Governor Tim Walz’s announcement that he was ending his reelection campaign hit me surprisingly hard. I truly believe that stan culture is corroding our collective ability to think critically, and I believe it’s particularly dangerous when it comes to politicians. If there’s any group of people who shouldn’t be treated like your favourite sports team, it’s the people with legislating and/or governing power. Having said all of that, I come pretty close to stanning Tim Walz.1 I think choosing him as her running mate—especially over Josh Shapiro—was the last good decision Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign made.

Part of my feelings about the 2024 election were wrapped up in the different versions of white masculinity on offer from the two tickets: Trump’s bilious machismo, Vance’s swinging from toadyism to weaselly cruelty, Doug Imhoff’s dorky sincerity, and Walz’s enthusiastic kindness. Despite what I knew and know about the past and present of this country, I was really hoping we’d choose the ones who made a kinder future seem possible.

Since then, Trump and his gang of absolutely worthless thugs have proven to be the worst kind of sore winners. Their glee in punishing the most vulnerable people just for being here turns my stomach on a daily basis. And this is what the majority of voters chose—the permission to be cruel.

So I was heartened by Walz’s refusal to disappear after 2024. (Even though I was annoyed he went on Gavin Newsom’s little podcast, he won me back by having a Lego Starry Night on his bookshelf. Tim Walz I could never stay mad at you!) If nothing else, his state could continue enjoying his governorship for a few more years.

Except they couldn’t. Because on top of an onslaught of threats against his family, one jumped-up little YouTuber manufactured a scandal about Somali-American-run child care centers in Minneapolis. Not only did the second item get more coverage, but mainstream media outlets treated it as a legitimate news story. This was the coverage that really sent me over the edge:

Sorry, but how is “a humbling political crash” not just carrying water for Walz’s opponents? How does this framing do anything but cast him as a flop? How is this remotely objective?

Sadly, Tim Walz ending his campaign, and the mainstream coverage of it, wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Minnesota this week. On Wednesday, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Nicole Good three times in the head, killing her, as she was backing her car away from him. And we’ve gotten so used to immigration and customs officials being armed and violent in the streets, and so used to violence from law enforcement in general, that a lot of our collective outrage has been about Good’s U.S. citizenship rather than the fact of Ross wielding a weapon in the first place. There’s only so often you can hear the phrase “immigration crackdown,” which the New York Times uses constantly, before you’ve internalized immigration as implicitly criminal, and the extrajudicial violence that immigration officers are using with impunity as implicitly normal.

I can’t think of how to describe my continued attachment to journalism these days. Optimistic isn’t the right word at all. Like, I believe that the New York Times does a lot of damage to causes and communities I care dearly about, but I still subscribe. As I do to NPR, and two local rags, and Wikipedia2. I can’t see myself as a person who doesn’t pay for journalism—right now, journalism counts as a cause that dearly needs my support. But I’m finding it harder every day to square my belief in The News with how inadequate and ill-prepared The News is for this moment. And, honestly, how much The News has contributed to this moment.

The rampant sane-washing of everything Trump says and does works hand-in-hand with the light touch they use when covering state violence, and the heavy hand they use when covering any kind of resistance to—or even disagreement with—the state. Bari Weiss trying to kill a news story about CECOT because it wasn’t sufficiently flattering to the administration is obviously egregious. But her stated reason—that she wanted 60 Minutes to make a greater effort to get a point of view from the same White House that had refused to comment on the story—isn’t entirely out of line with the current norm. It’s an extension of the media’s need to treat a statement from a facially fraudulent institution with the same weight as witnesses and experts, all in the name of “objectivity.” Even people who pride themselves on being well-informed are getting informed by sources that have a strong bias towards power, institutions, and the status quo.

None of this happened by accident. Authoritarian governments thrive in low-information environments, and neither the governments nor the environments spring fully formed out of nowhere. No, we got here slowly, and then all at once.

Anti-intellectualism has been a plank in the conservative platform since there was a conservative platform, but it accelerated in a terrifying way this century. George W. Bush kicked it off by leaving every child behind, the Tea Party ran with it, and Trump’s first term really weaponized it. Elites decried expertise as inherently elitist, brandishing their hypocrisy because their hypocrisy was part of the point. They get to attend elite universities, work at elite law firms and financial institutions, and then occupy the highest elected and appointed seats in government—but nobody else should.

At the same time that these people were rhetorically undermining the truth, their buddies sought to financially control it. Private equity firms have been gutting local and regional news rooms for decades, reducing the number of relevant news sources available to the public. Billionaires have bought up legacy media outlets, and aren’t shy about shaping the editorial direction for these outlets (and it’s always the same direction!). And now Congressional Republicans have finally made good on their threats to defund NPR and PBS, which means even fewer relevant news sources. No wonder Substack has become a port in the storm for so many journalists, even though it has the same deference to power and comfort with white supremacy as, well, most other platforms. No wonder misinformation and disinformation absolutely flourish on said platforms.

All the while, the chattering class is determined to seem reasonable in order to stay relevant themselves, which means reinforcing every institutional bias.

Together, they’ve weakened every check and balance that the free press should represent. All of which makes me furiously protective of the press, even as I’m furiously disappointed in the press’s complicity in its own weakening.

This isn’t my “why I quit tobacco” letter or anything. Like, I’ve been a monthly sustainer for my local NPR station since my first paycheck, and I don’t see that changing, especially not now. And this isn’t to say that no good journalism is happening in America anymore. There’s still excellent analysis, contextualizing, and overall reporting to find and support. This is perhaps just a mournful wail over how much we’ve lost, and how much we’ve given up, and how long it will take to get any of it back.

Thank you so much for reading! If you appreciated this essay, please take a second to feed Al Gore’s rhythm by liking and sharing it.