He’s a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman

That Jeremy Peters NYT Pitchbot article-length parody but real sure aged well.

I want to front page a reaction from commenter Cereal that’s applicable to a basically endless series of situations:

An upside of the non-conservative mind is the ability to apply and perceive nuance. A downside of this is the reflexive need to find nuance where there isn’t any, especially when parsing the conservative mind.

That is very true, and very important, and related in a very insidious way to the both the economics and psychology of the mainstream media’s both sides frame/template/fetish/addiction. The need to find nuance where none exists is related intimately to the need to find complexity and controversy — and hence to write stories based on these things — where none exists.

This is also related to the compulsive failure on the part of reactionary centrists to take into account that there’s a fundamental difference between noting legitimate differences of opinion on a subject, and actively contributing to a fascist propaganda project by highlighting that subject in a way that contributes to the extension and potential success of that project.

Example: Basically any Fox News obsession of the moment. More specific example: Take Hunter Biden (please). Is there a legitimate story to be told about what it tells us about the corruption of the American elites that Hunter Biden managed to trade on his name to get various educational and economic benefits that he didn’t deserve? Yes there is.

Does this story have anything at all to do with the fascist propaganda project of turning Hunter Biden’s laptop into a legitimate news story? No it does not. You can repeat this identical mental exercise with any right wing obsession, from immigrant caravans, to trans athletes, to drag queen story hours, to the 1619 project etc. etc. etc.

The refusal to acknowledge this is what makes the whole Even the Liberal media ecosphere go. And that ecosphere plays a key role in the advancement of the fascist propaganda project whose institutional embodiments include Fox News et. al., and more significantly, the contemporary Republican party.