Trump, Kennedy, and autism: all the news that's fit to print (and doesn't make us uncomfortable)

 Picking up from yesterday's post, the sane-washing of the Trump-Kennedy alliance continues.

 

Of all that was said at Friday's Arizona rally, this might have been the most newsworthy.

DJT :

"That is why today I am repeating my pledge to establish a panel of top experts, working with Bobby, to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including auto-immune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and more."

 

Coming at this from a conspiracy theorist/pseudoscience crank worldview, the one word that should set off immediate alarm bells is "autism." The headline pretty much writes itself: "Trump announces autism committee headed by Robert F Kennedy Junior."

If you had to list the remaining terms in order of tinfoil hat appeal, they would be infertility, autoimmune disorders, and at a distant fourth, obesity. A reporter covering the speech might also feel compelled to add that the causes which RFK Junior has proposed in the past include not just vaccines but also chemtrails, Wi-Fi, and 5G.

If you've been following our thread on the New York Times you can probably guess what's coming. Here's how the NYT covered that quote in the third paragraph from the end of the article on Kennedy endorsing Trump:

Earlier in the day in Phoenix, at his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, Mr. Kennedy said Mr. Trump had offered him a role in a second Trump administration, dealing with health care and food and drug policy. In Glendale, Mr. Trump said that, if elected to a second term, a panel of experts “working with Bobby” would investigate obesity rates and other chronic health issues in the United States.

We know from countless memoirs and internal accounts not to mention the evidence of our own eyes that the New York Times is terrified of the appearance of liberal bias and that the paper's culture is one of never admitting you're wrong. Unfortunately, the NYT has been wrong a lot over the past nine years and there's no way of owning up without appearing to side with the Democrats against the Republicans.

To get around this, either consciously or as some form of coping with cognitive dissonance, the journalists (or at least the editors) of the paper have repeatedly misrepresented the news. Their coverage has largely consisted of misleading headlines, buried stories, groundless speculation, and deceptively selective editing of quotes. The result has sometimes significantly overlapped what we're getting from Fox news, albeit stuffier and more pretentious.

For very different reasons, both conservative media and the establishment press are both trying to downplay the craziness of the Trump campaign. That's a very dangerous alliance for democracy.