A rather long article in Sunday’s The New York Times – starting above the fold and continuing at length on page 20 – leads us to believe that President-elect Trump will be granted no honeymoon period from the heretofore anti-Trump mainstream media spin it has spearheaded for almost a decade.
Entitled “Biggest Donors Expect Returns on Investment,” The New York Times suggests that very wealthy Trump contributors think they “bought” the next president and are selfishly anticipating him promptly delivering on the issues that mean the most to them in ways that are inconsistent with the needs of most Americans.
The article begins with what it calls the “to do list” for Mr. Trump from one Marc Andreessen, who according to The New York Times is “the venture capital billionaire from California,” who, “after donating big money to Mr. Trump,” “is eager to see his candidate work through the list.”
And what are some of the things on that long list as reported in the article? “Limit the reach of federal regulations on artificial intelligence; [m]ake room for crypto-currencies to thrive; [e]ase the antitrust crackdown on big tech companies; buy more military drones; and don’t raise taxes on billionaires.”
If there were any doubt as to where The New York Times was going with its narrative, it then quoted Robert Reich, who it described as having “served as secretary of labor during the Clinton administration and who has long been critical of the income disparity in the United States.” Thus, Reich reportedly said “It will be a billionaire’s ball.”
However, there is nothing here even close to the insinuated quid pro quo that Mr. Trump got their message and determined to act in accordance with it. Rather, we think the contributors gravitated to the candidate most likely to act in line with their ideas.
That is very different from the “us and them” spin pushed by The New York Times and actually is the way politics used to work. It is time the newspaper of record started looking for ways to bring us together rather than stretching to manufacture differences.
