You don't have to get it yourself to know that there are obviously large numbers of people who are such complete suckers for what they see on TV that they would buy Trump as as "sent by God" to rule us even as of yesterday, even as he was proving he was more likely sent by Satan to destroy as many of us as he could, who didn't care at all for the lives of the Secret Service men and the driver who had to be locked in his presidential van so he could bask as they screamed their adoration at him like the total and complete ninnies they were. One of the videos I saw had some man declare that he'd die for Trump as he watched people who on Trumps orders might well do what he only pretends he would do. I do have to wonder what would have happened if all of the Secret Service suddenly all said they were not going to go along with Trump on these obscenely selfish, obscenely irresponsible, stunts.
For us, we can see what TV wrought when it created the Trump persona, through the vulgar glamour spreads of his properties in the New York Times style and features reporting to the entertainment stuff to the TV "news" that allowed him to go from the phony "reality" star to a politician, what we have is as much of a creation of TV as Pence was of right-wing, hate-talk radio and megachurch style hallelujah peddling. And don't think I didn't notice the "religious" figures there, too. We have seen it over and over again, the potential of TV to come up with these kind of cult figures, the world of celebrity and show biz are built on such stuff and we pretend that that doesn't impinge on our politics, creating large enough cults of personality that they can sway elections, to the peril of egalitarian democracy and even the concept of good government. For the love of humanity, Trump has managed to perhaps fatally attack the very concepts of decency, truth and even reality as the media allowed the Bush II - Cheney regime to do. Stephen Colbert, in his Comedy Channel show summed that up in the accurate parody of "truthiness" years before Trump rose from the pandemonium of "reality TV".
The danger that mass communication is for all of those things, morality, decency, the truth, reality and the political expression of those in egalitarian democracy is never addressed though it is one of the greatest dangers we face. It will certainly not come up first even in the MSNBC liberal ghetto hours because it is contrary to the interests of the media industry, not only the "entertainment side" then the "news division" and the entire culture of "journalism" is unlikely to want to talk about the role they have all played in getting us to this dangerous point. They don't discuss the role that the license to lie that the courts have given them for the past fifty-six years have had in the degeneration of American politics because they enjoy that privilege, "liberals" as much as conservatives and down into the sewer of the Trump supporting media.
But that is a danger that, the wiping out of modern technology not happening, is one that democracy either contends with to prevent these effects, or democracy is a dead and extinct species of governance. We won't have any choice but face the danger that was personified in the Trump cult yesterday, even those among the Republican politicians he infected but who recover in time will be supporting the Trump cult as surely as those who get shot or whose loved ones do support the gun industry. Their political careers depend on the very depravity and its continuance.
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