The New York Times descended into self-parody Tuesday, pushing new data ostensibly meant to show how Republicans have become extremists over the past two decades. However, this might wind up going down as the most ham-handed attempt at election propaganda in American history. Those brilliant journos over at The Times proved the exact opposite of the point they were trying to make.
In an 8-minute documentary video, The Times attempts to explain “how the middle ground on immigration collapsed.” The centerpiece of the film is a line graph that reflects Americans’ attitudes towards immigration: the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who believe immigration “strengthens” the country. Effectively, this boils down to a survey on the bumper sticker platitude of Diversity Is Our Strength™ all Democrats now fearfully parrot to earn the respect of their peers.
“We’re kind of obsessed with this graph,” reads the female, millennial up-talker. “We’re all familiar” with the contemporary side of the graph, showing 83% of Democrats have a love affair with diversity, while only 38% of Republicans agree. The Times is more concerned with the other side of the graph, which shows both Republicans and Democrats only disagreeing by a 2 point margin, 30 to 32%, respectively. The parties then hover fairly equally in the 30 to 40% range from 1994 until the mid-2000s.
How did we start “so close” and go to Donald Trump chanting “Build that wall!”, The Times wonders. This sets up the premise: how did Republican extremism drive “political polarization” in American politics?
Yet the viewer is forced to wonder how The Times possibly came to this conclusion. How is it that Republican anti-immigrant sentiments are painted as the driving force of polarization, when the graph shows them becoming friendlier toward immigration? Over the two decades, Republicans’ favorable views toward immigrants increased from 30% to 38%. Meanwhile, Democrats exploded with radicalism, jumping 51 points friendlier towards immigration over the same period. The supposedly radical right is more pro-immigration than Democrats were in the 90s.
The Times was viciously mocked on social media for its ridiculous and baseless trend lines. Nevertheless, this laughably terrible narrative takes up the bulk of the video.
This @nytimes graph is dishonest
Who looks at those red points and fits that curved line. The red points are clearly flat, and the blue points are the one side that is taking a more extreme positionThis is a new type of regression where the data is fit to the narrative
HT… pic.twitter.com/TAGEwfAhE1— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) January 23, 2024
It begins with debate clips between Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980s, showing them “basically having an empathy competition” as a “pretty normal” phenomenon for Republican politics of the day. Sure, they only liked immigrants because of “cheap labor,” but it still concedes Republicans were decent people. “But then look what happened,” the nasal narrator continues.
The video goes on to explore the “fast changing nature of immigration itself.” The data here is actually quite interesting: once concentrated mostly in coastal and border states, the immigrant population exploded exponentially in all 50 states within only a few short years. Heartland voters began to feel “under siege” and Republicans “played on those fears.” As a result, Republicans won a “larger share of the white vote” and “propell[ed] themselves away from the center.”
Republicans came to see immigration as a matter of “law enforcement and national security,” while Democrats increasingly saw it as a “humanitarian” imperative.
Noble politicians like Bush and Obama kept trying to “meet in the middle,” but with their failure, “we’re all familiar with what happened next” — smash cut to Trump jeering with an ominous, retro filter. Trump inspired a “wave of copycats,” finally transforming “fringe ideas” into the “certifiably mainstream.”
This is all part of the official narrative, and should not be too surprising. But things only get interesting in the last minute of the video. “But guess what,” the narrator snarks, “it’s not just conservatives; Democrats have aggressively moved away from the center even more than Republicans.” The video even admits Biden officials have gone to “absurd lengths to avoid calling a spade a spade,” with a clip of Sen. Ted Cruz questioning DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas who refuses to call the border situation a “crisis.” (RELATED: Doocy To John Kirby Point-Blank: Why Is Biden ‘Making It Easier For People To Enter The Country Illegally?’)
.@pdoocy: ” Why are you guys making it easier for people to enter the country illegally?”
KIRBY: ” We aren’t. Why do you think we are?”
DOOCY: ” You guys sued to cut razor wire that was put in place by Texas officials..” pic.twitter.com/3FIBd1wlBO
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 23, 2024
The answer, according to The Times, is “yes, it’s a crisis.” Of course, this is “not to give Ted Cruz too much credit here,” the right-thinker clarifies. The video concludes with a call to action: we can fix the broken asylum system. All we need is the “political will.”
So what is this amateur piece of propaganda really about? Why does the narrator sound like a teenager talking back to her parents?
It’s a signal to right-thinking Democrats everywhere — particularly young, affluent, urban liberals who spend half their lives on TikTok — that it’s okay to care about immigration and border security. Democrats know the border is their most vulnerable issue and their utter disinterest in stopping the flow of migrants is poisonous to normal people. It could easily be the reason Biden gets booted in November. But after spending four years comparing Trump to Hitler for cracking down on the border, Democrats have backed themselves into a corner with their base. The base associates border security with Trump and thinks support for even moderate restrictions inherently makes you a racist. Even if they know this isn’t true deep down, they’re scared to admit it and risk being excommunicated by their right-thinking peers. (RELATED: Tucker Calls For ‘Men Of Texas’ To Defend The Border)
The bulk of the video assures the viewer they’re all on the same side: we’re the good guys, it’s all the evil Republicans’ fault. Once it establishes solidarity, it turns around to lightly chastise Democrats. The Times’ seal of approval on the idea that even Democrats have gone too far is meant to give the base permission to care, just a little bit, about border security. The message is clear: we’re going to get destroyed in November if we keep up the hard line stance on an open border.
Ultimately, this is Democrats’ desperate plea to the base, the Very Good People who read The New York Times: please let us do something about the border!