Yeah, not too sure about the off-topic thing. I was accused of mislumping people into groups for reasons that play no part in the lumping
If I were to lump anyone who criticizes Trump into a group, it certainly wouldn't be one as constrained and limited as "The Left" or "The Press." Such a group would have to be far more inclusive, such as "Everybody Who Isn't Donald J Trump," because he's the only one who has never had a criticism of Trump.
The accusation that I lump people into certain groups, like The Left or The Press, simply or solely because they criticize Trump, is a specious charge (superficially plausible or attractive or satisfying, but actually wrong).
It kind of reminds me of how The Left and especially those in The Press constantly espouse the equally specious claim that any news that Trump doesn't like he labels as FAKE NEWS. It's superficially plausible, attractive, and quite satisfying because it allows The Press to play the victim. It's also actually wrong.
Trump labels as FAKE NEWS any news reporting that is intentionally misleading, spun to further an agenda or narrative, passes off opinion as factual news, or is outright fabricated or false.
For example, the 12 Diet Cokes a day story was one he didn't like, and was certainly unflattering and presented in a negative way, but he never called it FAKE NEWS, because while it was petty and immature and not really newsworthy, it was nevertheless true and accurate. One could argue that by fixating on it for several days or weeks as the MSM did, as if it was newsworthy or something, it morphed into FAKE NEWS because the fixation itself was to further an agenda, but Trump himself never made that argument.
CNN's Editor-at-large, Chris Cillizza, wrote about this very thing regarding Trump's views on words "fake" and "negative."
"To Trump, those words mean the same thing. Negative news coverage is fake news. Fake news is negative news coverage."
That's just another example of a 'journalist' who thinks they can read the mind of the president. It also allows breathtakingly faulty logic to be employed. The mainstream media rarely, if ever (never, to my knowledge) crafts fake or misleading news in order to present the president in a positive way. It's always negative. So to say fake news is negative news isn't inaccurate, but to flip that and say negative news is fake news is simply not true. Some (a lot) of the negative news is fake, but some is not.
But Cillizza, while claiming to be a journalist, has also flatly stated that he's more interested in clicks and shock value rather than journalistic integrity and accuracy. According to him, he's leading the charge of new journalism.
