Senate Candidate's Pro-Coup Statements Down the Memory Hole
Rep. Ralph Norman could be the next Senator from South Carolina. The New York Times helps him whitewash his past in 92 consecutive stories
Friday, August 14, 20261 min readTrumpism
Spotted via https://bsky.app/profile/markjacob.bsky.social
Mark Jacob is an actual journalist and I can’t beat his Bluesky thread. Rep. Norman texted Trump requesting he declare ‘MARSHALL LAW’ (autocorrect comes for all of us) and The New York Times hasn’t mentioned that fact in 92 articles.
Rep. Ralph Norman, who’s in a Senate runoff with Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline, secretly urged a military-backed coup in 2021 to keep Trump in power. But the NY Times thinks it’s no big deal. In its last 92 stories mentioning Norman over 3 years and 7 months, it hasn’t stated that fact once. 1/7🧵
Three days before Joe Biden was to be sworn in as president in 2021, Ralph Norman texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows: “Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!” Norman didn’t know how to spell “martial law,” but he was urging a military-backed coup. 2/7🧵
Norman’s text to Meadows wasn’t revealed until late 2022, and the New York Times’ coverage of it has been pitiful, perhaps because the story was first reported outside of mainstream media, by Talking Points Memo (@talkingpointsmemo.com ) 3/7🧵
The NY Times’ first mention of Ralph Norman’s call for a military-backed coup was on Dec. 14, 2022, in a roundup of late-night comedians’ quips, noting that Jimmy Kimmel had joked about the text. NYT also mentioned it in the 7th paragraph of a Jan. 3, 2023, story about House GOP politics. 4/7🧵
Since then, the NY Times has memory-holed Norman’s call for martial law. Not a single mention in the last 3 years and 7 months, even though NYT has included Norman in at least 92 separate news reports, not counting simple lists such as roll calls. 5/7🧵
Not all news outlets have been as negligent as @nytimes.com regarding Norman’s call for a military-backed coup in 2021. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Norman about it in early 2024. He defended his traitorous action because “everything happened so quick in that election.” 6/7🧵
I’m not saying Norman’s call for a coup should've been mentioned in all of NYT’s last 92 stories that cited him. But not once? Even in a recent “5 Things” story about Norman, NYT ignored the traitorous text while saying he “has been a real estate developer for 4 decades.”
That's normalization. 7/7🧵
There isn’t a world where the GOP nominee for Senator from South Carolina is a decent person. The other candidate is Lindsey Graham’s sister, for God’s sake. Whoever wins is going to be at best a rubber stamp and at worst a Tommy Tuberville-level asshole. But I think there’s a difference between some replacement-level lackey and an elected official who asked the President to do a coup.
A key component of The New York Times’ agenda of lulling us into complacency is ‘forgetting’ to mention what people in Trumpworld have done and want to do. January 6th was one of the darkest days in American history — a few hours when we came very close to losing our democracy, and kept it mostly because Trump is utterly incompetent at any plan more complex than ordering McDonald’s.
No one has seen justice for January 6th. Memoryholing Rep. Norman’s role in that day is how The Times ensures no one ever will.
