The New York Times is known for its whataboutism and tendency to over criticize Democrats while covering deranged politicians such as Trump as normal and accepting his torrent of daily lies. Just ask Hillary Clinton about the boat load of articles the Times ran on the front page and elsewhere in 2016 about e-mails, while only rarely covering Trump’s theft of classified documents in recent months.
So it should come as no surprise that on August 31, it featured an article on the rabidly anti-freedom-in-schools Moms for Liberty. It is entitled, on the front page, “Conservative Moms, Charmed by Trump, Would Rather Avoid His Misogyny.” Fair enough, except Moms for Liberty does not represent the majority of conservative mothers who have nothing to do with the group’s radical agenda to support school vouchers, cut down on public schools, ban books and end DEI and LBGTQ support groups in schools, by launching an ongoing fiery assault on school boards and other radical issues.
Trump attended their national convention in D.C this year on Friday, according to the Times, where he was met by an adoring crowd of women who were going to vote for him despite his crude misogyny. The NYT described Moms for Liberty as “joyful warriors” who represented suburban women, when in reality they only represent a small minority. “It was packed with the sort of voters Mr. Trump hopes can help him win in November: fired-up suburban women,” the article noted.
According to US TODAY, which was more forthright in calling out the group as right-wing and exposing their scandals, only 600 members were in attendance (a laughably low number that the NYT did not mention), which made it a perfect stage set for Trump and the NYT, but not even remotely reaching the impact that the NYT implied.
The tone of the article did in an off-hand way reveal some information about the true nature of Moms, but let Trump get away with quotes like:
Mr. Trump talked about how much he loved his mother and how she came from Scotland. “Did you know that some of the biggest, smartest, most brilliant leaders come from Scotland, and nobody talks about it?” he asked. “Or, at least their parents came from Scotland.” They laughed some more.
He had the roomful of women charmed. And yet he just couldn’t help himself.
The article referred to right-wing slanderous material as “their parental preoccupations.” In short, they gave Trump positive publicity by misrepresenting Moms for a Liberty as a mainstream suburban women’s group.
What makes the above article a particularly egregious example of the NYT’s servile due diligence to Trump is that they had already run a preview article on August 30 of Trump in advance of his attending the event. Is two Trump articles about him at a Moms for Liberty convention overkill? Absolutely, without a scintilla of doubt. The Thursday “The Evening” e-mail newsletter had the gobsmacking anodyne headline: “Trump Courts Parents.” Say what?
Meanwhile, the article appeared to be written by a different publication, a whataboutism about the Moms for Liberty, entitled:
‘A Wave That’s on the Decline?’ Trump to Talk to Parents Leading the Culture Wars.
Last year, the former president told the group it was time to “liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts” in education. Does that message still resonate with voters?
Whoa, are we talking about two different conventions? No, just the eternally perplexing prattle and enervating publishing decisions of the NYT.
This advance article (again are two really necessary given the amount of serious political issues the NYT could be covering instead) did question whether this rabid out of the mainstream group was losing steam, in the light of its several recent school board losses. It only mentioned in passing — and without details —that the the cofounder of Moms With Liberty, Bridget Ziegler of Florida, had to resign from Moms and the Sarasota School Board because she and her husband Christian Ziegler were caught trolling for women to join them in threesomes. Christian Ziegler had to resign, get this, as head of the Florida Republican Party. Did the Times think these details were “too sensitive” for their readership? Somehow, we doubt it. The NYT just doesn’t like exposing the GOP.
After actually offering some positive policies from the Harris administration, the article, however ended with this coda:
Mr. Trump has sketched a vision of the federal government as a culture warrior with vast powers to investigate local schools and withhold funding from those that teach about structural racism or recognize transgender identities. Mr. Trump has also promised to push a patriotic, Christian-inflected curriculum into schools.
All of those ideas have played a big role in state-level Republican politics in recent years, and some of Mr. Trump’s supporters argue the issues are still salient for many parents.
“We have to make sure that kids are not being indoctrinated to hate our country,” said the Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters, who is being discussed as a potential education secretary in a second Trump term. “Those are issues that have to be looked at, at the national level.”
With the NYT touted as “the newspaper of record,” we could use “the newspaper of the truth.”
