Joseph and The Coat of Many Expectations

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:

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19 Responses

  1. Saul Degraw
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/02/this-is-excellent-news-for-john-mccain-3

    Fun fact, there is a twitter account which tracks how the Grey Lady edits its headlines in real time. The original headline was “Biden Cancels $1.2 billion in Student Loan Debt for 150,000 borrowers.” It became “A beleaguered Biden Chips Away at Student Debt, Bit by Bit.”

    Honestly, this change is basically a hit job because the loudest crowd of people on student debt relief are probably people with degrees from prestigious universities but underpaid jobs like journalists or editorial assistants.

    I think we of the chronically online tend to listen to the loudest and most complaining voices but Democrats have over performed in most general and special elections since 2022.Report

    • James K in reply to Saul Degraw
      Ignored
      says:

      Biden’s biggest political problem is that while the average voter might like him fine, the part of the left in charge of publishing opinions don’t like him because he’s not one of them, and doesn’t really pander to them. Also, he boring. I personally think that’s a point in his favour (He’s the least interesting President in decades, and that’s great), but it’s a point against him for people who’s job it is to write stories that attract eyeballs.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to James K
        Ignored
        says:

        Say what you will about Donald Trump, but the man moved product.

        The big problem that Biden has is the whole “overpromise/underdeliver” thing.

        It’s not that he’s *BAD*… it’s just that the vibes are off and it feels like stuff should be better than it is.

        There are people whose job it is, apparently, to tell us how good the economy is. There are plenty of people out there, however, who are not saying “yeah, the economy is really good” but “look at my grocery bill!”

        There are also people whose job it is, apparently, to tell us how we should care less about the price of groceries than we do. They aren’t particularly persuasive, though.

        Maybe things will turn around by summer. Maybe nothing crazy will happen as we’ll just have a slow and steady recovery from the only-technically-a-recession and Trump will look very bad comparatively to a slow and steady Biden.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to James K
        Ignored
        says:

        There is defintely a lot of hate directed at Biden because he went to the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School rather than the established Ivies.Report

      • John Puccio in reply to James K
        Ignored
        says:

        Biden’s biggest political problem is that Op Ed columnists from elite universities are not deep enough in the bag for him?Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to James K
        Ignored
        says:

        The people at the NY Times are not “the part of the left in charge of publish opinions.” I would argue most of the left is not in charge of the mainstream media. There is a section of the left that is as you describe him but they are a small but very loud minority and write for what used to be called the little magazines. Places like Jacobin.

        I think what journalists hate about Biden is that he is competent, boring, and runs a tight ship. Trump was a barge of tires on fire going at full speed into an oil refinery. Journalists like that, he ,made their job easy. Biden doesn’t.

        Plus they want things to be equal so they can have their lazy and easy reporting horserace. Here is a handy chart: https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/real-reason-for-biden-age-talkReport

        • Chip Daniels in reply to Saul Degraw
          Ignored
          says:

          The NYT has made a habit of cleaning up Trump and packaging him as a unconventional but still reasonable political actor.

          Here’s an example, comparing their headline to another outlet.

          The Independent headline:
          Trump struggles to say ‘evangelical’ and muddles up Israel in wild, incoherent speech at Christian event
          Republican candidate arrived late to Nashville speech looking flushed and exhausted to rant about Democrats, the Department of Education, the Capitol riot and the ‘silencing’ of religious groups

          NYT headline, same speech:
          Trump Frames Election as Battle Against ‘Wicked’ System Bent on Attacking Christians
          Speaking at a Christian media convention in Nashville, former President Donald J. Trump claimed that a “radical left, corrupt political class” was persecuting Christians.Report

          • InMD in reply to Chip Daniels
            Ignored
            says:

            The real problem is that NYT doesn’t actually know how to analyze him. Obviously 1/6 matters, as does his increasingly crazed raving. But if they really wanted to stick it to him they’d talk about his utterly failed presidency where he didn’t build the wall (much mess make Mexico pay for it), let American cities be torched by opportunistic criminals and ideological psychopaths for months without doing anything, failed to bring the factories back, and claimed a vaccine his administration financed and procured would stop covid in its tracks when all it does is prevent the person that takes it from dying.Report

            • Chip Daniels in reply to InMD
              Ignored
              says:

              Forget about “sticking it to him”, they aren’t even willing to present their readers with the simple basic truth.

              Even if all they did was transcribe his speeches verbatim, it would be an improvement by showing people how truly deranged he is.

              Instead they clean up his ramblings and fashion them into phrases that make him seem like a normal person.Report

              • InMD in reply to Chip Daniels
                Ignored
                says:

                It’s funny you mention that, I kind of wish they would publish them. Maybe they exist in expressly conservative/MAGA outlets but my guess is that you’re right, that the picking and choosing of coherent thoughts or phrases by legacy media is misleading about how out there some of it seems to be. I recall reading that W. Bush reacted to hearing his inauguration American carnage speech by saying ‘that was some weird sh*t’.Report

    • Koz in reply to Saul Degraw
      Ignored
      says:

      Honestly, this change is basically a hit job because the loudest crowd of people on student debt relief are probably people with degrees from prestigious universities but underpaid jobs like journalists or editorial assistants.

      That’s a very important point. Conceptually speaking, it’s the last piece in the puzzle to explain why Trump and the GOP have won the last six months or so politically.

      Basically, just very recently, maybe within the last 1-3 years, we’ve begun to see a reversal of 100+ years of wage trends. Ie, due to AI, Trump, interest rates, nationalism and maybe a couple other things, we’ve seen absolute _and relative_ wage increases to blue-collar, less educated, meat space labor at the expense of more educated, white collar, idea space/symbol manipulators.

      This is really hitting the low-wage-but-educated part of the workforce especially hard: editorial assistants, nontenured college faculty, document review lawyers, nonunion state or municipal employees, etc. It’s very dispiriting for them to get up in the morning and watch themselves be comprehensively outearned by swimming pool maintenance contractors.

      What’s worse, their jobs are coming under increased pressure and need political protection, and Biden isn’t giving it to them. Therefore, they are not especially motivated to go to bat for the Democratic Party as it is presently constituted, without holding a single positive thought for Team Red.

      I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be that way in November, but it’s working in the Republicans favor for now.Report

  2. DensityDuck
    Ignored
    says:

    “He isn’t Donald Trump” was literally the only argument anyone ever had for Biden.

    (Well…except for the thing where black people liked it that he was the white guy who’d been the Stepin Fetchit for a black man, but that’s probably not something we feel comfortable about looking into very deeply so we’ll just pretend it didn’t exist.)Report

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