What Are We Pretending Not to See?

The language is always careful. Could. Might. Some say.

Even as the guardrails of democratic life are pried loose in plain sight, much of the media narrates the crisis in soft focus.

The tone is calm, the phrasing tentative, as if the worst thing would be to sound alarmed.

But the alarm is precisely what the moment demands.

Trump’s presidency is not a series of hardball tactics. It’s not a war of words. It’s a sustained assault on American life's legal and civic architecture. And yet, the press still plays referee. Treating democracy and its dismantling as two equally valid viewpoints.

This represents the false comfort of “balance.” It may soothe, but it also distorts. It exemplifies bothsidesism at its worst.

Legacy outlets twist themselves into neutrality, afraid that calling out obvious threats will make them look partisan. But neutrality isn’t objectivity. It’s abdication. When one side is torching the rulebook, you don’t meet them halfway. You sound the alarm.

And some are sounding it.

Independent voices, freed from access games, are stepping up.

John Harwood called the modern GOP’s strategy what it is—a moral and intellectual collapse. He quoted LBJ’s brutal calculus:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket.”

That still holds. But when was the last time you heard that on cable news?

We’re not short on evidence.

Trump has floated invoking the Insurrection Act. He promised mass deportations, sweeping immunity for allies, and revenge prosecutions - and delivered.

His presidency focuses more on impunity than on policy.

And while all this happens, what do we see in the headlines? Phrases like “unorthodox strategy,” “populist comeback,” and “lawfare.” The vocabulary of a horse race, not a coup.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s circle now controls the federal Office of Personnel Management. That should be a five-alarm fire. It barely made the front page. The Associated Press was punished for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Axios caved. In 2009, when Obama tried to freeze out Fox News, every major outlet rallied in defense of press freedom. Where is that unity now?

We know what would help: an empty press room, a walkout, and a refusal to play the game by the terms of those trying to break it. But we haven’t seen it. Instead, we get statements and hedges.

If the media wants a hero, there’s no shortage.

People like Hagan Scotten, a government attorney who resigned rather than file a motion he believed was illegal. “You’ll find someone else,” he said, “but it was never going to be me.” That line should be engraved on every newsroom wall.

This isn’t about feel-good sidebars.

It’s about documenting courage and remembering that resistance isn’t theoretical—it’s real and happening right now.

The press has a choice.

It can narrate the dismantling of democracy like a live blog of a house fire.
Or it can act like the house is worth saving.

There is still time.

But only if we stop pretending there isn’t a fire.