Bizarre, Media, Politics

Chuck Todd Asks Whether Trump Supporters Simply Want To Be Lied To

NBC News anchor Chuck Todd is under fire for an openly derisive comment about Trump supporters as effectively delusional drones who want to be lied to. He even added a dig at belief in biblical accounts like Noah’s Ark. It is the latest example of how open bias has become the norm on mainstream media. Imagine if Todd said Obama supporters are ignorant voters who just want to be lied to. This is precisely why the media is now driving some voters to Trump and reinforcing echo-journalism on both sides.

On Sunday’s  “Meet the Press,” Todd criticized “misinformation” in the media and referenced a “fascinating” letter to the editor of the Lexington Herald Leader from last January. The letter read, “[W]hy do people support Trump? It’s because people have been trained from childhood to believe in fairy tales… This set their minds up to accept things that make them feel good… The more fairy tales and lies he tells the better they feel . . . Show me a person who believes in Noah’s ark and I will show you a Trump voter.”

Todd used the letter to say to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet “This gets at something, Dean, that my executive producer likes to say, ‘Hey, voters want to be lied to sometimes.’ They don’t always love being told hard truths.”

Baquet was not sold on the theory and responded “I’m not quite sure I buy that. I’m not convinced that people want to be lied to. I think people want to be comforted, and I think bad politicians sometimes say comforting things to them.”

My first reaction was to recoil at the transparent use of a letter to say indirectly what Todd did not want to say directly. The point however was abundantly clear as was the inherent bias. The fact that Todd and Baquet would have a pseudo intellectual discussion of whether Trump voters are mindless zombies only magnifies the concerns. The issue was presented as whether this is now a clear fact or a developing fact. The question itself however is treated as mainstream and obvious.

Half of this country opposes impeachment and over 40 percent Trump. Are they all mindless drones seeking to be lied to? Stay tuned to NBC for the developing answer.

176 thoughts on “Chuck Todd Asks Whether Trump Supporters Simply Want To Be Lied To”

  2. The media is in extremely poor condition, with its anchors merely being stenographers for the establishment position. Chuck is a particularly bad example. However, you stated, “ Imagine if Todd said Obama supporters are ignorant voters who just want to be lied to.” I don’t have to imagine it it was said constantly during the Obama administration that democrats just “wanted free stuff.” This is two fold, not just that they want to be lied too, but additionally democratic members just steal from the “makers” and “giving to the ‘takers’”. As a reminder as well, we have the study showing bias in the audience, https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/07/21/a-rigorous-scientific-look-into-the-fox-news-effect/#5da6a0da12ab.

    1. Who says it’s the ‘established position’? From what I can tell, that is simply another falsehood they would love for us to believe.

  3. JT writes:

    “Imagine if Todd said Obama supporters are ignorant voters who just want to be lied to.”

    If Obama – or any president in our lifetime – had shared Trump’s almost complete disregard for facts and the truth, that would be a sensible hypothetical. Objectively, that is not true and the question is ridiculous for those who think facts and objective truth both exist and are verifiable. Apparently JT is not in that academic camp.

    1. If Obama – or any president in our lifetime – had shared Trump’s almost complete disregard for facts and the truth, that would be a sensible hypothetical
      ___________________________________________________

      Obama supporter want to be lied to more convincingly than Trump supporters.

  4. Chuck Todd called Ferguson a Ghetto! Ferguson is a suburb of St. Louis, MO which had some demonstrations and places looted about five years back. I grew up there and indeed had just been back there and had driven around. It is quite clean, neat, nice, safe and looks better than fifty years ago. Chuck is a nitwit. Where did you grow up Chucky boy? We will defame your home town.

    3. Clayton is still nice. And it’s right next to Ferguson. The difference is totally obvious and the salient factor, perplexingly, remains unmentionable.

  5. It’s difficult to imagine such utterances coming out of the mouth of George Herman or Bill Monroe, or even being entertained by them. It’s another indication, in case you needed one, of the decay of the guild culture of the media and the escalating vulgarity of bourgeois types generally. With some exceptions, the media were generally liberals back in the day, but liberals in general at that time tended to be better people than they are today. Todd won’t lose his job, because his bosses are just as arrogant and crass as he is. If you want to know what their target audience is, take a gander at what’s written by partisan Democrats on these boards.

  6. . Imagine if Todd said Obama supporters are ignorant voters who just want to be lied to.
    _______________________________________________________________

    I sure can imagine that because it is true.
    And so are the things he said about Trump supporters.

  7. Propaganda master Chuck Todd is a major blight on journalism, our country, and the world in general.

  8. “Half of this country opposes impeachment and over 40 percent Trump. Are they all mindless drones seeking to be lied to? Stay tuned to NBC for the developing answer.”
    **************
    Does anybody watch that wispy-bearded little twerp? He sounds like a hillbilly and is about as thought provoking as a Milky Way candy bar. He snivels at anything he disagrees with and rarely has anything nice to say about any conservative. Another bore dressed up as a journalist.

  9. THIS BLOG HAS A GLARING BIAS

    Just two days ago, the ‘Moderator’ of this blog wrote a weekend column entitled: “Tax Avoidance, A Moral Duty”. And ‘yes’, he’s conservative!

    The ‘Moderator’ here actively intervenes on behalf of loser homophobes, deleting the replies of commenters attacked. In other words, creepy nerds, that most blogs would ban, are free to attack commenters here with baseless homophobic taunts. Yet Johnathan Turley fears that Chuck Todd has a bias. Ain’t that a laugh!

    There’s a reason deplorables dominate these comment threads. But we’re supposed to think mainstream media is the problem.

    1. Peter – when I started on this blog it was dominated by liberals and leftists. Now, maybe there are more on the right who are responding, but that does not mean we are dominating.

      I have also advocated for paying the least amount of legal taxes you have to. It is your civic duty.

      BTW, Chuck Todd is biased and the MSM is a huge problem.

      1. Paul, you live in the least sustainable big city in the country. Phoenix couldn’t exist without Federal assistance. Yet we have a moral duty to avoid taxes? ..Why..??

        1. Perhaps because taxes without our express approbation via “virtual representation” are un-American and have been since the very first planting? And where do we derive our national identity? MA Bay and that very first planting.That’s what they believed then, and those were the words used, and sentiment expressed, ultimately embodied, enshrined, in our Constitution, at the time of the Revolution.

          And the two most oft repeated words in all of Revolutionary era correspondence? “Liberty” and “slavery.” And how did Lincoln define slavery? Well, he defined it with these words: “You work, I’ll eat.”:And so we find that slavery, like liberty, arrives by but a matter of degree. That’s right, taxes are “slavery.” In that, the taxing authority quite literally owns, through force of law, some portion of our labor.

          To believe otherwise is “un-American”; it is to embrace “fundamental change,” to deconstruct long-held culture, beliefs, and ideals, to deny, defy, even evolutionary desire. For what today is politically labeled “conservative” was once viewed as a most liberal experimental expression of evolutionary desire.

          There are many today who still believe we have a duty to ourselves and others to resist those who would further enslave. Very simply, that sense of “morality” (although I hate to keep using these quotation marks) is born of evolutionary desire. I haven’t yet read Turley’s piece on taxation, but have to admit, these postings do engender some curiosity.

    2. “THIS BLOG HAS A GLARING BIAS”
      ********************
      Petey, Step away from the keyboard and set yourself free. We all support your quest for independence from contrary thought.

    4. I love how the Eunuch insults and libels at least half of the country every time he opens his mouth. Look in a mirror, fool.

    5. I appear often in these threads and I am a deplorable.

      Of course one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

      It’s great you come here and embrace the diversity Peter. Welcome! Enjoy the fun.

    6. I advocate a special occupational use tax on “journalists” which will help offset the harm they do to society, due to their arrogance, their habitual libels and slanders, and their presumptousness of being a special class of Americans entitled to special rights above the rest of us, under NYT v Sullivan and also NYT v US precedents, which are judicially enacted special privileges for them which are antithetical to our egalitarian society, and hide the hidden hand of power directed by the mass media oligarchs.

      Will you join me in this legislative initiative that will help us rectify their vaunted special status, in the name of greater social equality, Peter?

  10. Todd should be drummed off the industry and his sword broken. A yellow stripe painted down his back.

      1. David, the idea seems to be that Chuck Todd has disgraced himself and we should demand his resignation.

        1. Not having watched much TV for going on two decades now, maybe 3 for how long ago i stopped watching network TV, I have no clue who Chuck Todd is. I could care less what he thinks about anything.

    1. She did indeed. Thanks, Charles Ely. From the WSJ piece:

      “I had such a conversation again Tuesday with a friend who repairs shoes in a shop on Lexington Avenue. Jimmy asked me, conversationally, what was going to happen. I deflected and asked who he thinks is going to win. “Troomp!” He’s a very nice man, an elderly, old-school Italian-American, but I saw impatience flick across his face: Aren’t you supposed to know these things?

      In America now only normal people are capable of seeing the obvious.

      But actually that’s been true for a while, and is how we got in the position we’re in.”

      Through blood and sweat, everyday Americans have saved the Republic from elite-made economic and geopolitical disasters for generations and received precious little credit for it. Hail Jimmy and the rest of essential America.

      And what a rebuttal to that priggish buffoon, Chuck Toad.

  13. Meet The Press ex-host Tim Russert (RIP) was a cradle to grave Democrat like Turley, and a Catholic, yet you could watch TR every Sunday and not know nor care about his political affiliation, and not be offended no matter your own affiliation. Tim was likable and happy to call a spade a spade no matter who was at fault or due praise.

    How far NBC “news” has fallen; from Russert to Chuckee Cheese Todd.

    1. Tim Russert was a stooge for rethuglican propaganda, ask Cheney. MTP made household names of McCain, Miss Lindsey, Bill Bennett, ad nauseum, giving them a platform every weekend. Most biased show not on FAUX NEWS.

      1. Being elected to Congress made household names of McCain and Graham. Being the Secretary of Education and Director of Drug Control Policy made a name for Bill Bennett.

        Pretty amusing that Correct-the-Record sends out adolescents who are worse than useless.

    2. Russert was a propaganda tool for the rethuglican, ask Dick Cheney. Miss Lindsey, John McCain, Bill Bennett became household names thanks to MTP and it is still shilling for the rethuglican with everybody’s favorite rube, John Kennedy.

    3. Russert was what you might call a ‘cultural Catholic’, and it’s a reasonable wager the same was true of at least one of his divorced parents. Serious Catholics are fairly unusual in public life. (Antonin Scalia, Rick Santorum, and Bob Newhart are among the few there have been in recent decades).

  14. I don’t respond to Anonymous. Pick an Internet handle such as PutZoff or IamDiZZy.

    1. Still waiting for info on that 55% poll you mentioned. Does that mean that 55% want Pelosi to get on the ball and forward the impeachment articles to the Senate?
      Who did the polling and what was the actual question that you say resulted in 55% wanting ” an open Senate trial”?
      In response to your comment, I’m signing with one of the usernames that you suggested, ” Bensonizdizzy”.

    1. He doesn’t read these comments, Abby. Try his George Washington University email address.

    2. O.m.g., profs must get some weird *ss voicemails.

      Hahaha, I guess it comes with a territory.

      JT’s….sorry, you cannot leave a message bc the box is full. Everyday, guaranteed, box is full with weirdo comments.

      His asst must get some good laughs, I know I would.

      1. “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” is one show that JT might like to do.

        But, yes: plenty of weirdos…

    4. Abby, you might consider interviewing some of the attorneys who have been posting on JT’s blog for these past few years. They have studied, debated, written extensively on Turley’s record. They might add some context to a story you may wish to develop: e.g. everyday attorneys influenced by Professor Jonathan Turley

      NB: I am not an attorney

  18. No, Jonathan Turley, 55% want an open impeachment trial. That’s more than half.

    1. I haven’t seen any polling about “an open impeachment trial”. It actually seems like a vague, overly- broad question for a poll.
      David, could you provide a citation for that “55% poll”?

  20. I love it. The left is once again organizing a circular firing squad. TDS has driven them mad; they are creating wonderful material for the pre-election education of the electorate.

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