You can't have it both ways.
The story of the twenty first century has been disruption. New companies aligned with the future eating the lunch of the old established operations who are asleep, super-serving their usual customers and believing in gradual change.
The definitive take on this is by Clayton Christensen, in his 1997 book "The Innovator's Dilemma." Everybody in Silicon Valley has read it, but seemingly nobody in New York or Los Angeles.
Christensen said to beware of enterprises producing an innovative product that is shoddy and cheap. Eventually it will get better and demolish your business. The way to counteract this is to innovate yourself, to build your own competitor on these precepts. And when the game changes, when the new product truly gains traction, shut down the old and throw all your efforts into the new.
The "New York Times" is super-serving its core audience of elite baby boomers. There are endless anti-technology articles, as if the smartphone hasn't improved our lives, as if technology hasn't made reporters' own jobs easier, being able to write remotely and transmit instantly.
And it's hard to grasp the future when you've lived in the past. The older you are the more history you've got. You're jarred by innovation.
But that's the way it happens, overnight.
Like with Trump.
So what did the "Times" do? It said Hillary was gonna win, it missed it completely.
And it's been flagellating itself for this ever since.
Now credit the "Times" as opposed to Fox, which never admits it makes a mistake and never takes a hard look at itself. And Fox too is challenged, its audience is a tiny sliver of oldsters. Sure, Trump himself watches, but not the youngsters, who get all their news online. Fox does not control the message on the internet, which is why Bannon went from outside to inside in 2016, he had the pulse of the internet.
So all the "Times" and the elites believe is Trump was victorious and he must go. The true reasons for his election, the movement behind it, remain elusive to these writers in the bubble.
But it gets worse, the bubble influences the bubble. The Editorial Board is worried about being woke, worried about being politically incorrect. It doesn't want to make the Oscar mistake, of not nominating women and minorities. Instead of being influenced by truth, it is influenced by its audience.
Amy Klobuchar has no chance.
But it gets worse, the "Times" talks about her "charisma."
If Amy Klobuchar has charisma, then so does your grandpa. Brad Pitt has charisma. Robert DeNiro has charisma. Madonna has charisma. Rihanna has charisma. But a bland, Ivy League educated denizen of the Midwest does not. This is what happens when you think with your brain instead of your heart, when you get so caught up in intellectualism that you can't see the truth. If you only watched Klobuchar, you'd see she had no chance. No one wants the suck-up teacher's pet, who smiles like they're popular when they're not, who keeps on telling us how great they are, to tell us what to do. Klobuchar is not warm and fuzzy. In some ways she's even repellent. Ask women, why aren't they behind her?
And that's another thing, Klobuchar's poll numbers are abysmal. The elites keep saying they want a centrist and therefore they try and boost her. But this didn't work for Jeb Bush, why should it work for Democrats?
As for Elizabeth Warren...she's turned into Joe Biden, shooting herself in the foot.
Bernie Sanders admits middle class taxes will go up with Medicare For All. Warren dodges the question and then comes up with magical thinking to prove how she'll pay for it without raising taxes on the middle class. And when the blowback gets heavy, she says she'll delay implementation. Wishy-washy we do not want. We want someone who sticks to their guns.
And then Warren attacks Bernie on a non-issue, whether he said a woman can't be President. Hell, I said a black man couldn't be President in 2008, and I was proven wrong. And then CNN kept shoving the shiv into Bernie. This is what the mainstream has missed, the left wing uproar about the CNN questioning. I'm hearing it, but the only place I've read it is Matt Taibbi's piece in "Rolling Stone":
"CNN's Debate Performance Was Villainous and Shameful-The 24-hour network combines a naked political hit with a cynical ploy for ratings": bit.ly/2TG9Evh
Millennials picked up on this. The "Times" did not. Because it doesn't fit with their narrative. They want a centrist, they want reasonableness, they don't want anything that resembles a revolution.
But that's what Trump was.
As for newspapers themselves, the "Times" is afraid the "Chicago Tribune" is gonna go the way of the "Denver Post." (nyti.ms/2G8c6CL)
Well I live in Los Angeles, and what's striking to me is no one gets the L.A. "Times" anymore. I reference it, and I get blank faces. Everybody's canceled their subscription. Oh, they get the "New York Times," but not this rag that looks like a pamphlet and too often has the nutritional value of a Twinkie.
Today's "Los Angeles Times" has doubled-down on awards coverage, it's got a special section "The Envelope" that is unreadable, pure fluff. Yes, the L.A. "Times" is ruled by publicists. Its national coverage is weak, and its local coverage is lame and you're expecting people to pay for this, with their time and money?
Oh, you'll say it's not the "Times"'s fault. The web stole movie listings and Craigslist stole classifieds. I ask you, aren't both of these an improvement?
You cannot prop up the past. The future comes, cheaper and better, but always with some flaws, some losses.
Turns out the local newspaper wasn't built for these times. And when I can read the national news in the "New York Times," "Washington Post" and "Wall Street Journal," why should I settle for a pale imitation of that?
But you get the same complaints again and again from the oldsters.
We should have saved record stores. The internet killed them.
We should save bookstores from Amazon, and while we're at it, put a finger in the dike of digital books. Hell, you're reading all day on your electronic devices but when it comes to full-length stories they must be physical? Hogwash!
Yes, the right beats up the "Times" and CNN. So the left shouldn't, correct?
Of course not! This is like the right saying you can't criticize the country, you must lionize the flag. Our nation was built on questioning, we want our institutions to be better!
So the "Times" is so afraid of its audience that it punts. Doubles down on the fantastical.
The battle is between Bernie, Biden and Bloomberg, the three B's.
And that's not because the populace is only interested in men, and not people of color. Hell, I live in California, Kamala Harris was a flawed candidate from day one. She lacked experience! But the media built her up as the person of color who was gonna save us all.
This is what happens when you try and game the system, when you don't install the best person for the job, but the one who is politically correct.
Oh, don't get your panties in a twist. I'm not saying that women and minorities should not be given advantages to level the playing field, I'm not saying there should be no affirmative action, I'm just saying you can't control people's votes. Turns out the public didn't want Kamala. Turns out the public, or a great slice of it, wanted Trump. If you don't live in the real world, you're going to get trampled.
So instead of asking the hard questions, the "Times" satiates its constituency and lives to publish another day. It says it's a fight for the soul of the Democratic party. Is it left, or much more left. But rather than making a call, it punts!
And then today the "Los Angeles Times" posts an insightful article, but no one reads it, it gets no traction, because once you've sacrificed yourself to the almighty dollar, once you've taken your eye off the prize, once you're considered a loser, you cannot recover.
"Beyond ideology: The voters torn between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden": lat.ms/30Brxgf
Meanwhile, the "New York Times" is propping up a candidate with no chance and another whose campaign is going in the wrong direction.
Warren had the heat, the odds of recovering it are low. Welcome to the twenty first century when you must triumph in the spotlight and keep the attention of the public. The problem with Warren is she disappointed her base. Instead of owning her positions, she waffled, because she kept on reading in the left wing press that she was too far left. But we're looking for a person who marches to the beat of their own drummer, who is not swayed by the fray. Come on, that's the social media mantra, if you've got a profile, don't respond to the trolls!
So, can Bloomberg capture enough hearts and minds through his carpet bomb advertising campaign? We're not sure. A lot of New Yorkers are anti-Bloomberg, and a lot of the rest of the country knows nothing about him. But Trump won because he was on TV, and there's a theory that online advertising helped his campaign. Even though I don't believe he's gonna make it, I'm open to the idea Bloomberg can get there. Because this is the first time someone has ever employed this paradigm.
Klobuchar's paradigm is as old as the hills. I won before, I'm a fighter, trust me. Huh?
Warren was a leader, but then she got confused, trying to please everybody. And that's one thing the internet has taught us, this is impossible. Quell climate change and you'll still be excoriated online. We do not live in a kumbaya culture. Everybody cannot get along.
I'm not saying Warren cannot come back, I'm just saying it's gonna be tough.
Meanwhile, Bernie is ascending and Biden is faltering and the "Times" has taken its eye off the ball.
As for its constituency...
Those in control like to remain in control. They do not like to lose anything, they do not like to sacrifice. The "New York Times" believes in its own gravitas, it does not want to question itself. And when it occasionally does, it says profit is king it must obey the bottom line, even though the internet companies triumphed by giving it away and monetizing later, knowing that hearts and minds and market share come first, and change must be incremental, even though the last twenty five years have proven that's a death sentence.
And it's not only the "Times," but its audience, its readers.
The people want change. Drastic change. The government is not working for them. And the question is whether disinformation will rule, or truth. Whether the rank and file voter will get the facts, or bogus information that skews their opinions and their votes.
We are fighting for the heart and soul of our country here. And the history of the world tells us that change happens overnight. It's not there and then it is. The same way a social media platform erupts and then caves, even though those in the music industry think TikTok is forever, just like Guitar Hero.
We're looking for great leaps forward, we're looking to be saved, we're looking for hope.
And today we did not find it in the "New York Times."
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