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Comment by comrade1234 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure if you get this in the news in the USA but trump and his administration are pretty much constantly mocked and made fun of in the press - at least here in Europe. It's just constant legitimate mockery about specific incidents - most recent I saw was the press trying to figure out if trump actually understands the meaning of the word "decapitate" as he used it in a nonsensical way a couple of days ago.

Oh, I bring this up because of the picture they used in this article.

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Metaphoric use of 'decapitation' referring to an organization or state is normal and idiomatic in American English, especially if you spend a lot of time talking to people with military backgrounds. There's plenty of other stuff going on right now that's actually worth criticism.

Decimate is the one that gets me. That word does not mean what he thinks it means

Decimate is like Checkmate but even BIGLY.

A market for a usage beat reporter actually exists?

As an American, I can tell you mocking him just fuels his fire, both personally and his MAGA movement. You think you have helped by pointing out the absurdity, but you have only picked a side in his fake wrestling match. You are now part of the show, the ultimate audience participation circus act, where the only goal is to grow the audience and keep it going as long as possible.

Most Americans are not exposed to many foreign news outlets unless they seek it out. But we have our own share of media doing the same. The bigger issue is that people tend to subscribe to echo-chamber opinion-news outlets.

As an American, I'm only aware because James Acaster started some deep-seeded obsession with British panel shows, and they'll tear into him in a few of the more political ones like 8 Out of 10 Cats

We're aware. Trump's razor, if you will, is that given an array of choices the one that is maximally stupid and cruel will be chosen.

Given even some Americans mock him constantly I would hope the rest of the world does too.

Just another day in our clown ass country.

When I was in Tokyo a couple years ago, I saw a legit pro-Trump march. The world is more varied than you think.

I think perhaps you don't recognize how strong freedom of the press is in the US? We get a lot of articles mocking Trump and making fun of him. There was an entire saga over the past month where he tried and failed to renovate a pool, which was very funny until he started arresting people for noticing that the pool coating failed. As I've said before, a lot of American humor about Trump has to be tempered with the knowledge that his goons are going to start shooting people when he loses the 2028 election.

They might even start shooting after 2026 at this rate.

But it's a bit more mixed for international awareness. The press isn't suppressed here, but that's not for the lack of trying. There's also a lot of whitewashing of Trump's actions in American media because they are afraid of retaliation. We crossed the Onion territory quite a while ago and people just shrug it off.

Most of the whitewashing complaints I've seen are from people who just aren't familiar with journalistic language. (Understandable, if you're only into politics because Trump is making such a mess of things!)

In non-journalistic contexts, when person A describes a series of events matter-of-factly from person B's perspective, they're implicitly vouching that the perspective makes sense and B acted reasonably. Otherwise who cares what Person B thinks? But reporters often have to cover Persons B whose perspectives are important to understand (because they're very powerful) yet nonsensical and unreasonable. It's very hard to square this circle for readers who aren't familiar with the problem.

>people who just aren't familiar with journalistic language.

It's not even that. Seeing the different in headlines from the same publications in 2023 vs. 2024 vs. 2025 is staggering. Publications that are otherwise well respected. There's clearly something going on here.

Also, some publications indeed are not legally "news". I'm not surprised how quickly coverage changed for, say, Fox Entertainment (because it's sure not "Fox News").

...

I think it's more nuanced than that. Obviously countries have differences on how aligned the people and the press are, but there's also the aspect of how highly educated the people are.

FWIW, I feel like the press in Finland doesn't try to "win" points by pointing out the humiliation and the utter failure of the current state of affairs in the US, because that point is plainly obvious, but the reporting more closely reflects the forces and agenda going on under the surface.

The embarrassment stuff is more for the coffee-table chitchat and having a collective sigh of relief with your co-workers that we're not so intimately close to the whole mess there.

true. we the people mock him more than the press does.

You think we are not constantly mocking trump, his entire administration, and everything his group of jack booted fascists are doing?

Boy do you need to visit some other bars!

So your press spends more time trying to be part time comedy shows than reporting real news? Ouch, I'm sorry.

Also you: completely fell for the US vs EU inflammatory propaganda of the last two years.

Yeah, good thing you only read the realest news, and only interact with the most honest voices in the most earnest manner.

I'm sure if you open most European news publications, then by volume most of the articles will be about how Trump is a goofball (at all times), just like how the parent comment apparently claims. There is no way they simply meant that whenever he is in the news, it's usually not because he was being a respectable fella, and is thus being represented accordingly.

There's a point beyond which it becomes a bit too difficult to believe just innocent gullability, compared to intentionally fanning the flames. I wonder which one applies to you?

I wonder if you know that Europe is pretty constantly mocked in the US by news outlets like Fox News. I'm sure you're not gullible enough to fan the flames and deny it's validity though and you agree it's measured and respectful of those very serious news outlets.

I am aware that there are outlets like that, and I'm not denying their existence. I don't go around saying the entire or even the majority of the US media landscape is like that though, not the least because it's not true.

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