It’s a problem to call this article “framing”. This article is a “political analysis” story.

All political analysis has a bias to it, intentional or not, framing is inescapable.

It is about the political landscape going into the election.

On the surface the story is about the disillusionment of a small fraction of tiny subsection of the populace of the US. But there are way more electorally significant aspects to the overarching story. So why focus on that particular grain of sand if the intention behind it isn’t to aggregate bad news.

It’s like a reporter writing a story focusing on you getting ticketed for having a faulty brake light but only giving cursory mention that the brake light was working until the cop rear-ended you while they were driving recklessly.

If I were a part of the Democratic Party, this story would be very informative to me

It’s not nothing I’d hope but that ‘very’ is sweating under the load it is carrying.

If you disagree and only want sunshine and rainbows stories, then fine. As I said before, we have to agree to disagree

You have me all wrong there. My intention was only to describe a type of electoral mood manipulation that I felt was represented here. I’m from the UK (I have a limited amount of skin in the game) so my comments are more about a recognition of patterns I observe in election reporting here.

PS. I’m very happy to read investigative reporting that actually lands body blows. I feel that there are more substantive complaints to be made about Biden but the NYT won’t necessarily make them because they align with their own hawkish center-right outlook.

They perceive that the article is bad for Biden so are attacking it. The reason it is bad for Biden is that it takes an albeit true story and frames it in the only possible negative way for him. Now that framing is still true but as far as that story goes it is weak and unnatural. As far as slights go it is a very weak attack. The fear is not that the piece will land a mortal blow but in the aggregate.

This isn’t an easy piece to slap down as it is objectively ‘true’ and the barb is nuanced enough to be missed by a disinterested reader (the target audience for both the article and its rebuttal).

For the sake of mirroring the low-concept appetite of the disinterested reader they wish to reach, they have decided (seems automatic tbh) to go with a low-concept rebuttal. So they spin the story in such a way as to subtract its nuance so that the intent is easier to spot. In effect it is a strawman. Which to an interested reader, such as yourself, is counterproductive as the lie is obvious and unnecessary.

There are most likely more people now with sufficient critical skills than ever before as their existence is predicated on the opportunity for self education. The problem currently is that unbalanced aggregations of personal and corporate wealth are capable of yoking the zeitgeist to their ends so that most untethered minds are functionally insane when it comes to ‘political’ considerations. It may seem like there are less cognisant minds out there but the reality is that they are being drowned out more than ever by cynical manipulation.

If Biden, god forbid, had a stroke tonight and was lying in a coma, is there no facility to change the candidate to someone else. Or would you be locked in to voting for a candidate in a vegative state?

Nor that the information that they use against you be necessarily true given their accepted monopoly in ‘truth’.

Money is power. Just because that shower have the sense to sit outside of the spotlight of political scrutiny does not mean that they are apolitical nor does it make the influence they cast not strongly American in flavour.

And America too.

Hey hey hey!

Don’t be dragging granola into this fuckwit-ocracy. It’s a perfectly reasonable low effort breakfast for those of us that are unable to cook for ourselves because we can’t find our arses with both hands for the first hour of semi-consciousness in the morning.

Definitely. But it does depend on the severity of the trauma. A very strong trauma will be constantly trying to retake control of your bandwidthh.

You had been merciful to a fault.

This is my go to type of therapy. It’s about re-centering your focus so that your mind stops looping back to the trauma./ Where it becomes problematic is then weaning yourself off the game to healthier pursuits.

You have patience beyond the legibility of my app…

I have been trying to follow this discussion, but this is taking it a bit too far…

Would it be rude to suggest a ceasefire?

My genX ass was trying skibidi on its own cause most of the rest of the text is usually auto-suggested while typing in the search terms.

And I appreciate your civil attempts at clarifying your stance too. To the degree that I think we’re both talking past each other.

On my part, even as an outsider to US politics, I have been getting more and more frustrated with a lot of the bullying rhetoric I see on this platform directed towards potential voters that are very concerned about the US’s current complicity in the ongoing genocide. I see them getting talked down to with utter contempt. Being berated by people who insouciantly weigh a potential loss of comforts at home against the real and current killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the forced famine of hundreds of thousands.

Now is the only time that they can apply pressure on Biden. Now that he actually needs something from them. But (like MLK’s white moderates) people here are telling them that “now is not the time” and a whole spectrum of worse accusations too. But if the civil rights movement hadn’t agitated and pressed for change decades would have passed before the moderates would have opened their eyes and acted beyond the pale.

Personally, I agree ostensibly with your calculus (though not with your particular framing of it but it is still a very, very tight call) but if I was a US voter I would be vocally holding my vote hostage until the last moment to make sure that my discontent was given the greatest chance of not being ignored.

More importantly (and central to this whole discussion) i still believe that people have a right to respectful discourse if they can’t morally make it over the sizable hurdles.

Which brings me round back to you. You’ve been very patient and civil throughout this discourse even though we have different perspectives. So my ‘beef’ ain’t wit you my friend. Though I do wonder what is your line in the ground that if both of the two main candidates were guilty of something that you’d drop the lesser of two evils calculus and vote for a third party. For me both are terrible choices but the potential for long term democratic, human rights, and environmental protection regression under Trump cannot be underestimated

It is ‘rational’ attitudes such as this that MLK bemoaned in his Birmingham jail letters. Order above justice. An order in which the boot is not on your neck. So you minimize its dehumanizing brutality in relation to the maintenance of the day-to-day comforts you enjoy.

Hypothetically: if Biden was sending weapons and financial support to Russia in support of their war efforts but mildly denouncing Putin when pressed; and Trump was pledging full throated support of Putin and offering to nuke Kyiv; would you still feel so enthusiastic about voting for Biden or for your moral calculus? Might you lament the electoral system that has put this decision before you. Might you protest this mockery of democratic choice. Even if you internally still cede to moral calculus, might you continue to make your displeasure known and apply whatever pressure was within your purview as a voter to make. Might you be offended by people demanding you not only vote for Biden regardless your rightful concerns about Putin and the sovereignity of Ukrainians but also try to insinuate that you are part of some foreign operation to undermine the election for voicing your concerns?

Voting for big genocide or voting for small genocide is irreconcilably voting for genocide for some people. It’s a morally cognizant choice for some to not want to put the endorsement of their vote on either.

Let me crystal clear. I do not think that your position or attitude are moderate either. Haranguing people to vote against their conscience is a bad look. Big genocide, small genocide, both are genocide. If that overloads some people’s ‘election calculus’ it’s a reasonable and engaged reaction. If anything talking down to them is more likely to turn them off voting at all.

Some of these are clearly wedge-driving divisive (sic) trolls posing as moderates. Especially those hectoring voters that vote with their conscience now that attitudes toward a current genocide is making it impossible to vote for either of the frontrunners.