Adopting a warped view of the Ukraine collusion scandal that's engulfing Donald Trump's presidency, The New York Times seems to think that it's Democrats who are caught in a "tricky" political position. The coverage highlights how in moments of Republican crisis, the Beltway press remains oddly fixated on how events might go badly for Democrats.
In page-one articles in recent days, the Times stressed that Democrats face "a tricky balancing act" on impeachment, which could "complicate" their 2020 campaigns. They're battling "uncertainty," a "messaging challenge," and are preparing "for possible backlash" as House members face voters back home during a congressional recess. That all sounds quite bad, right? (Keep in mind the president facing impeachment is a Republican.)
Note that in the Times’ world view, apparently Republicans don't have to return home to their districts and face uncomfortable questions about impeachment and about a president who's admitted to open colluding with a foreign power in order to dig up dirt on his domestic political rival. This is the same president who has publicly threatened a government whistleblower and warned of a looming "civil war" if he's removed from office. Strange, right? To date, there's been very little Times coverage addressing how a Republican president facing impeachment would "complicate" things for Republican politicians.
Wouldn't the common-sense narrative be that it's Republicans who face an uncertain path as they prepare for a 2020 campaign season that will likely feature an unpopular president facing an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate?
The Times coverage unfolds as poll after poll shows a spike in public support for impeachment, a clear indication that Democrats, for now, are winning the messaging war surrounding impeachment. And that would suggest it's Republicans who face serious political peril surrounding impeachment and the upcoming election season.
Yet there remains a laser-like focus on Democrats and all the supposed challenges impeachment poses for them.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s change of heart on impeachment, following months of reluctance to pursue an inquiry in the face of polls showing public resistance, has injected just as much uncertainty into the Democrats’ effort to retain the House," the Times reported.
Really? The daily thinks Democrats, having caught Trump red-handed in colluding with a foreign power and then trying to hide that evidence on a secret server, are going to face a difficult time retaining the House next year? In the wake of the 2018 midterms, when Democrats picked up 40 seats in what was widely viewed as a repudiation of Trump, Democrats are now in danger of losing the House because the Republican president faces an impeachment inquiry? That, of course, doesn't really make much sense. (The wave of Republican retirements from the House in recent months suggests even they don't think the party has any chance at retaking the House next year.) What does make sense though, is asking what impeachment means for the GOP.
The sad truth is that the press mostly gave up a long time ago on holding Republican lawmakers accountable for Trump's erratic behavior. Faced with a party that has completely capitulated to Trump's unbalanced ways, reporters seem to have lost interest in the pursuit, and don't seem to think Trump poses a major campaign problem for them next year. This type of coverage also seems to be a continuation of the Times' obsessive "Dems in Disarray" narrative, where Democrats are constantly portrayed as scrambling and being outsmarted by Trump and the GOP.
Note that the Times' odd focus on the "complications" Democrats might face in pursuing impeachment comes just months after the paper regularly stressed that not pursuing impeachment was creating complications for Democrats. "As Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges caution on impeachment, rank-and-file House Democrats are agonizing over the prospect of trying to oust President Trump," the paper reported last spring, in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. ("Divided on Impeaching Trump," read the Times headline.) Democratic candidates, the paper stressed, were doing "Anything, that is, to avoid clearly answering the question of whether lawmakers should remove the president from office."
In other words, back in the spring the Times presented impeachment as a looming problem for Democrats if they didn't go through with it. Yet in September, the Times presented impeachment as a looming problem for Democrats because they decided to go through with it? It's a classic case of heads you lose, tails you lose.
Also, you'd think the fact that to date the Republican talking points on the Ukraine scandal simply don't make any sense (and certainly can't withstand any scrutiny) would play into the coverage. "Even cursory scrutiny of evidence that has emerged so far knocks down assorted GOP arguments like shanties in a hurricane," noted John Harwood at CNBC. In other words, Republicans are going into an election season defending a president facing impeachment, and are doing it with a defense based on lies and debunked conspiracies.
But the Times thinks it's Democrats who are facing the "messaging challenge"?
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.