A Trump headline that stunned me
And began to change my mind about how the media should cover his unhinged rallies and speeches
A top headline on the Guardian US site this past weekend didn’t pussyfoot around.
Leading the news coverage, not confined to the opinion section, it read: “Trump’s bizarre, vindictive incoherence has to be heard in full to be believed.”
The article made the point that, as the sub-headline put it: “Excerpts from his speeches do not do justice to Trump’s smorgasbord of vendettas, non sequiturs and comparisons to famous people.”
The article, which carried an “analysis” label, was written by Rachel Leingang, a Guardian staffer based in Minnesota, who covers the intersection of democracy and misinformation. She hails from North Dakota and previously worked at the Arizona Republic newspaper. In other words, she’s not your typical inside-the-Beltway journalist.
She pulled no punches as she described the “vengeful” tone of his rallies: “…he speaks in dark, dehumanizing terms about migrants, promising to vanquish people crossing the border. He rails about the legal battles he faces and how they’re a sign he’s winning, actually. He tells lies and invents fictions. He calls his opponent a threat to democracy and claims this election could be the last one.”
Her piece quotes at length from his forays into utter weirdness, including a long rambling passage about Cary Grant.
And, with her knowledge of misinformation, she makes this point, one that I’ve been thinking about more and more.
Journalists rightly chose not to broadcast Trump’s entire speeches after 2016, believing that the free coverage helped boost the former president and spread lies unchecked. But now there’s the possibility that stories about his speeches often make his ideas appear more cogent than they are – making the case that, this time around, people should hear the full speeches to understand how Trump would govern again.
I’ve been one of those who have cautioned against media outlets broadcasting these rallies and speeches live and at length. But I agree with Leingang that merely quoting snippets from his speeches — for example, his labeling of some migrants as “animals” — runs the risk of making him sound more cogent and sensible than he is. Is it time to reconsider the change, or to do something altogether different?
I am interested in what you think. Is it better to put Trump’s wild pronouncements and rambling in context, thus not spreading misinformation and fact-checking along the way? Or does that have the effect of normalizing the abnormal? Is it better to present him to the public unfiltered, at least some of the time?
I should note here, as I praise this piece (and the editorial guts to give it such prominent display) that I write for the GuardianUS myself — a weekly column on media, politics and culture. (I am not on staff, but rather write on contract.) Here’s my most recent column about the recent public opinion poll that shows Trump leading Biden in six of seven key swing states.
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Listened to David Axelrod last night on a podcast and he has come to the same conclusion as you. I also have been critical that the media shines too much light on Trump. But Axelrod thinks people outside Trump’s world really need to know how crazy he is…if you’re not plugged into his world you only get the toned down reporting by the media which makes him look semi-rational. The headline and story you quote are right on. And they are the truth. Perhaps comparing Trumps’ words with other dictators would help. No one thought Hitler really meant what he said. But boy did he. Fear is a strong motivating factor. The left should use it more.
I feel like one potential compromise is airing select full Trump speeches (perhaps his craziest ones, to really drive the point home) but not live. I’d do it on a delay with a full graphics package debunking and annotating the insanity. Ideally there would be clear headed commentary after the speech analyzing what we had all just watched. But I’m not sure who could provide such—the DC based talking heads have proven not up to the task or are considered sufficiently partisan that they would have little impact. What I yearn for is a widely respected national figure like Edward Murrow or Walter Cronkite who could show a Trump speech and then just tell it like it is.