I get the feeling David D’Alessandro is actually describing his egotistical self in this piece, not necessarily others in the Boston business community. Still, he has a point: business leaders are definitely overreacting to Michelle Wu, blaming her for woes that have far more to do with market forces than her policies. … The Globe’s Shirley Leung wrote a similar ‘anybody-but-Wu’ piece earlier this spring.

Normally, a presidential candidate tacks to the center during a general election. Not Joe Biden. His numbers are so shaky that he’s still trying to nail down support from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, he’s lashing out at moderate Dems who are feeling the heat in battleground states and telling him what he doesn’t want to hear. … This is getting pathetic.

Update – From WBUR: “Panic over Biden’s chances sets in among some N.H. Democrats.”

Update II – Scott Van Voorhis does a much better job than I when it comes to connecting the Biden-progressive dots. … Rent control as a national issue? More college-loan forgiveness actions? Classic small dreams with no power to stir men’s souls.

Politico has a great story on how the GOP’s focus and policies have changed under Trump, jettisoning conservativism for a populism that borders on anti-capitalism. “I think what we’re witnessing now is a full on frontal assault on conservatism,” says Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. … Btw: The story focuses a lot on Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien’s anti-big-business and pro-labor speech at the GOP convention. Axios has more on the “fiery” speech by O’Brien, a local Southie boy. … Politico piece via John Ellis’s excellent News Items.

I liked the lede of Eliot Cohen’s Atlantic piece on how a second Trump presidency won’t change U.S. policy that much:

“Donald Trump will likely become president again come January 20, 2025. The drama of an aging and diminishing President Joe Biden clinging to office despite the despair of Democrats who can read their candidate’s prospects clearly is not without its Shakespearean elements. As Regan says of King Lear, “He hath ever but slenderly known himself.” Like many a tragedy, Biden’s choice and its consequences were eminently foreseeable.”

Btw: I hope he’s right about our foreign policy under a Trump II presidency.

We kind of knew this. But the NYT is confirming that the president is relying on relatives and a ‘tiny group of loyalists to steer him through’ the current party controversy over his continued candidacy. … Biden’s recent post-assassination-attempt appearances haven’t exactly instilled confidence in his leadership, that’s for sure. … I don’t know about you, but at this point I’m kind of resigned to a Trump win in November and a probable GOP takeover of Congress.

Is Prime Day the new President’s Day or Black Friday, i.e. a day when the media sucks up to major retailers for all the advertising they’ve done (or might do) with outlets? It appears so. Or at least it’s a variation of the non-news news stories that the media used to regularly churn out to please car dealerships every President’s Day or department stores leading up to Black Fridays. … Now it’s Amazon’s Prime Day. And it’s here! Now! Often with lots of exclamation points!!!! Take it away NBC and CNN and CBS, all three of which acknowledge they may get commissions on purchases via their links. And the NYT? Yes! Though its Wirecutter editor boldly states the Times is out to separate the good from the bad Prime Day deals. No mention of commissions. … Wait. What’s this? An actual non-pseudo-news news story about Prime Day? 

Update — And here’s a pleasantly surprising story from the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: “Prime Day is mostly a good deal for Amazon, not you.”

I initially missed this piece by Banker & Tradesman’s Steve Adams, who reports on how Allston, long known as a “student ghetto,” is changing due to the housing shortage and recent developments. This graf jumped out at me: 

“In a half-acre sliver of land alongside the Massachusetts Turnpike, a new 7-story apartment building called The Indie has begun marketing studios ranging from 329 to 351 square feet for occupancy this fall. The minimum rent: $3,113.”

Update – The Globe is reporting that the median price of a Greater Boston home hit $960,000 in June. … Meanwhile, Scott Van Voorhis reports on how a major housing bill has stalled at the State House amid Senate-vs-House squabbling.

Think this past weekend’s assassination attempt – and Donald Trump’s defiant fist-pumping reaction to it – won’t help the ex-president? Think again. The Globe reports, anecdotally, that undecided voters in New Hampshire are breaking for Trump. They admire how he forcefully reacted to nearly getting killed. And Biden? Well, you already know what they’re thinking. …

The Globe’s Jeff Jacoby wonders if the nation can cool down the apocalyptic rhetoric following the Trump assassination attempt. He doesn’t provide an answer. But the NYT’s Peter Baker does: No. … My own reaction? No, too. Why? The media. 

The media is not the sole cause of today’s apocalyptic political environment. But it is a major and often overlooked cause, stretching back decades when “Point/CounterPoint” (CBS) and “Crossfire” (CNN) first started treating political differences as political theater and entertainment. Political conflict was built into these shows. Even when they tried to be civil (“Firing Line”), political conflict was at its implied core.

Fox News Channel took this to an entirely new level when it was founded in 1996. Its business model is built on promoting and profiting from divisiveness. Does anyone seriously doubt this after reading the internal Fox emails tied to the infamous Dominion libel case?  Here’s the Fox formula for profiting off of conflict: Find the divisive issue of the day, hammer into it relentlessly, generate outrage, create us-vs-them viewer loyalty, attract advertisers, generate profits. It’s worked. Fox News is the most-watched cable TV news channel in the U.S., generating hundreds of millions of dollars in profits per year.

Do you really think Fox News will simply give up this mega-profitable conflict franchise, ceding its top conservative media status to right-wing upstarts like Newsmax? What about lefty us-vs-them imitators like MSNBC? Again, conflict is built into their business models. They rely on viewers who watch programs to confirm their political beliefs, not to have them challenged. Ditto many of those using Substack, podcasts and other social-media outlets to profit (hopefully) from their political views.

What about other media outlets, such as old print/digital stalwarts like the New York Times, the Washington Post, Boston Globe etc.? Only recently have some media critics and other industry observers acknowledged that, well, okay, the MSM has long had a liberal-leaning bias stretching back decades. I’d argue that that bias only got worse after Trump won the presidency in 2016, with many outlets, officially or unofficially, adopting (or being pressured to adopt) anti-both-sideism approaches to news coverage while pronouncing “objectivity” dead. I.e., they used anti-both-sideism as a fig leaf to take sides. They drifted left. And they reaped the rewards in terms of the huge Trump bump in digital subscriptions, even as journalists like Marty Baron bemoaned the shift away from objectivity. Many MSM outlets have clearly benefited from anti-Trump conflict.

To be clear: I’m not saying there aren’t stark ideological differences that are contributing to today’s polarized political environment. Extremism and political polarization existed long before the advent of radio, TV and social media etc. 

But I am saying the modern media is at least partly to blame for today’s politically toxic, apocalyptic environment – and the media isn’t going to suddenly change for the good of the country. Their business models won’t allow it.

The immediate reaction of an acquaintance to Donald Trump’s fist-pumping defiance after yesterday’s assassination attempt: ‘It’s over.’ … He was referring to a now probable Donald Trump victory in November, propelled partly by yesterday’s dramatic events and the former president’s display of angry determination. The event will generate more than a sympathy vote for Trump. It will generate a vote of admiration among some, if not many, toss-up voters. The past few weeks’ debate over Biden’s age now seem utterly inconsequential. …

This is a somewhat weird NYT piece on Trump’s physical reaction to the assassination attempt yesterday. Its initial tone and language seemed to suggest the ex-president was more concerned about mugging for the camera while he was collectively bear-hugged by the secret service agents. Then it backs off and non-judgmentally refers to his “instincts” and “visceral connection with his supporters.” No mention of possible admirable traits displayed by Trump, such as presence of mind and actual courage, mixed with understandable confusion, shock, normal weird thoughts (“Let me get my shoes”) etc. …

… Personally, I’m anti-Trump for many, many reasons. I’m one of those who thinks he’s a threat to our democracy. If elected to a second term, he will deliberately set out to test the strengths and durability of our democratic institutions, I’m convinced. But yesterday he shattered one notion of mine – that he was a physical coward. Yesterday proved that notion wrong. … 

President Biden’s brief post-shooting comments were OK. Mildly reassuring. But that’s about it. Nothing lofty. No Peggy Noonan-like eloquence capturing the shock and sadness of the moment. He appears to have appeared merely because he was supposed to appear.