If you want a good example of what people mean when they say there is a media echo chamber, look no further than the New York Times’ daily political newsletter and its praise for Hillary Clinton’s headlong descent into bitter online trolling.
You would have to live in an alternate universe, or at least surround yourself with solely like-minded colleagues and peers, to believe Clinton is now “living her best life,” as the New York Times On Politics newsletter declared this week. Clinton’s post-2016 public career has mostly involved her crisscrossing the country blaming everyone except herself for her defeat. But the newsletter opens with these lines:
Over the past two weeks, Mrs. Clinton has called President Trump a “corrupt human tornado.” She’s refused to appear on a panel with Kirstjen Nielsen, the former homeland security secretary best known for separating migrant children from their families. She’s picked a fight with Representative Tulsi Gabbard, suggesting that the Hawaii congresswoman and presidential candidate is a favorite of the Russians. And she’s tweeted a letter mocking Mr. Trump with language that makes it unprintable in this family newsletter.
Welcome to Hillary Unplugged.
First, that is a gross mischaracterization of Clinton’s baseless slander of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. The twice-failed presidential candidate did a lot more than suggest the Hawaii congresswoman and combat veteran is a “favorite of the Russians.” Clinton said in an interview last week that the Russians “have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting” an unnamed 2020 candidate, who is indeed the Kremlin’s “favorite.” After these comments, which her spokesman confirmed later were in reference to Gabbard, Clinton then turned her attention to 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein, stating “she is also a Russian asset.” So that is an indirect but explicit statement that Gabbard is a “Russian asset.”
But anyway, the New York Times newsletter continues, arguing that the normally buttoned-down Clinton is now cutting loose, “speaking her mind,” and thriving as a “master troll” on the internet. That the authors of the newsletter see this almost as laudable as opposed to soul-crushingly sad says more about them than it does the former secretary of state.
Its paean to Clinton the Troll ends, weirdly enough, with a dig at Sen. Mitt Romney, who the newspaper apparently never tires of mocking.
“And Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, admits to being a ‘lurker’ in online political discourse, with a secret Twitter account under the name Pierre Delecto. (‘C’est moi,’ Mr. Romney told the Atlantic last night, after Slate exposed him),” the newsletter states, adding later in its final line, “Mrs. Clinton, at least, trolls under her own name.”
But Romney did not use his burner account, which is now locked, to troll people online. He used it to defend himself politely from critics. Clinton, on the other hand, uses her account to mock her enemies in a less than clever manner. Living her best life indeed.
Let’s be serious for a moment: Were Hillary Clinton anyone else who chose to live out her life post-failed candidacy by trawling for validation on social media, disputing the results of national elections, warning of a fascist takeover by her victorious opponent, calling for China to investigate said victorious opponent, and blaming everyone and everything around her for losing the 2016 election, there is no way anyone at the New York Times would describe her participation in public life in positive terms. We would be inundated instead with an endless stream of news reports and op-eds commenting on the sad state of our political discourse.
But Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton, and press sycophancy runs deep. That’s why we get delusional and bizarrely generous commentaries such as this one from New York Times.
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CORRECTION: A previous version of this story reported incorrectly that Hillary Clinton alleged specifically that the Russians are “grooming” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for a third-party run. This is false. Clinton’s remarks were made in reference to the GOP.
