The New York Times Editorial Board loves narratives, but they especially love narratives where they're the hero

This is quite the piece of work. Sanctimonious and self-serving. It is such a platonic ideal of New York Times editorial board posturing that, if it were to come in tweet sized bites, you would assume it was actually written by the Pitchbot.

Vice President Kamala Harris, now the likely Democratic nominee, has the chance to encourage and embrace the kind of close examination that the public so far has had little opportunity to witness during the 2024 race.

Americans deserve a campaign that tests the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates; that highlights their differences and allows scrutiny of their plans; that motivates people to vote by giving them a clear account of how their choice in this election will affect their lives.

Americans deserve the opportunity to ask questions of those who are seeking to lead their government.

You know that whenever the NYT offers to speak for those of us among the great unwashed, it's going to be embarrassing and, at least in that respect, this does not disappoint. Unless I've gotten hold of a truncated version, the entire thing comes in at around 350 words, so we could take it line by line, but fortunately there's one paragraph that epitomizes the self-righteousness, fatally flawed ethics, and general dishonesty of the whole piece.

But she needs to do more, and she needs to do it quickly. Ms. Harris ought to challenge Mr. Trump to a series of debates or town halls on subjects of national importance, such as the economy, foreign policy, health care and immigration. Mr. Trump claims that he is ready and willing to participate in debates once Democrats have officially selected a nominee. Americans would benefit from comparing the two candidates directly.

[The linked article is also a remarkable exercise in calling a spade anything but a spade.] 

Two of the three sentences are so bad that we either have to conclude that the editorial board is almost completely ignorant of what actually happened or that these are deliberate lies of omission. In the first the board leaves out the fact that Harris has already been challenging Trump to debates or at least demanding that he show up to the one he already agreed to. Check out this clip from the day before the NYT ran its editorial.

Vice President Harris: Donald Trump previously agreed to a September 10th debate. It now appears he’s backpedaling. I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. I’m ready. Let’s go pic.twitter.com/tvpfHLZvi4

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 25, 2024

If anything, the second sentence is even worse. It is absolutely absurd to talk about Trump's willingness to debate while making no mention of the fact that he just backed out. I'm tempted to stop here since anything else risks going into "other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" territory, but it's worth noting that the rationale has shifted by the day from ABC being unfair to him, to the fact that Obama had not at the time endorsed her, to her not yet being the official nominee to this...  

Ingraham: Why not debate Kamala Harris?

Trump: Because everyone already knows everything

Ingraham: They’re saying you’re afraid of debating her

Trump: I’m leading in the polls pic.twitter.com/gmOwg5lzvC

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 30, 2024

 

Despite the recent posturing on the subject, the value of presidential debates is not all that clear. Based on the history of the last 64 years, they haven't been particularly good at conveying information and substantive arguments, and to the extent they have mattered at all, they have tended to hinge on trivialities, gaffes, and appearances. Nixon's decision to forgo makeup, Gerald Ford's obvious misstatement about Russian influence, Reagan's movie star fame.

But once you accept the premise that debates are essential for democracy (let alone the sacred institution the NYT has been building them up as for months now), then recent events lead to a story that the New York Times editorial board desperately wants not to tell: we need to have debates but Trump backed out. Harris responded by demanding debates and trying to pressure and shame Trump into going along but he keeps coming up with new reasons to avoid them.

The board hates this version for at least a couple of reasons. First, there's no way to tell it without making the Democrat look good and the Republican bad, at least not without dumping the pro-debate premise. "Something is good. The Democrat wants to do it. A Republican is trying to stop it." is the kind of thing that ends up on page A14 in the paper of record.

More importantly though, it is a story that makes the New York Times a trivial character. In the version they published, they are wise and impartial judges and advisors, standing above the fray, alone seeing the big picture. We, the New York Times, defenders of democracy, are out there fighting for you the voters if only both sides would listen to our counsel. 

No institution in journalism has a culture more centered around the belief in its own superiority than does the New York Times. Few institutions do, period. The one other example that springs to mind are the Ivy leagues schools and even there I think the comparison might be a bit unfair. 

The NYT has made a string of disastrous decisions over the past thirty years, starting with Whitewater, Bush V Gore, and the Iraq war. In each case and in all the cases since, it has reacted by denying his own culpability and clinging even more tightly to its own self-deceptions.