Yesterday. while discussing the need for Barack Obama to issue a general pardon to Hillary Clinton, not because she committed any crime but because the fascists of the Republican Party are talking about continuing the quarter of a century inquisition they've already subjected her to - without being able to identify a single crime to indict her on - I said, "there is, literally, nothing the Republicans would not do with the support of the American media to distract people from the horrors they are obviously intent on unleashing."
That becomes clearer every day, hour by hour as the catastrophe that the Trump presidency will be unfolds in all its incompetent, vindictive, mendacious and larcenous immensity. CBS, The New York Times, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, even parts of MSNBC, that home of the liberal ghetto hours when they figure those will have the least impact on our politics, all of them are normalizing and habituating the American People to the fascist regime that is taking shape. I also noted yesterday that the channeled ghost of Jimmy Stewart is in on the act by asserting that the very document that was so useful to the fascists in establishing control, The United States Constitution, is magically going to save us like the rewrite of one of his scripts when no one can think of a realistic denoument slathering the tension with the requisite cinematic gush and good feelings and third-rate Aaron Copland knock off music saving the day.
We have gone from watching our media, both entertainment and what is alleged to be news create Donald Trump, promote their creation and enable his election by giving him free air time worth billions of dollars and to also join in on his attacks against his opponent, Hillary Clinton, endlessly repeating every lie ever told about her, including many which the media made up.
Yet we are still supposed to pretend that our media is going to save us? The trouble with liberals and, even more so, the secular would-be left, is that we're far from being as smart as we love to believe we are, we are far from being realists. Like that Hollywood practice of making things all better with cinematic magic, we, too, believe in magic, the magic of "more speech" and, most stupidly of all, the American press and electronic media are going to rescue us when they have been in on the con from the start. You really can't trust people who think the "congress shall make no law" press provision of the First Amendment is entirely more important than the ability of free people to choose their own government. And almost to a person, that defines the American journalists' view of things. I am trying and failing to think of a journalist who I've heard or read talking, in depth, about how their profession came to the place where they have enshrined their ability to lie to and con the American People out of democracy as a civic virtue.
And into this comes the promotion of the phenomenon of Paul Horner who seems to be crediting himself with getting Donald Trump elected with all of the "satyrical" phony news stories he hoaxed alleged and allegedly real news sources and politicians and Donald Trump into believing were real. And, this election cycle being what it is, I'd say he just might be right about that. This source gives a list of the lies that Horner invented and inserted into the cyber brain-damage that passes as our media. I know I've heard Trump and Republicans and alleged news outlets and everyone down to internet trolls spreading a number of them, even the most obvious lies. Perhaps the most recent was that someone was paid $3,500 to protest against Trump's selection.
Is the story about him accurate, is his role in putting what will certainly be the worst, most obviously unqualified. and likely most dangerous into office? Hell, how should I know? Apparently the media that has fallen for his hoaxes over and over again never bothers to check them before they pass them on. And if they don't do that, they will as their proliferation of rumors that someone like Trump repeats.
Hell, in the media we've got, how can we know Paul Horner is real? Maybe he's a front or an invented persona, invented by the Putin regime to cover its lie machine, invented by the Republican National Committee, invented by Macedonian teenagers to make money by screwing the world. If it's the last, I hope they like living under Russian occupation, something their parents could probably tell them a bit about.
If Paul Horner is real, his "satire" should be a crime because its results have been horrific. One of the stories I read about him said he was against Trump in real life, if that's true he's not only a total idiot, he's a total asshole.
I don't have much hope that democracy has any chance against this kind of stuff if it is allowed to continue. If the American People choose to allow the fun and games and lies that put Trump into the presidency to continue because of some vague notion about the virtue of the media being free to do what it has maybe they not only can't keep democracy, maybe they don't deserve it. They've been turned into stupid children by the media and the con men who pushed that line of First Amendment interpretation.
As I am typing this, Steve Inskeep is on NPR with Anthony Scaramucci, papering over Trump's complete hypocrisy in campaigning against Wall Street and now filling his transition and, no doubt his regime with the dirtiest of the oligarchs of Wall Street.
Now they're trying to soft-sell Jared Kushner to be a nepotism hire by Trump.
NPR must be the cheapest brothel of Washington press whores.
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