False equivalency is a form of moral cowardice.
On Wednesday, the New York Times featured another story on the political discord and chaos caused by Donald Tump’s presidency. The Times’ headline read “In Era of Trump, Incivility Spreads in a Divided Nation.”
The frame is clear: Those who oppose Trump’s authoritarian regime and its cruelty are somehow equally responsible for the “incivility” that Trump and his supporters have created. As Jeet Heer explained at the New Republic, “The Times article rests on a strange conflation of civility (which is about obeying conventional rules of decorum) with morality.”
After a public outcry on Twitter and elsewhere — which perhaps provoked some embarrassment — editors at the Times then changed the headline: “In Trump’s America, the Conversation Turns Ugly and Angry, Starting at the Top“.
Read the full story at Salon.com.
Get NationofChange in your inbox
Independent reporting every weekday. No paywall, no advertisers, no corporate owner. Free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.
Subscribe freeYour gift is being matched, up to $2,000.
A member of the NationofChange board is matching every contribution to our summer drive, dollar for dollar, until the $2,000 is used up or the drive ends on 24 August. We take no advertising money and answer to no corporate owner. The article you just read was paid for by readers, and right now what they give counts twice.
COMMENTS