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exhibit A: the Gas Leak Twins, Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat. here's the twaddle they ---- out onto The New York Times the very day of the 2024 election, just minutes after Donny was declared the victor.

so here we are, a year later. did Donny's victory offer an 'unlikely opening to American renewal'?

spoiler alert: no, of course it ------ well didn't " not unless unless you consider economic ruin, foreign policy chaos, and lawless ICE thugs on the streets of our cities to be some kind of 'renewal.'

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this is the kind of magical 'everybody gets a pony' thinking that our punditocracy loves to inflict on us: that somehow, any moment now, Donny's going to finally become 'presidential.'

anything's possible, right? overnight, Dear Leader could miraculously become a wise and fair statesman - also, technicolor pigs could fly out of my ass.

you know what this sort of self-delusion is? it's called wishcasting. over to you, Wiktionary.

Wishcasting is the act of interpreting information or a situation in a way that casts it as favorable or desired, despite the fact that there is no evidence for such a conclusion; a wishful forecast.

after the election, the press went into overdrive, churning out piece after piece in which they promised us that if we all click our heels together three times, everything will be okay.

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so, here we are, a year down the road. has the press learned any lesson from the blizzard of --- we've just gone through?

no, of course not, they haven't.