NYT goes cartoon villain

You just know they drafted a version that was black on white and thought "nope, not evil enough"

The rhetorical strategy to normalize your evil - by previewing it enough beforehand that the social zeitgeist will tire emotionally before you act and then direct resistance is muted

Same reason Burger King made a ragebait "women belong in the kitchen" tweet on National Women's day.

And Amazon decorated an entire NY subway car in Nazi and Imperial Japanese imagery to promote their Man in the High Castle adaptation.

And Pepsi made a tone deaf commercial where they solve a racial discrimination protest by handing the police a Pepsi.

And McDonald's made that AI generated commercial about how much Christmas sucks and how McDonald's is a respite from it. And then doubled down on the commercial being "art" once people got mad.

And Arby's made an "animal based carrot" to mock the other fast food brands introducing plant based options.

Nothing burns a brand into your brain like rage. After an initial backlash most people will have forgotten the rage but not the brand itself. Especially in a culture like the West where people don't like to be called out on their unethical consumption choices under the guise of "well my life is tough too I deserve to consume how I want," they'll even ostracize people continuing to advocate against the brand once it's no longer trendy to.

The fact that I could instantly come up these examples just proves how effective the tactic is.

Maybe they figure they have enough of a base now and actually want further polarization leading to civil violence which the fascists will then use to justify taking civil liberties away.

All zios. Lets stop making this fucking mistake.

Dont tell me you disagree unless you csn name something about their culture not genocide or rape. Have you seen the lyrics of their music?

And those who support/applaud them, openly or quietly.

I don't even think it's necessary to equivocate your statements about this anymore when it comes to Israel. Most people know we mean the government, but I would wager that a large percentage of the population knows in the same way Germans knew.

The average NYT reader is a self proclaimed centrist, so it very much fits the audience. No sane left person reads the NYT.