American Prospect details what’s wrong with a recent New York Times article using euphemisms to describe Marjorie Taylor Greene’s batshittery and expulsion from House committees: “This lack of concern for the substance behind the made-for-media shenanigans invites what comes next. You guessed it: an intellectually indefensible feint toward bothsidesism. You come across ‘conservatives who say they want to be their party’s answer to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, a second-term progressive who has excelled at using social media to raise money and hurl barbs at political opponents.’ Never mind that AOC has come up with detailed policy plans that actually address the concerns she so effectively articulates. That would upend the false equivalence that the Republicans set up and the Times plays along with, even when it is covering the very phenomenon that demonstrates its falseness.'”

“As if to demonstrate what it can do when its reporters and editors are apparently in the mood, the Times ran another piece headlined ‘Assaulting the Truth, Ron Johnson Helps Erode Confidence in Government’ that not only provided the evidence to support its thesis, it contextualized the argument it sought to make as more than just a media strategy. For instance: Johnson’s ‘continuing assault on the truth, often under the guise of simply ‘asking questions’ about established facts, is helping to diminish confidence in American institutions at a perilous moment, when the health and economic well-being of the nation relies heavily on mass vaccinations, and when faith in democracy is shaken by right-wing falsehoods about voting.’ This is the kind of reporting we desperately need if we are to defeat the neofascist forces seeking to destroy our democracy. We see precious little of it owing to a number of reasons, but most prominent among them are the mainstream media’s addiction to the sort of bothsidesism cited above, and its members’ belief that politics is just theater in which ‘the play is the (only) thing.'”