Interested In Some Uncritically Presented, BS GOP Talking Points?The New York Times Can Help!
What’s with these people?
Joe Biden is thumping Donald Trump in the suburbs, building on Democratic gains from the 2018 midterms. However, according to the New York Times, white suburbanites in Atlanta are “sticking with Trump," and it's not because they're dumb and racist. No, Trump's "law-and-order message," which is racist, just resonates somehow with these dummies.
Natalie Pontius is an interior decorator, married with two children and a University of Georgia alumna. She was born and raised in Atlanta, but moved to the city's exurbs with her family several years ago, drawn to the region's quality of public education. In November, she's voting for Donald Trump.
The decision was a no-brainer, said Ms. Pontius, 48,who in 2018 helped run her friend's Republican campaign in a state House race."The riots, the push to defund the police — that's not the direction our country needs to go," she said. "I feel like the Democratic Party iscontinually trying to come up with ways to divide us."
Oh no! Biden's lost noted swing voter, Natalie Pontius. We went to the University of Georgia around the same time, but we never met so she never worried about me lowering the property values of her dorm. I'm not a fancy New York Times journalist, but I tend to think that a Republican political consultant isn't a persuadable voter. They all didn't join The Lincoln Project. The Times makes it seem as if Pontius was just doing a favor for her office-seeking friend, but she was a paid consultant. It was her job. She's described as an interior decorator in the lede, but there's no evidence online that she even has a business. Finding just the right spot for friends to display their Gone with the Wind commemorative plates doesn't make you an interior decorator.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, a majority of sensible voters consider the coronavirus outbreak “very important" to the vote, but a majority of Trump supporters like Pontius have washed their hands of the virus (but they still won't wear a mask). There have been at least 333,479 confirmed coronavirus cases in Georgia, and that number's surged 15 percent in the past two weeks. At least 7,584 have died. That is objectively a more serious problem than any “riots" that occurred in response to police violence. Most importantly, Trump has no tangible solutions for either issue.
Biden has repeatedly said he has no interest in defunding the police, but lying about his moderate platform is all Republicans have left after they staked their election hopes on running against Zombie Castro.
It's laughable whenever Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to “divide" Americans. White conservatives, especially from the South, said the same about such civil rights leaders as Martin Luther King and John Lewis, but Donald Trump isn't even one of the “please, sit down and shut up" conservatives from back in the day. He doesn't bother with fake politeness. His rallies and tweets are a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast of the marginalized.
The Times also offered us a “fake polls!" quote from supposed everyman Jake Evans, who's identified simply as an Atlanta attorney. He's actually president of the city's Young Republicans chapter. It's possible he might exist in a bubble.
EVANS: I do think the polling here is very deceptive.
No, it's not. Polling methodology is more complex than the unweighted sample of assholes at your country club.
EVANS: Especially in Atlanta, you'll go to dinner with moderate or right-leaning voters who would never say in their workplace that they're voting for Trump, but when you're in private, it's all day, every day.
Polls aren't conducted in a public workplace, you moron. It's also unlikely that college-educated white male professionals are “afraid" to say they support Trump. Conservative white men still run the show in Georgia. Stacey Abrams almost won the governor's race with just 43 and 37 percent support, respectively, from college-educated white women and men. Biden just needs to lose those demos less badly than the cool Black lady to flip Georgia.
Here's my 2018 mini-profile of Jake Evans, who is very much not a man-on-the-street. (Side note: Evans told me he w… https://t.co/Cy5DTA5Q06
— Charles.Bethea (@Charles.Bethea) 1603315779.0
The author of the piece is Elaina Plott, a former Buckley fellow at the National Review, who's written for The Atlantic . The Times hired her last year to cover the 2020 election, and Politics Editor Patrick Healy described Plott as a “high-metabolism reporter." I don't know what that means, but you'd think she'd at least Google her sources.
Plott's story resulted in a blooper reel of "whoops, our bad" updates with retraction after shameful retraction. How did this hot mess get published in the paper of Robin Thicke records? Healy tried to explain this all away on Twitter while insisting the story's premise was still “sound."
Nationwide, many white college-educated voters are tilting toward Joe Biden. Our recent poll showed Trump ahead wit… https: //t.co/0IQPrEJ7ou
— Patrick Healy (@Patrick Healy) 1603484708.0
We believe the premise and the story are sound. Two of the voters quoted are clearly Trump supporters but initially… https: //t.co/yQR7T9qzna
— Patrick Healy (@Patrick Healy) 1603484797.0
This wasn't merely a “lack of information obtained in reporting." It's as if Plott literally asked no follow-up questions, like Gwendolyn from "The Good Place."
Healy contends that the article's premise is still “solid," but it's actually doo-doo. Yes, there are still loyal Trump supporters but who cares? When James Comey released his infamous letter days before the 2016 election, the Times wasn't interested in the Pantsuit Nation members who were still ride or die with Hillary Clinton. A presidential candidate who “won" the Electoral College last time by the skin of his teeth can't afford to lose even a few voters from a core demographic. That's the story of 2020, not this nonsense that was never fit to print.
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I used to put the NY Times at the top of my list when looking for good reporting, facts, truth, now I refuse to even read any of their articles. They have sunk so low and it seems as if most of their staff lives in a bubble, a bubble that exists outside of reality.
I did that with the Abarat series by Clive Barker. It kinda went off the rails after the first book, so I'm not that bummed it will likely never be finished.
I also did it with the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. He keeps saying a third book is forthcoming, and he's even posted pictures of big stacks of paper he claimed to be drafts. But still we wait.
I got The Consuming Fire out of the library and I can't wait to read it!