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NYT Tsk-Tsks: To Coalition-Build Around the Idea of Debate, Stop Arguing
Times editorial on May 1 asks liberals to appease conservatives
Today’s New York Times editorial (the opinion of the newspaper as an institution) begins with this acknowledgment: “The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction.”
In these three months, the Times says, Trump has “attacked at least five pillars of American democracy,” namely: “separation of powers,” “due process,” “equal justice under law,” “free speech and freedom of the press,” and “government for the people.” The newspaper goes on to give the most alarming examples.
And democracy will further degrade, perhaps permanently, if he isn’t stopped, the paper tells us.
Of course. So what’s to be done about it?
They try to explain it, but that’s where this starts to lose me.
The Times envisions a “coalition” of those who believe that “democratic debate and constitutional processes” are the proper way to decide policy issues. Individuals within the coalition may disagree on a range of issues: “conservative and progressive, internationalist and isolationist, religious and secular…
