rallies that the former happened because of the latter.

It is easier for me to dissemble my concerns for the mirror problem with Democratic primaries because I'm left of center, but I imagine that if you scoop up a randomized handfull of Democratic primary voters, you'll get a good cross-section of people who think California should bankrupt itself paying reparations and that we should stop having children in order to save the environment. So I tend to agree with Josh that the town hall was useful and appropriate, but only because it affords an opportunity for sane, middle-of-the-road voters to see how crazy primary voters have become.

PS I live in a purple congressional district (that is soon to be gerrymandered out of existence) where the primary process produced a left-wing social justice warrior and a far-right MAGA nut. We ended up with the former only because of a technical objection to the residency of the latter by the local GOP. So I am probably biased by the trauma of watching that process play out.

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Many good points. Would CNN typically give individual candidates such town halls, though? Or were the other Republican candidates invited but declined?

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Completely agree. I also think trying to censor Trump feeds into the narrative of election rigging and media unfairness. Let Trump spill his nonsense from the mountaintops- last night he literally called anyone who didn’t think the election was rigged an “idiot”- and let’s see how it goes for him.

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I think it was embarrassing to Trump and the GOP in general because while they think anytime he pisses off "liberals" it means they are "winning". It shows a constant reminder of just how terrible he is as a candidate, leader and person.

Additionally, by stating his unpopular and incoherent policy views or general disregard for America (e.g. abortion access for women is a negotiation chip, or since he's not president he doesn't care if we default on the debt ceiling, called the moderator a nasty woman, also he defamed Carroll again, etc...), I think it makes him look less electable, since most moderates want to move on from him too. The main issue I think most have is that a town hall like that shouldn't feel like a rally and that's what it sort of turned into. Although that is expected of any and all Trump events.

That said we can't likely ignore that Trump is such a dumpster fire that is good for ratings that CNN probably is doing it's business a disservice by not covering him. On the other hand for Democrats he constantly gives you new material for why he is a bad candidate. I do think the media did a better job last night on asking him tough questions as opposed to 6 years ago when they normalized a lot of his terrible behavior. That's just my 2 cents, however.

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I touched on this somewhat in another comment. But isn't the person who should be most upset by this Ron DeSantis*? As loathe as I am to give him any benefit of the doubt, I think his team can rightfully say the MSM is trying to boost Trump because he's good for ratings at the expense of other viable GOP candidates.

And I'll repeat something I said in another comment. As much as I'm less angry about this townhall being aired then other Progressives (And will note again that Trump actually gave Democrats a ton of attack ad fodder; especially in regard to abortion), I'm as worried as anyone that we're heading down the 2016 road again; hours of footage of empty lecterns, broadcasting his rallies in full, broadcasting his press conferences in full because he'll say something completely insane and that's great ratings. All the while essentially getting free airtime to advertise himself and his message thereby giving him a huge leg up in reaching primary voters and swing voters (even if swing voters aren't watching cable, the amount of coverage it gets means they are liking hearing about it in some manner; whether that's social media, friends or recaps on the local news).

*Tim Scott and Nikki Haley could also be counted as being rightfully aggrieved. But while in theory they are actually probably two of the best general election candidates GOP could put up, let's be real; the chances of either being viable are slim to none unless Trump keels over from too many cheeseburgers.

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Useful to get Trump nominated FFS?

Yeah, great work.

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I love this article. Ultimately, Trump is news. He should be treated as such, and given the same attention (not more, not less) than any other candidate would be who is the front runner at this stage in a primary.

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