The frame is the thing: Maggie Haberman just can't quit Trump...

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For year now, the New York Times, the "paper of record," has employed as its senior political editor someone who loves using the Trump frame for her stories about Trump. Maggie Haberman has worked long and hard to maintain her "access" status within the Trump campaign and the only way to keep that status is to present insider gossip as if it is factual news. She has a story in the paper today (Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024), co-written with Matt Flegenheimer (I rarely see her name as a solo byline) that uses Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden (MSG) as a "show of force."




In the NY Times story, Haberman and Flegenheimer decide to pretend that only Democrats are noting the similarities between Trump MSG rally and the Nazi rally that took place in 1939. 




But that's not true. Anne Applebaum, noted scholar of fascism, posted a picture on Threads that links Trump's MSG event with the 1939 Nazi Party event at that venue.


Here's a link to the documentary referenced by Applebaum in her Thread post. It's less than seven minutes long and worth a watch, if only for the chilling images of a crowd of Americans using the Nazi salute at an event at MSG. 

When experts in fascism link a Trump event with a historical Nazi event at the same venue, it's more than just political posturing. Trump has claimed he will be a dictator on Day 1; that his base will not need to vote again if he wins in November; that the military should be employed on "the enemy within." 

None of that is mentioned in Haberman's story on Trump's event at the Garden. The accusations of fascism are dismissed as a political attack, giving Trump the last-say on this: "(Mr. Trump’s team has condemned the rally comparison and Mr. Kelly. Mr. Trump told Fox News that he was “just the opposite” of Hitler.). As is usually the case with a Haberman story, the story is written like a press release, filled with laudatory language that praises Trump – the event is framed as a "show of force" - a Queen's boy making good in Manhattan - an athlete who "wants to play in front of his home crowd" (the last is a quote attributed to Joseph Borelli, the Republican minority leader of the NY City Council.) 

The frame of a story is crucial in setting the tone for the story. This story in the New York Times frames Trump's rally as just the hometown boy making good on his dreams. And that's an interesting frame in a paper that also includes a Peter Baker story on how Trump's own former advisors are calling him a fascist. 











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