(Above photo property of Radicalmedia.com and Showtime Networks)
As a former writer and reporter for several straight-press outlets, I’ve watched this election cycle with the same bafflement that many of my fellow LibDems have expressed. I am a BIG fan and defender and even, to some degree, an apologist for mass media and I do not doubt for a millisecond that some media outlets ARE run by conservative ideologues who decree that their outlets will, by God, favor or at least legitimize Conservative/Republican/MAGA stances and talking points.
BUT…I do not think, by any means, that the entirety of American journalism has simply sold out to the lunatic Right.
In Revolutionary War times, the American free press led the charge against the continued rule of King George and the fight for American independence. Newspapers openly and LOUDLY railed against British rule and the siphoning off of the resources to the new world to line the pockets of the King and his industrial moguls. Newspapers FOUGHT for independence and now that we are facing the greatest threat since 1776 to the foundations of US democracy, many of us find what appears to be the bland acceptance of and even capitulation to the Radical Right revolting and horrifying.
Late one night, a few weeks back, while visiting family in Texas, I laid awake and thought about all this. It kept me awake, in fact, several nights because…it just didn’t make sense. IF media moguls were getting into bed with Trumpism, we would hear about mass resignations or outright revolts at reputable media corporations and…there is just nothing.
What, I asked that ceiling in New Braunfels, is this all about?
Gradually, an idea took shape and it refuses to let go.
A little recent history: In 2016, we were all SO overwhelmingly certain that America would never elect a clown like Donald Trump that many of us, myself included, simply ridiculed the whole notion. There is even sufficient evidence that Trump, himself, never expected to be elected. Of course, we since found out that the ’16 election was massively interfered with by Vladimir Putin’s hackers but nothing was even done to address that. Arguably, the election results should have been vacated and a new election held. But, with Trump loyalists already installed, that was effectively blocked from ever happening. So, a proven liar, sexual predator, and life-long criminal became “president”…sorta. Horrendously bad “president”, of course, but he was in the office…and all Hell resulted.
The American press, of course, coming off the Obama years, was not a dullard collections of simps and The Easily Led. They saw what happened and some press outlets did protest about it all publicly and continue to, to this day. They also saw what happened in 2020, when moderates and Liberals and Progressives turned out in historic numbers and Job Biden nipped the blight of Trumpist influence in the federal bureaucracy in the bud. The press has also watched as Trump fanned the flames of the Right’s massive decades-long hissy fit and led to massive election denial. They saw all of this…but what to actually DO about it?
Radical conservatism is NOT going away and Trump is really nothing but a hood ornament for that twisted “philosophy” and there are far more radical, outright traitorous racist yahoos that any of us ever expected to see in what we always believed was a fundamentally moderate country.
I believe that many in the press saw what I have seen and what political pundits have said repeatedly: the only way to stem the tides of escalating radicalism on the Right is to hand Trump a defeat of such MASSIVE dimensions that there can be no question left that Americans reject their brand of racist, bigoted division and let if be known that continuing such rhetorical eruptions will be not only futile but potentially life-altering for those who continue to rail against democracy.
And, lying there in that Texas miasma of heat and humidity, this is what I came up with…
To actually plan something like this would be legally considered collusion and expose Media to a raft of legal problems. It would have to be unspoken, conveyed obliquely, or maybe simply By Example but I think what COULD be happening is that members of the Fourth Estate, looking at both ’16 and ’20, knew that turnout among Moderates, Libs, and Progressives was limited by a degree of apathy and, frankly, laziness. Conservatives, despite whatever else we think of them, have turned out voters in historic numbers. They maximized what were and are minority numbers. The key to getting the Majority – the Dems and Libs and Progressives mostly that VAST mass of Moderates – to get off the sofa and VOTE is to make this election seem as urgent as it actually, LITERALLY is. This is the Gunfight at the DC Corral of elections. This will literally decide if we even have something called “The United States of America”, going forward. If Trump was to win, secession would become THE front and center issue and Trump has already said that he would go after reporters and media outlets like ABC and any of his critics with the full power of his (illegitimate) presidency, which would change our Free Press FOREVER.
I believe that it is a real possibility that the press, either as a loosely coordinated effort or by individuals within it simply seeing which way the wind’s blowing, are amplifying Trump’s messaging and rubbing it in all our faces as a means of motivating Moderates and Leftists and Undecideds to get off the couch and VOTE in numbers too titanic to be denied. I think this is the American Free Press’ Moment of “Scared Straight”, letting Americans see what life under another radical Trump presidency would actually be. For this to work, they must roll with criticism, stay on message, and continue to scare those of us not already brainwashed by the Fox/Brietbart 24/7 indoctrination and their own hatred and frustration into action. If there is anther way to provoke sufficient outrage and backlash among the Hyper-Analytical armies of Mods to Far Leftists, I can’t find it. Siding against Trump would only encourage our innate sloth and that vile “Let George Do It!” attitude that cost us all the ’16 election.
We have to be scared shitless to even get us out the door to the polls – That’s just a sad, and near-tragic fact. One thing the American Left will never run out of is smarmy self-righteousness and its accompanying sloth and we simply cannot allow the more dense among us to influence this most critical election on our history.
I WANT to think my little scenario is true. The alternative is to believe that our Free Press actually HAS declined so profoundly in intelligence and integrity that they will climb into the pocket of any con man who wanders along and helps generate clicks or whatever remains of newsstand sales.
I think the Press is keeping us all motivated and ready to lower the BOOM on this skeevy era of Right-wing extremism at the polls this November.
If NOT…God help us all.
The Pour Fool 