Someone (I read too many blogs) pointed out that we get the votes (generally) of people who access the MSM. The WaPo rolling over and playing dead isn't going to make a difference. It's the uninformed or deluded who elected him.
Marc, when 80% of the public thinks the economy is in a bad way, as was the case in October 2022--when real (inflation-corrected) GDP was rising at a solid 2.7% [1], it's not FOX alone that's the problem.
By election day 2024, inflation had evaporated and GDP growth was still very good. But half of voters thought the opposite.
In fact, polls generally showed that people thought their own situation was pretty good, but that overall it was bad.
This is not normal. When everyone can see that the sky is blue, but most believe that it is green, something is wrong. How many Americans outside of New York City know of Trump's long-time Mafia connections and his numerous bankruptcies ? In a country with a functioning press, the red flags would have made his candidacy impossible.
I used to write in regularly to journalists at mainstream outlets to point out their errors of fact. Few of them acknowledged the corrections. Most of them went on publishing nonsense. The rot dates back 30 years or more, back to when Jeff Gerth was able to have a successful career spinning fantasies about Bill Clinton for the New York Times.
What we're seeing with Bezos kissing Trump's feet is simply the manifestation of rot that has been a very long time in the making.
Even people who do not pay attention are influenced by the legacy media. It’s why they thought the economy was in the crapper and why we are in a recession, etc. it does trickle down.
There was also no "mandate" 49.8 for trump 48.3 for Harris. By comparison Regan 50.1 Carter 41%. Also if you count 3rd party candidates more people voted against Trump than for him. The often repeated "mandate" lie really should not be ignored.
Reporters for big media are doing exactly what their trump loving, democracy hating, corporate media owners tell them to do. Lawrence O'Donnell, the brilliant last honest outspoken real journalist working in corp/trump media, showed this clearly and unequivocally in his brutal contrast of the press treatment of trump v Biden. He played clips of a rabid press screaming incoherently at Biden and then showed an unrecognizably deferential press interacting with trump. He noted that the White House Press Corps seems completely oblivious and unembarrassed by this double standard. No surprise, they are just doing their jobs - as dictated by their employers.
The mainstream media is repeating its mistakes with its egregious coverage of the Orange man. But if a Democrat were to make a mistake and get a number wrong, bang! They’ll never stop repeating it.
Thank you very much for the service this newsletter already provides. I'd like to invite you to pay particular attention to CNN's Republican cheerleader Scott Jennings: His one persistent method of argument is the false equivalence, which is an especially misleading and toxic abuse of rational argument. No, George Soros on the liberal side is not analogous to Elon Musk; no, the BLM protests were not analogous to Jan 6. These are only what I recall at the moment, but every time Jennings speaks in the CNN roundtables, I know to expect a false equivalence that shows a willful and glib manipulation of facts. Among the general fabrication and whitewashing from Trump's supporters, Jennings' high profile as a regular CNN commentator makes his signature corruption of rational argument especially egregious. I urge you or someone else here to keep tabs on Scott Jennings.
It's off to the races. We have two years to move the public away from Trump's fantastical, harmful lies..
Trump has the superhero imagination of a child; maybe a 10 years boy. Good and evil are simple and easy to see. The uncritical response of millions who love or admire Trump for his simple, angry vision shows up all around us and is withering our democratic processes.
Trump is also a talented story teller who creates daily, weekly, monthly mythic episodes to titillate his fans. In these stories he's always the super hero, replete with enemies, who is saving America from degradation, weakness and decline. And he is exhausting. That's his intent.
Truth and facts are not relevant to Trump's goals or his stories as long as his myths and metaphors "feel" true to his believers.Tragically Trump's fantastical "myths" will never build coherent policies for the benefit of all Americans. They breed chaos and bring harm to the struggling middle class, to the poor, to the disenfranchised and to our system of balanced government.
At the same time, Trump is the consumate grifter and con artist. That's been his business strategy throughout his entire career. I think he has two goals for this term:
1. Cement his legacy as the super hero president who saved "true America" from the corruption of weak, liberal America.
2. On Jan. 20 2028, leave office with $30-$50 billion in liquid assets.
The tech bros, democracy be damned, will help him accomplish both goals. Certainly, if he doesn't achieve the first goal, he can definitely bribe and grift his way to the second.
So how do we stop Trump and friends from achieving these goals?
First is daylight. The sanitizing, curative effects of daylight. Even in the darkest nights and the dentist fog, truth telling will eventually win out.
Stand up in equal anger to Trump's angry mob. And especially condemn the appeasement mob who thinks fighting back will only make things worse.
Flood the playing field with lawsuits against unconstitutional gifts and grifts until regular Americans are ready to dump Trump into a doggy poop bag.
But he can run it into shambles again, blame Biden for it and then cheat his way into a third term. Never bet against a con man. We're becoming so like Russia we could change our name to the USARR.
My point was he has to say it’s terrible even when it’s very functional so that he has some argument to run on how can you make America? Great unless you say it isn’t. Someone will have to do that after he destroys it.
Trump has no mandate from the voters, he only won by 1.5%, but the Congressional Democratic Leadership and the corporate media are treating him as if he had taken 80% of the popular vote and swept every state but Delaware. Until this changes Trump is only going to get worse. And it seems like at least for now elected Republicans are going to follow him down the chute like lemmings being led to the cliff's edge. What will happen when one of the MAGA terrorists he freed murders someone he thinks is an illegal immigrant? Or trans? Or gay? Or insufficiently loyal to the Emperor? What will happen when Trump starts a war in Panama over a lie about the canal? What will happen when Jared starts bulldozing Gaza beachfront for luxury condos? What will happen when his bullshit meme coin crashes and bankrupts thousands of his rubes? What will happen when measles and polio make a comeback? What will happen when a foreign actor, state or non-state, takes advantage of a drunken Secy of Defense and a compromised DNI? How will the corporate media "both sides" those crises? How will Republicans shift the blame to Biden or the Deep State? You know it's coming. Be ready.
The major media, egged on no doubt by their billionare owners, choose to present the fpotus as if he is not a megalomaniac, narcissistic, serial liar. They should preface every article about him by referencing him as a convicted felon. There was a bit of amusement when he mangled a word in his statement about the US "decline". He pronounced it so It sounded like "dick-line". The late night comedy hosts had fun with that.
When I read those quotes from NYT and WaPo, it struck me that if you’re one of us, you could understand those are not compliments — but they certainly seem like they are. The MSM ‘elites’ are just so savvy and sophisticated. How many people are in on the ‘joke?’ This is not to disparage your analysis, but to partially explain why the MSM never changes.
One very minor mistake in this piece; while it's true that MOST IRS agents don't carry guns, a small percentage do. (My father's cousin was one of those agents.) Since many drug kingpins and other members of organized crime don't bother to pay taxes on their "income", the feds can often make a tax evasion case against them stick, even if they can't nail them for anything else (hence the need for some agents to carry guns).
I find it useful as a mantra to substitute for any statement that includes "Trump said" or variations, "Trump lied."
It is statistically valid since with "notably rare exceptions" the relationship between a Trump statement and reality is random. I include statements which happen to be true but he didn't know it.
Trump cares about three things: tax cuts, grifting, and being fluffed.
Trump imagines he is the owner of "the presidency". He is selling favors. Pay -to-Play " P2P" has become the new MAGA. Trump voters are going under the bus.
And yet, I have a Louisiana FB friend, MIT engineering grad, born around 1946, considers himself a true moderate, who posted this today: (oh the ignorance, I think)
Trump shows every sign of intending to do what half the country wants him to do, which is to emasculate the federal government. A lot of us agree that the government is over sized and overly intrusive. For fifty years every presidential candidate has had a plan to get that government under control. Progress: zero. Maybe it can't be done by conventional management methods. Maybe it requires unconventional, scary steps that seem crazy, even destructive. Certainly there will be poor decisions and mistakes. If you're nervous about the changed government that Trump and company want to create, ask yourself: how happy are you with the one we've got?
It is only going to get worse. The legacy media has completely failed.
Someone (I read too many blogs) pointed out that we get the votes (generally) of people who access the MSM. The WaPo rolling over and playing dead isn't going to make a difference. It's the uninformed or deluded who elected him.
Marc, when 80% of the public thinks the economy is in a bad way, as was the case in October 2022--when real (inflation-corrected) GDP was rising at a solid 2.7% [1], it's not FOX alone that's the problem.
By election day 2024, inflation had evaporated and GDP growth was still very good. But half of voters thought the opposite.
In fact, polls generally showed that people thought their own situation was pretty good, but that overall it was bad.
This is not normal. When everyone can see that the sky is blue, but most believe that it is green, something is wrong. How many Americans outside of New York City know of Trump's long-time Mafia connections and his numerous bankruptcies ? In a country with a functioning press, the red flags would have made his candidacy impossible.
I used to write in regularly to journalists at mainstream outlets to point out their errors of fact. Few of them acknowledged the corrections. Most of them went on publishing nonsense. The rot dates back 30 years or more, back to when Jeff Gerth was able to have a successful career spinning fantasies about Bill Clinton for the New York Times.
What we're seeing with Bezos kissing Trump's feet is simply the manifestation of rot that has been a very long time in the making.
1.https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1Q225SBEA
Even people who do not pay attention are influenced by the legacy media. It’s why they thought the economy was in the crapper and why we are in a recession, etc. it does trickle down.
Correct. Inflation vanished like a post-election Immigrant Caravan
https://jabberwocking.com/another-look-at-inflation-and-fox-news/
It is both fascinating and appalling to witness.
There was also no "mandate" 49.8 for trump 48.3 for Harris. By comparison Regan 50.1 Carter 41%. Also if you count 3rd party candidates more people voted against Trump than for him. The often repeated "mandate" lie really should not be ignored.
Reporters for big media are doing exactly what their trump loving, democracy hating, corporate media owners tell them to do. Lawrence O'Donnell, the brilliant last honest outspoken real journalist working in corp/trump media, showed this clearly and unequivocally in his brutal contrast of the press treatment of trump v Biden. He played clips of a rabid press screaming incoherently at Biden and then showed an unrecognizably deferential press interacting with trump. He noted that the White House Press Corps seems completely oblivious and unembarrassed by this double standard. No surprise, they are just doing their jobs - as dictated by their employers.
Yes, Lawrence O'Donnell is brilliant at exposing the rot of major media coverage of the execrable fpotus.
The mainstream media is repeating its mistakes with its egregious coverage of the Orange man. But if a Democrat were to make a mistake and get a number wrong, bang! They’ll never stop repeating it.
Thank you very much for the service this newsletter already provides. I'd like to invite you to pay particular attention to CNN's Republican cheerleader Scott Jennings: His one persistent method of argument is the false equivalence, which is an especially misleading and toxic abuse of rational argument. No, George Soros on the liberal side is not analogous to Elon Musk; no, the BLM protests were not analogous to Jan 6. These are only what I recall at the moment, but every time Jennings speaks in the CNN roundtables, I know to expect a false equivalence that shows a willful and glib manipulation of facts. Among the general fabrication and whitewashing from Trump's supporters, Jennings' high profile as a regular CNN commentator makes his signature corruption of rational argument especially egregious. I urge you or someone else here to keep tabs on Scott Jennings.
It's off to the races. We have two years to move the public away from Trump's fantastical, harmful lies..
Trump has the superhero imagination of a child; maybe a 10 years boy. Good and evil are simple and easy to see. The uncritical response of millions who love or admire Trump for his simple, angry vision shows up all around us and is withering our democratic processes.
Trump is also a talented story teller who creates daily, weekly, monthly mythic episodes to titillate his fans. In these stories he's always the super hero, replete with enemies, who is saving America from degradation, weakness and decline. And he is exhausting. That's his intent.
Truth and facts are not relevant to Trump's goals or his stories as long as his myths and metaphors "feel" true to his believers.Tragically Trump's fantastical "myths" will never build coherent policies for the benefit of all Americans. They breed chaos and bring harm to the struggling middle class, to the poor, to the disenfranchised and to our system of balanced government.
At the same time, Trump is the consumate grifter and con artist. That's been his business strategy throughout his entire career. I think he has two goals for this term:
1. Cement his legacy as the super hero president who saved "true America" from the corruption of weak, liberal America.
2. On Jan. 20 2028, leave office with $30-$50 billion in liquid assets.
The tech bros, democracy be damned, will help him accomplish both goals. Certainly, if he doesn't achieve the first goal, he can definitely bribe and grift his way to the second.
So how do we stop Trump and friends from achieving these goals?
First is daylight. The sanitizing, curative effects of daylight. Even in the darkest nights and the dentist fog, truth telling will eventually win out.
Stand up in equal anger to Trump's angry mob. And especially condemn the appeasement mob who thinks fighting back will only make things worse.
Flood the playing field with lawsuits against unconstitutional gifts and grifts until regular Americans are ready to dump Trump into a doggy poop bag.
How can you make America great again unless it’s in a shambles. He can’t run on America being OK or great.
But he can run it into shambles again, blame Biden for it and then cheat his way into a third term. Never bet against a con man. We're becoming so like Russia we could change our name to the USARR.
Due to the 22nd Amendment, there's no way to cheat one's way into a third term. However, a dictator could refuse to leave.
Otherwise I don't disagree. Trump has been very successful at blaming Democrats for things he did, and taking credit for what they did.
My point was he has to say it’s terrible even when it’s very functional so that he has some argument to run on how can you make America? Great unless you say it isn’t. Someone will have to do that after he destroys it.
Trump has no mandate from the voters, he only won by 1.5%, but the Congressional Democratic Leadership and the corporate media are treating him as if he had taken 80% of the popular vote and swept every state but Delaware. Until this changes Trump is only going to get worse. And it seems like at least for now elected Republicans are going to follow him down the chute like lemmings being led to the cliff's edge. What will happen when one of the MAGA terrorists he freed murders someone he thinks is an illegal immigrant? Or trans? Or gay? Or insufficiently loyal to the Emperor? What will happen when Trump starts a war in Panama over a lie about the canal? What will happen when Jared starts bulldozing Gaza beachfront for luxury condos? What will happen when his bullshit meme coin crashes and bankrupts thousands of his rubes? What will happen when measles and polio make a comeback? What will happen when a foreign actor, state or non-state, takes advantage of a drunken Secy of Defense and a compromised DNI? How will the corporate media "both sides" those crises? How will Republicans shift the blame to Biden or the Deep State? You know it's coming. Be ready.
Here's hoping we can finally bury the "liberal bias in the media" lie Spiro Agnew originated more than 50 years ago.
The major media, egged on no doubt by their billionare owners, choose to present the fpotus as if he is not a megalomaniac, narcissistic, serial liar. They should preface every article about him by referencing him as a convicted felon. There was a bit of amusement when he mangled a word in his statement about the US "decline". He pronounced it so It sounded like "dick-line". The late night comedy hosts had fun with that.
When I read those quotes from NYT and WaPo, it struck me that if you’re one of us, you could understand those are not compliments — but they certainly seem like they are. The MSM ‘elites’ are just so savvy and sophisticated. How many people are in on the ‘joke?’ This is not to disparage your analysis, but to partially explain why the MSM never changes.
One very minor mistake in this piece; while it's true that MOST IRS agents don't carry guns, a small percentage do. (My father's cousin was one of those agents.) Since many drug kingpins and other members of organized crime don't bother to pay taxes on their "income", the feds can often make a tax evasion case against them stick, even if they can't nail them for anything else (hence the need for some agents to carry guns).
I find it useful as a mantra to substitute for any statement that includes "Trump said" or variations, "Trump lied."
It is statistically valid since with "notably rare exceptions" the relationship between a Trump statement and reality is random. I include statements which happen to be true but he didn't know it.
Trump cares about three things: tax cuts, grifting, and being fluffed.
Trump imagines he is the owner of "the presidency". He is selling favors. Pay -to-Play " P2P" has become the new MAGA. Trump voters are going under the bus.
And yet, I have a Louisiana FB friend, MIT engineering grad, born around 1946, considers himself a true moderate, who posted this today: (oh the ignorance, I think)
Trump shows every sign of intending to do what half the country wants him to do, which is to emasculate the federal government. A lot of us agree that the government is over sized and overly intrusive. For fifty years every presidential candidate has had a plan to get that government under control. Progress: zero. Maybe it can't be done by conventional management methods. Maybe it requires unconventional, scary steps that seem crazy, even destructive. Certainly there will be poor decisions and mistakes. If you're nervous about the changed government that Trump and company want to create, ask yourself: how happy are you with the one we've got?
Your friend is likely to get his wish... and an education as to how much he relies on the government he decries.
A shame that the American Republic is the price for that.
Send him a copy of Project 2025
You are so right on as usual.