Plenty of arch invective here worthy of a Taibbi Vampire Squid Award:
It would be foolish and exhausting to speculate on the role that Times editor-in-chief Joseph Kahn (Harvard '87, Harvard M.A. '90) played in pushing this story; there is nothing to do but speculate, there. Power works in different ways, and if Ackman–style public meltdowns are the loudest and most overt expression of that work, and Rufo's store-brand Rasputin act are the most obviously motivated, they are not the only ones. There is also the Times' understanding of itself as the author of the discourse, and all that ostentatious invisibility—the decisions about what is and is not a story, or what is and is not up for debate, that only show up in the negative.
You already know how that works; we are soaking in it. Someone at the institution decides that there is or ought to be, say, a debate about the safety or advisability of trans health care where no such debate actually exists, and then the debate is manufactured to suit that sense—in and through stories about that debate. And then, at some point down the line, some laws are promulgated that reflect that debate's terms.
When Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine banned trans health care in his state last week, he did not do it by signing a heavy-handed law passed through his state's legislature. He vetoed that, and then effectively did the same thing in a way that reflected all the deep and vexing complexities and risks that the Times has repeatedly insisted exist. He mandated a process that would force people seeking that care to navigate a series of onerous administrative requirements, and to compel the services of an endocrinologist, and a bioethicist, and a mental health specialist—to make sure that care is not given too fast. "It needs to be lengthy," DeWine said of the counseling component, "and it needs to be comprehensive."
So what begins as irresponsible, ideological, but plausibly deniable discourse shows up down the line as policy. It's rarely quite as easy to see as it is in this instance, when irresponsible, ideological, plausibly deniable discourse is the policy. The debate can only ever continue; the resolution will arrive without any visible fingerprints, as a story about something that just happened.