The Trauma of 2016 (spy scandal, part 2)
If we take the spy scandal seriously, we give ourselves a chance to heal
TIMOTHY SNYDER
FEB 2, 2023
EXCERPT...
Let us accept for the sake of argument that "disruption" was Russia's aim. That would just mean that Russians would want Trump in office, since no outcome would be more disruptive than that. Trump came, Trump disrupted, and Russian propagandists celebrated, most of all around during Trump's coup attempt. The distinction between "disruption" and "Trump victory" is not one that Russians would have made in 2016, nor for that matter one that Trump voters, or pretty much anyone else, would have made. It speaks to a very specific political sensibility to imagine that Trump was a figure of law and order. It does seem that some people in FBI New York thought just that. Of course, it would be a very bad thing if political preferences led FBI special agents to speak to the press in one way rather than another. In the context we are now in, however, this is among the most innocent of the possible explanations.
The "disruption" thesis was supported by no evidence (that I know of, or that was provided in the article), and made no sense in light of available evidence. Why then was it accepted by New York Times reporters, and made the centerpiece of an important article? I have an intuition. The idea that Russia did not back a side but just had a kind of distant interest in a balanced disruption might have appealed to a sensibility within the Times. There are two sides to every story, goes the received wisdom, and so we must shape stories so that they have two sides. If Russia backed Trump, that would be very inconvenient for the Times, because where then to seek the "other side" of the story? How welcome, then, to imagine that the Kremlin was not taking a side. It is almost as if someone understood how to manipulate the Times.
A final problem is precisely the bothsidesism that structures the entire article. Here is a sample: "The FBI's inquiry into Russia's possible role continues, as does the investigation into the emails involving Mrs. Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, on a computer she shared with her estranged husband, Anthony D. Wiener." This sentence, with its weird juxtaposition and overextended clauses, reads like a tweet from the NYTpitchbot on a good day. The reporters were unable just to write a story about Trump and Russia (or even negating Trump and Russia). They had to bring in an issue that had no bearing on the Trump-Russia question, just to serve the weird purpose of "balance."
This is a failure of journalism. If you have the story, write the story. It is not writing the story when you use the existence of another investigation to segue from Putin to Wiener. The English language bears such a sentence grammatically, if just barely, but that is no reason that it had to come into existence. The two scandals were of an entirely different structure and scale. One is still going on, and the other was dismissed after a few days. One was of world historical importance, and the other was piffle. The underlying problem is that the habit of juxtaposing one thing and another always serves a purpose that is not journalistic but political. They idea that one should generate "both sides" is an a priori view about politics, not a way of approaching reality. Its consequences are political, as they must be, and as they were in this case. By equating two things that were not at all equal, the Times made it more likely that Trump would win and that Clinton would lose a presidential election.
CONTINUES...
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-trauma-of-2016-spy-scandal-part
PS: Dr. Snyder really takes National News Media to task. As you know, that's why DU is so important, my Friend.
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