The intense legacy media longing for a slightly less openly authoritarian ethno-nationalist Republican party
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This is CNN, which has actually been one of the less horrible mainstream outlets during the Trump era. In a piece that was originally headlined “Donald Trump Fever May Be Breaking” until some editor decided it would be more discreet to make that the subheadline, these pearls are cast:
In Tuesday’s elections, Republican candidates surged in blue states, cities rejected major police reform and suburban voters showed their independence. The major takeaways? This is a more moderate and centrist country than activists on either the right or left let on, and Donald Trump fever may be breaking.
The system is working. Here’s one thing everybody can be happy about: The election results, for the most part, are not being questioned. That may [!!!!] have a lot to do with Republicans doing well. But the results should prove to them that Trump’s voter fraud myth is in fact a myth.
Sure buddy, I bet it’s going to do just that. These people are hopeless.
It wasn’t a bomb-throwing wannabe strongman who won over voters in the blue state. It was a smiling rich guy in a zippered vest who toned down but did not abandon racial issues that appealed to Trump supporters and seized on notions of so-called “parental choice” that appealed to suburbanites. His other big issue was ending a tax on groceries. These are literally kitchen table issues.
Basically a huge number of legacy media types are just fine with authoritarian ethno-nationalism if it’s just a little more disguised and a little less crude than the version offered up by the King of Queens. The problem of course is that Republican primary voters very much disagree with that, and the only reason an open Trump fluffer wasn’t the candidate in Virginia is that the party rigged the nomination process to keep that from happening.
Also too, we have a plaintive plea for Republicans to install white nationalist authoritarianism by semi-legitimate means:
Maybe Republicans didn’t need to change voting laws, as they have been doing in key states, attempting to drive down Democratic turnout. Maybe they just needed to drop Donald Trump.
A friend tells me that NYT White House correspondent Peter Baker is saying this morning that Biden has returned to a “changed America,” though I can’t find the quote.
Why don’t they just come out once and scream it?