How The New York Times Is Destroying America’s Political Discourse
by John D. O’Connor
The following is an article originally published on American Greatness. Read it HERE.
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Does the New York Times believe Americans are clueless? The paper’s May 4, 2025, Sunday edition, a compilation of articles regarding President Trump’s first 100 days in office, implicitly questions our society’s political intellect with one heavy-handed, but jejune, article after another. Each extended feature showed unmitigated disdain for President Donald Trump’s first 100 days, including two separate opinion sections devoted solely to the topic.
The paper vividly depicted all of Trump’s allegedly destructive policies, going to great lengths to describe in one section Trump’s cabinet as unqualified and in another those specific categories in which these putative incompetents are dismantling our democracy in a thoroughgoing fashion.
In parallel with this harsh opinion, the paper’s news section reported, in incredulous tone, that the American population was not nearly as upset with Trump as it should be, ascribing that failing to an increased resort to unreliable alternative news media.
A related prominent feature, meant to demean these MAGA supporters, reported how a California rural town, Oakdale, relied on—horrors—alternative sources of news that, in the paper’s wisdom, contained largely misinformation (“THE POST-TRUST NEWS MEDIA”).
The only case in point of a false “news” report was a social media post describing how a BLM group would be assaulting the town after arriving on buses. While the article did not provide a time frame, the post was from some years past, likely at the time of the widespread George Floyd riots. The article noted that after many local men showed up in tac gear, there was no attack as rumored. Was such a proactive security response harmful to the town? Apparently so, in the Times’ view. See what happens when citizens don’t rely on solid sources, the article implied, like, presumably, that august repository of wisdom, the New York Times.
As much as it may be obvious to reasonable readers, these articles did not spur any awareness in the Times’ pundits that perhaps all the foregoing might be the result of biased, dishonest reporting by traditional media outlets like, for example, the New York Times.
Returning to Trump’s assertedly unqualified cabinet, each member was described in a blurb, briefly recounting their policies, which will, in the paper’s view, destroy the foundations of our great country. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is cancelling USAID grants, such as HIV medicine for Uganda. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is rolling back fuel economy standards originally implemented to encourage electric vehicles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has set “sex-neutral” physical fitness requirements. NSA Director Tulsi Gabbard wants to release the Mueller Report files. And so on, for each. All of this was intended to shock the reader.
The Times did not list any of the foolish and wasteful majority of USAID grants, which cost billions on such urgent needs as transgender coloring books for Iran (likely through a grant to a Biden donor). An intelligent conversation about EVs would discuss that with increased car battery demands, the world’s copper and lithium mining yields are rapidly decreasing, causing huge increases in energy costs and CO₂ emissions, while introducing massive toxic chemical pollution from this low-yield mining, concomitantly ravaging the earth’s soil.
Perhaps democratic transparency would reveal that the “Russian Collusion” hoax was invented by then-Clinton campaign aide Jake Sullivan and leaked by Putin-connected oligarchs and their retainers (Oleg Deripaska, Christopher Steele, et al.) as well as Russian intelligence assets (Igor Danchenko, Olga Galkina). Shouldn’t the country learn the details underlying a canard so strongly and unremittingly advanced by the New York Times, one that severely crippled our democracy for three years?
Accompanying the paper’s cabinet opinion section was a separate adjoining opinion spread on the Trump Administration’s claimed destructive policies, with approximately 20 separate categories of alleged democratic depredations.
In a “Thank You, Won’t Forget” squib, the Supreme Court is portrayed as favoring Trump in repayment for their appointments, ignoring that their rulings have been consistent with their long-held judicial philosophies and often disfavor positions of the Trump Administration. Rather than seeking historical context, the writer ignored the scores of prior liberal decisions in recent past decades that had overturned long-established precedent.
Another panel noted, “America Abandons Its Allies.” The paper suggested, for instance, that “if Russia invaded Estonia today, it’s difficult to imagine Trump sending troops to defend it.”
Thus, there seemed little embarrassment by a newspaper that uttered not a peep when President Biden practically invited Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine by publicly ruling out American troops, thereafter refusing to deploy MIGs and withholding lethal military equipment while forbidding strikes into Russia. Biden encouraged the invasion and ensured a stalemate, but after hundreds of thousands have lost their lives, he has yet to be criticized by the Times.
The topper, revealing a profound lack of self-awareness, was David French’s piece, “Impunity for Friends, Fear for Critics.” Cases in point were pardons for January 6 protestors and the withdrawal of security clearance for former National Security Advisor and vociferous Trump critic John Bolton.
It seemingly escaped the editors that the Biden Administration prosecuted and helped states to prosecute Trump on four occasions and jailed Trump aides Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. Many pardoned January 6 protestors had been imprisoned for four years at the time of their pardons, often for mere trespass, while thousands of George Floyd vandals escaped prison altogether. So, the question should have been asked: Which political party is actually destroying traditional norms? Oh, yes, the Biden Administration pulled Trump’s security clearance, such that this former president could not review even his own classified presidential papers, a fact not mentioned by the writer. Moreover, it was not irrational to sense that the voluble, dyspeptic Bolton would, in his anti-Trump fervor, harm delicate foreign policy messaging.
All of the above from the country’s leading paper would lead a reasonable reader to justify a “post-trust media.”
This New York Times Sunday Edition is likely a source of great internal pride for its editors and writers. But to any objective reader, this once-great publication has lowered itself to a junior high, mean-girls level of discourse with this issue. With this extended diatribe, posing as trustworthy news and wise opinion, how can it claim the moral high ground above Trump?
Many of Trump’s policy initiatives, to be sure, should be discussed and debated. If pursued fairly and intelligently, such might influence a president keenly following the media. Perhaps, a conservative might conclude, the tariffs proposed by Trump are, without surgical targeting, harmful. And while the anti-Harvard broadsides are, well, too broad, are they any more destructive than the leftist intellectual straightjacketing they were meant to liberate? Wouldn’t that debate get all of us to a more thoughtful societal dialogue?
If the paper discussed both sides of the EV debate, wouldn’t it tell its readers that for each EV battery produced, 500,000 pounds of earth is despoiled, a number that is rapidly increasing as mineral yields decrease? Is this “sustainable,” an intelligent opinion section should ask?
As increased energy is needed for mining key minerals, such as lithium extracted from Australian rock and not Chilean brine, aren’t we unlikely to decrease, and instead increase, fossil fuel use and CO₂ emissions? With the world dependent on Chinese batteries and mineral refining, wouldn’t increased EVs endanger national security? Should n’t an enlightened forum open these topics for discussion?
If the Times editors decided to become an honest broker of thought, American policies would improve no matter which way the resultant opinion cuts. However, if it does become honest, the Times likely fears, some readers might “normalize” Trump as, yes, a wild blusterer, but one, still and yet, with some salvific qualities.
Clearly, such an intelligent, thoughtful discussion was not the paper’s intent. Therefore, it should not be a mystery why normal, engaged Americans, like Oakdale, California residents, feel it necessary to pick through the internet scatter of a “post-trust news media” while avoiding the obvious dishonesty of mainstream outlets like the New York Times.
It would be reasonably contended that if there were a genuinely destructive force endangering American democracy, it would be a Fourth Estate that abuses its First Am endment protections and functions as nothing more than a delusive propaganda rag, exemplified by the March 4, 2025, issue of the New York Times.