Republican nominee Donald Trump has inadvertently forced journalists "to have the most honest political discussion we've had in years," despite being the "most flagrantly dishonest candidate in recent memory,"
according to an editor for the New York Times Magazine.
In a column published on Tuesday called "How Donald Trump Blew Up the Gaffe," politics editor Charles Homans said "Trump has laid bare journalism's contradictions — reporters' desire to be critical of politicians without criticizing anything they stand for — to the point where we have no choice but to examine them."
Citing the most mundane definition of gaffe to be "saying the wrong thing," Homans said it is actually a safety mechanism in that it "moves a statement from the realm of substance to the realm of performance and strategy — allowing the reporters to critique it without incriminating themselves professionally."
Homans points out that during the Reagan administration, when his gaffes became enough of a joke that The Washington Post would list the "Reaganism of the Week," the president was not offended, and soon his advisers found out what the president already knew, that the people didn't mind his gaffes and were actually entertained by them.
In a similar way, Homans writes, "Trump really does have more in common with voters than he does with political elites. His inability to apologize or back down has opened the door to a post-gaffe politics, stripping away the convenient fiction of missteps and errors that journalists turn to when they are uncomfortable confronting a statement on its merits."