I really don’t think we can separate the whiteness and maleness of media from how willing major news organizations are willing to bend over backwards to normalize Trump. It’s not just what he’s doing but who he speaks to and acts on behalf of when he does it.
Media deference to Trump --- especially after his track record over the past 9 years --- is completely dumbfounding. But I think a big part of it is that society at large has been taught to give credit to a white man in a suit, especially if he claims to be rich, especially if he's older.
Very sadly true.
Not Trump. Republicans in general. How many continue to make statements outside of the realm of reality and everyone just shrugs.
I think this gets to something we have glossed over in the whole Walz-inspired "weird" charge for Trump and MAGA. Our society *expects* white men to be "weird," and specifically in the belligerent, consequence-free ways Trump exhibits constantly.
It's probably bad strategy, but it would be funny to me personally if Harris and/or Walz started claiming Trump's crowds were faked, bused in from The Villages, or whatever.
Yes - for sure, and there’s something for white men specifically to unlearn this behavior. It’s cultural and pervasive. I think it’s one of the reasons for so much push back against DEI. DEI breaks that structure of normalization. Learning DEI means unlearning this junk(at least in my experience)
I am also constantly experiencing a thing on this site (not Brendan he know) of folk just discovering that legacy media orgs often work hard to normalize racist/sexist/exclusionary ideologies and I feel like I need to post a syllabus on news history to help folks understand it’s been baked in always