During Thursday night’s debate (you know, the one that had a new rule on muting mics), President Donald Trump managed to avoid repeatedly heckling and shouting over Democratic candidate Joe Biden as often as he did last time–prompting “new tone”-hungry pundits to predictably applaud him for sort of exercising a restraint that one would expect from any grown adult.
Those pundits found themselves under fire from critics who pointed out that Trump hardly deserves a gold star for not slipping on banana peels as often as he did before, especially considering how the President still spouted a bunch of nonsensical conspiracy theories and racist comments that weren’t any more coherent just because he didn’t scream them this time:
All of this is happening like clockwork pic.twitter.com/sIqU2kWJW3
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) October 23, 2020
Ladies and gentleman, I present to you your DC press corps. https://t.co/g7qEZnfZPk
— i'm that trigger (@luckybastard77) October 23, 2020
omg dr fauci can you develop a vaccine for New Tonitis https://t.co/vsiqZyV8Ik
— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) October 23, 2020
I just heard Chuck Todd say that “Trump did probably stop the bleeding tonight and that’s important” and I want to scream.
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) October 23, 2020
How can this still be happening? https://t.co/cvzV9nnxwv pic.twitter.com/BPqHAaA1fr
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) October 22, 2020
The President struck a new gentler tone tonight when he described his orphan warehouses as clean
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) October 23, 2020
What is this compulsion? Does it have a clinical name? I want to know what to tell the doctors when I check people in. https://t.co/NfOf8NMJTZ
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) October 23, 2020
I say this fully aware that I’m an opinion journalist who also makes wrong assumptions sometimes, but:
I think a lot of pundits analyze these debates with the assumption that the typical American is conservative or sympathetic to Trump and that’s just simply not true.
— Abdallah Fayyad (@abdallah_fayyad) October 23, 2020
??♂️ pic.twitter.com/VHKZfnWlGY
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) October 23, 2020
The Americans lost more men at Omaha Beach than the Germans, so I suspect that means the Germans won. https://t.co/hYuS1UFPVu
— Fuss Still Doesn't Have The Plague (@semperfitrex) October 23, 2020
How are you all still doing this? https://t.co/XiPolzg9vO
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) October 23, 2020
Do they ever learn?
Why is anyone surprised at this response? This is how they roll. If people think it’s over than they won’t click on any of the blogs to keep the money flowing in. Remember what Les Moores said about the tRump clown show in 2016:
“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” Moonves said at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, according to The Hollywood Reporter — perfectly distilling what media critics have long suspected was motivating the round-the-clock coverage of Trump’s presidential bid.
“Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” Moonves said, noting, “[t]here’s a lot of money in the marketplace.”
It’s a hook and it’s all about money. PLUS: Most people are hip to this tactic, especially Chuck Todd.
The best thing I saw posted last night was that ‘Trump is the same crazy Uncle, spouting the same racist, bigoted garbage but he’s using his indoor voice!’
Pundits: ‘I like my racism and cruelty without yelling, thank you very much.’
The media may think they are giving trump a mulligan but they don’t realize how low they have set the bar for him. They want to push the idea that he did a great job because he demonstrated more restraint than the first debate completely missing all the nonsense an gobbly gook talk he was spewing.