It’s a pretty sad commentary on the way our mainstream media cover Donald Trump that if you really want to know what Trump said at a given rally, you would be wasting your time going to The New York Times or The Washington Post and you really need to read Aaron Rupar.
Who is Rupar? He’s a liberal Substacker and prolific tweeter who prints all the news The New York Times doesn’t deem fit to print. The latest case in point is Trump’s weekend rally at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin—an appropriately named venue for a speech in which Trump was barking out hatred and bile like a mad dog.
If you’re the sort of person really steeped in campaign coverage, you may have read about what went down; if you missed it, spoiler alert: Trump said something at this rally so insane and offensive that even the Times finally roused itself to cover it. Trump called Kamala Harris “mentally disabled” and added: “Joe Biden became mentally impaired; Kamala was born that way.”
That statement, whatever else we might call it, was obviously news, so the Times couldn’t help leading with it. Ditto the Post, which decided to produce a story that emphasized Trump’s violation of politically correct manners. The Post piece quoted a mental health advocate scolding Trump for his insensitive language—as if what he said was offensive only to people struggling with mental illness!
Meanwhile, here are some other things Trump said at the rally, which you had to read Rupar’s X feed to know about.
“These people are animals” (referring to migrants).
“I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs, and vicious gang members. We’re going to liberate our country.”
“You gotta get these people back where they came from. You have no choice. You’re gonna lose your culture.”
And, finally, this gem: “They will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”
Let’s tarry over that last one for a bit. Here’s a man who wants to be the president of the United States saying of immigrants—all immigrants: women, children, old people, everyone—that they will invade your home and attack you in one of the most violent and painful (and terrifying) ways possible. They will cut your throat.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find that shocking, even coming from Trump. It’s one thing to say that Mexico is “sending rapists,” as he infamously did in 2015. Even making a general statement about how these people come here and commit crimes, while bad enough, isn’t nearly as bad as this. This is saying directly to every American that they will break into your house and cut your throat.
That sure seems like news to me. Yet it didn’t appear in either the Times or the Post account. The Times piece did have a sentence noting that Trump “continued to vilify” migrants and called them “stone-cold killers,” so let’s give them that, at least. But the plain implication of Trump’s statement here is that migrants are an imminent threat to one’s safety. This is an unambiguous incitement to preemptive violence. How can such a vicious statement not be thought of as news?
Here’s how. If your definition of “news” is simply that which is new, then OK, maybe. Calling his opponent who happens to be the sitting vice president of the United States “mentally disabled” was new, and ergo it was news. That I get.
But Trump attacking migrants isn’t new. Obviously, I would argue that a candidate for president raising the specter of people breaking into people’s homes and cutting their throats is new. Perhaps reasonable minds can differ on that, I guess. And if it isn’t new, it isn’t news.
But what if your definition of “news” is a little broader than that? What if, say, “news” is any meaningful piece of information that might be relevant to voters as they prepare to make their decision about whom to vote for? This is a reasonable and in fact better definition of news than simply that which is new, because it’s reality. Trump constantly saying extreme, racist, violent stuff can’t always be new. But it is always reality. Is the press justified in ignoring reality just because it isn’t new? Are we not allowed to consider his escalations as dangerous, novel developments in and of themselves? And should we not note the coincidence that his remarks seem more escalatory as the pressures of the campaign mount?
I know the mainstream media really doesn’t want to go here, but whether Trump is mentally fit to serve four years in the world’s toughest job is a very real and pressing question. But the press won’t raise it. That is to say, they have lately lost their taste for it. Not long ago, the press was perfectly comfortable talking about Joe Biden’s age. That seemed like a pretty urgent matter. But they absolutely will not talk about Trump’s mental fitness. Say what you want about Biden’s struggles with age, he never once threatened an entire group of human beings with political violence.
Why is age fair game for discussion but mental infirmity taboo? Is it because of basic human emotional responses to each matter—that is, we all see people age, it’s familiar, we’re comfortable talking about it—whereas with respect to mental health, talking about it makes us uncomfortable? If so, that’s a pretty lousy excuse. It’s journalism’s job to raise uncomfortable questions.
Another quote from Prairie du Chien that’s getting around on the internet is this one, referring to Customs and Border Patrol: “They have a phone app so that people can come into our country … these are smart immigrants, I guess, because most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is.”
Ummm … what? OK. Thinking in 2024 that most people don’t know what phone apps are does not, I suppose, disqualify a person from being president. But if someone—The New York Times, say!—were to do a big story stringing together the many remarks like this Trump has made over the last two or three years, then we might have the conversation the electorate needs and deserves to hear about whether this man is competent to know the world’s deepest intelligence secrets and have his finger on the nuclear button.
I admit—the Times deciding to do such a piece would constitute a conscious decision to inject the issue of his mental well-being into the campaign. That’s not a decision editors should make lightly. On the other hand, not doing such a piece is a conscious decision too. It benefits Trump, but even more importantly, it keeps buried a question that is obviously relevant in this campaign and that voters should be asked to think about. The sanewashing continues.
