China is also paying the right-wing media and some of the more left-wing too. More to the righties, though. But Russia has been throwing absolutely huge amounts of cash at the republicans lately.

What’s wrong with the fact-checkers. The DNC put the bankruptcy of the genre on full, painful display.

There are two things going on here. The article mentions one of them at the very end, but doesn’t really emphasize it. The first is that the media is beholden to the “both sides” narrative even when it makes absolutely no sense.

Imagine that someone powerful said, “I want to kill everyone with blonde hair, all 30 million of them. No mercy, no survivors.” And someone from the opposition said, “This is morally wrong and ethically unconscionable. I will do my best to prevent this genocidal atrocity.” The media would fact-check this into:

“The President says he wants to kill all the blonde people, but perhaps he was talking about the type of chocolate-free brownie. Since he hasn’t actually killed anyone, who can say? His opponent claimed that he was ‘genocidal’ and no blond person has been killed yet, so this is false.”

This absurd both-sidesing is inherent to our terrible journalism culture but there is also something else going on here. Even with Harris in the race, Trump still has a ~45% chance of winning it all. If he does win, these journos don’t want to be on the “enemies” list. And there will be an enemies list this time around for sure if Trump does take the prize.

Thus, part of this kowtowing is a very human, very understandable motivation. It is simply fear.

I understand Trump voters. Do I also have to empathize with them?

No. I certainly do not empathize with them. Trump is an erratic, senile, spiteful, incompetent coup plotter. It doesn’t matter that I actually agreed with many of his policies, as much as they could be called policies given their poor real-world implementation.

Competence matters. And Trump is the opposite of competent. And a coup matters more. That many voters want to vote for someone after he has shown all of us exactly who he is says that those people deserve the pain they will cause themselves if he wins. Thus, no empathy from me. There is enough evidence to know what you’re getting and that you still want it says all I need to hear.

Inherent in Kristof’s argument, too, is the kind of moral relativism that often afflicts the left — this idea that the disadvantaged are somehow less responsible for their moral decisions than the rest of us are.

A lot of the left does enjoy pretending everyone who is not them is like a child. It’s annoying, it’s incorrect, and it does their side of the argument no favors. It breeds resentment in your opponents and causes their underestimation.

Our elites like Kristof are pretty bad. But the average dumbass who supports Trump after his demonstrated incompetence and his coup attempt is even worse.