Our Failed Political Press ™
H/T Scissorhead Jimmy-T
This morning’s Axios email thingie is giving us a master class in Passive Voice, which as we all know is the construction in which the Action (and not the Actor) is the subject. This is an interesting way to achieve Both Sides without having to ever write the dread phrase itself.
Generally you can spot Passive Voice by looking for verbs of being followed by a past participle. (Man is Bitten By Dog is the classic example, instead of Dog Bites Man. What Axios and modern passive voice writers would probably enbriefen [is too a vurb!] it to Man Is Bitten)
Here’s the lede:
Everywhere you look, signs are mounting of a tinderbox election that will test the outer bounds — and breaking points — of American democracy, honesty and civility, Axios’ Zachary Basu, Erin Doherty and Sophia Cai write.
“Signs are mounting” – who is mounting them…?
Why it matters: A perfect storm has been brewing for years now — fueled by extreme polarization, election denial, political violence, historic prosecutions and rampant disinformation. Mayhem is bound to rain down in November.
That bullet point has no Actor, but has actions: has been brewing, and is bound to. If you accept these actions without questioning who the Actor is, congrats, you’ve entered the Both Sides Zone!
Anyway, after setting up Both Sides, they then create a list of 5 Conditions for Chaos:
1. A desperate Donald Trump
2. A nail-biter like no other
3. A battleground legal brawl
4. The specter of violence
5. A cesspool of disinformation
The alert reader will notice that all five items are pretty specific to the Right and their plans, except for item #2. But if we look at the bullet points under the nail biter rubric we see that this is also from the Right:
In the 15 presidential elections since 1964, a candidate has led by more than five points in the national polling average for at least three weeks, according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
In 2024, that hasn’t been the case for a single day. The race is extraordinarily close — and will come down to tens of thousands of votes in just seven battleground states.
One nightmare recipe for chaos: A 269-269 Electoral College tie, which would trigger a contingent election in the House, whereby each state delegation casts a single vote. Trump would be likely to win in this case.
Yup, the last bullet point.
So we could list all the bullets under each of the 5 headings, and they all are warning or stating very clearly about Republican and Right Wing machinations in the 2024 Goat Rodeo, and they are all very clear about the Actor.
So the question is, why did Axios’ editors label this piece as America Braces for Chaos, rather than Republicans Create Chaos? And why did they paste that Both Sides introduction on the thing? You can draw your own conclusions, but my guess is a combo of cowardice (retribution from MAGA) and fear of losing access, which for access journalists is as close to purgatory as they can get.
So close, Axios!
You can read the whole thing here.
https://mockpaperscissors.com/2024/09/08/axios-swing-and-a-mess/