Caught the last half of the Trump town hall. CNN was criticized for hosting this, but Kaitlan Collins did a great job fact-checking and pressing him on non-answers. It’s not really amplification. Zero risk that voters outside his base were convinced by anything he said. 🇺🇸
@bens Maybe. I could imagine some voters were reminded how painful future debates with Trump are going to be.
@manton I’m very concerned that they packed the audience with republicans though. He got approving laughs multiple times. If you’re already distrustful of news media, the crowd’s validation of him could push someone over towards him.
It was a terrible format, and probably did a lot more harm than good.
@manton I disagree. Platforming Trump on any seemingly legitimate outlet does more harm than good. He's a convicted sexual offender and a twice-impeached insurrectionist. We HAVE TO STOP giving him a voice. He has an entire social media platform and many favorable news outlets to let him peddle his hate. If nothing, I lost even more respect for CNN today.
@pratik The problem with those other news outlets is they don’t check him, so his message gets out unfiltered. I get the concern, though… This shouldn’t be a regular occurrence.
@manton No one outside the crazies watch those “news” outlets. That’s why fascists love to be on the mainstream outlets that they claim to hate. I found this piece pretty powerful.
Somehow we keep expecting that if more often people hear Trump’s hate, they’ll start to turn away from him. This has been done since 2015 but we still don’t learn.
@pratik This is why I watched it, to see how it would actually play out. It’s also about the primaries, and something needs to upset the status quo of Trump as the presumed nominee.
@pratik thanks for the article. Yep, it's really powerful. I should write something some day about some of the perception from Europe of jan 6
@manton But the risk that voters within his base are energized and that voters outside his base see his behavior being normalized is not zero. I think “Show people how crazy he is” only works if voters are rational actors (they are not) and the media platforms—social and traditional—are neutral (they are not).
@manton i found it dispicable. He attacked his victim again, he attacked the host. He lied and lied. Only his supporters were allowed in. It was a CNN sponsored rally. Kaitlin tried to fact check him, he talked over her. His being on CNN gave him a forum to put others in harm’s way.
