reporting a highly qualified candidate and a dangerously dysfunctional buffoon with strong fascist leanings as if they were somehow equal choices.
One of the well-worn tropes of the 2016 presidential campaign is that the presumptive nominees of the two major parties both have “high negatives.”
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More importantly, this particular version of false equivalence is dangerously misleading. ... Because a negative rating can mean anything from “I guess I’ve never really liked her, but I can’t really say why” to “He scares me to death, and I would do anything to stop him from becoming President,” calling Clinton and Trump equivalently disliked seriously misrepresents reality.
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American conservatives developed an immediate and intense dislike of Hillary Clinton. From her early decision to keep her maiden name to her defense of her choice not to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, Clinton embodied “The Sixties” in a way that allowed Republicans to focus their fear of social change on one woman. This has resulted in a constant drumbeat of negative portrayals of Clinton in the press, with the narrative of Clinton as a soulless political striver having taken hold even in the non-rightwing ether.
http://www.newsweek.com/false-equivalence-clinton-trump-negatives-472818
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