A conversation between Jeff Zucker and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen removes all doubt: our hated president is a beloved commodity to network executives
Matt Taibbi just changed my opinion on something important—again.
That’s why I’m here—for a legitimate challenge. My brain just exploded and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it whenever I hear another story in the media. What else have I missed?
That’s why I subscribed. Matt legitimately wants the truth, unvarnished and raw, and is remarkably restrained in his ideological instincts towards unveiling it.
What a sorry state of affairs the CNNs of the world are. I'm thankful that in an era where more and more media outlets are proving their lack of integrity, we have increasingly lonely yet committed voices in the wind such as Matt.
What I enjoy most is that it has always been this way only now we are getting to see it. The game has been the same forever. It was always ugly, it was always back room deals. What we always felt was happening and now we get to see the proof.
The greatest gift of the Trump presidency has been that we get to see just how disgusting it is making the sausage.
The way the FL Dems split the electoral vote in 2008--HRC won FL primary, but DEMS had moved the date for the primary giving the DNC a reason to have a closed door meeting and split the result so Obama got enough electoral college votes. It was on C-SPAN, then they all went into a closed door session and came out with the split result. The party wanted Obama in 2008 no matter what. And because DEMS were happy that bit of history is overlooked. There is a Wikipedia page about it--2008 Florida Democratic presidential primary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presidential_primary)
and this shows how the back room deals makes the good hearted voter a rube.
If you want to talk about back room deals and you vote democrat ask yourself why Elizabeth Warren remained in the race Super Tuesday after every other candidate polling in her range dropped out? They all got the message and so did she. Her’s was different, stay in the race and weaken socialist Bernie Sanders support so they could crown a dementia patient. She will of course be rewarded down the line for her fealty (if she hasn’t already).
Nobody puts a gun to our heads saying we have to watch this shit. I mean really. There's a point where people have to take personal responsibility for their own minds. Most of these people on TV and in the media are pimples on the butt of America. They're hilarious spectacles of themselves -- gapeworthy as the animated gluttons of a Hieronymous Bosch painting come to life. Dogs have more self control. Cats have more self possession. Reptiles have higher ethics. They're psychic bats whose method of wordly navigation is to emit their own sounds and hear their echos as they bounce off us. Why on earth does anybody care what they think? About anything? Oh, well, "they're in charge of our media" someone says. Not really. If you -- the citizen -- were in charge of your own mind, they wouldn't be in charge of anything but a haircut and makeup session.
Having said all that, I'm voting for Trump because I think at a deeply unconscious level he's not a born killer. He's not a psychopath. He's not possessed. He's not a form of Roman theater where the deaths were real slaves killed on stage. He's Greek theater where all the killing was done offstage and only by report and metaphor and that made it more potent as an art form. It's acting, not acting out. It is a performance but a performance that knows it is. Many of the others, many of the critics, they're not acting but acting out as puppets of jealousy, of lust, of sanctimony, of entitlement, wounded hubris-- and all these demons are real. The demons show their faces through their faces, twisted in grotesque emotional masks hovering invisibly superimposed on the skin but visible to mind-sight [Comment editor's note: Did anyone read Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio where he had a short story about the grotesque faces that would come into his mind at night? I hereby offer 100 magical bonus dollars as a prize to anyone who does know what I'm talking about! No lie.]. Now back to my comment: You can see the demons now all across the circus of "public life". Hovering looking for minds and bodies to jump into and feasting like flies on the energies of those they've entered. It is really scary sometimes -- how the universe works. You really do need take care of your own soul and not watch so much TV..
Jeff Deist had a nice comment, riffing on Maya Angelou, about the Far Left “showing you who they are” with the last 100+ days of chaos. The Left, and Right, are splitting because of fundamental differences within. Any group that wants to suppress free speech is dangerous to a healthy civilization.
The "far left" is responsible for the violence and looting? Not the "umbrella men" (Google it) or the militarized police using strong arm tactics against previously peaceful demonstrations or the unbadged federal gestapo agents driving around in unmarked vans and unconstitutionally detaining people far away from any border or port of entry? Interesting take.
These were isolated incidents and from months ago. Google Rochester, Dallas and DC Chicago restaurant RNC protests and you'll see raw video of looting, vandalism, attacking right wing press, attacking RNC attendees, and attacking just plain people dining outside. That's what Dale is talking about, and no spin like what you're saying will take away from the visual power of the anger of the mobs and the fear of the people they are surrounding and accosting. It doesn't take anything away from the straight up looting that occurred in Chicago, or the head of BLM in Chicago saying that looting was reparations. This is happening, and the Dems are letting it happen, playing right into Trump's hands.
I would add: look up what happened to Adam Haner in Portland. Watch the full video (30 minutes or so) that shows all four of the people the BLM "protesters" were harassing, beating, and robbing before they turned their attention to Haner.
Agreed. The Adam Haner attack is truly chilling and disturbing. And...crickets from the MSM. Incredibly frustrating that we have one set of rules for BLM and another set of rules for peaceful MAGA protestors.
Honestly, if this place became a Q Anon hotbed, I'd be intensely bummed about it. Every political conversation I've had online since about 2017 has been vapid and one-note outside this comment board. Been nice to find some common ground with Trump supporters and learn how some see the world without bystanders yelling about Russians or something. Turns out a lot of them diagnose the same problems I do---we just disagree that Trump is part of a solution.
If you force attention on the problem enough, one can inadvertantly become part of the solution. Smacking the Ds/woke corporate media nexus upside the head is part of that.
“...diagnose the same problems I do.” Glad to hear it, and I experience the similarly. Most Americans want the same things in life and living. This is where we should take a big step back to. I fear we’ve been trained to be used as pawns in capitalistic and Democratic takeovers by the few. It’s sad, as we’re all losing while arguing about what color team uniforms are better and who gets to flip the coin.
LOL. Not at all. I have heard of it but I have frankly no idea what it even is. Really no clue. Just like to spin some serious ideas out between colorful lines for contemplation and hopefully some entertainment and amusement value. And support Matt's great work too. Politics really makes me fall asleep mostly. I don't follow it much.
Since journalism is writing, and writing is about words, and words are nodal points of numerous ideas, predestined to ambiguity, and people make ambiguities into truths, and truths become ideologies, and ideologies become . . . well, we know what they become . . . Here is the real thing . . . .
from The Book of Grotesque from "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson
" That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.. . . . In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. . . . . It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood."
I hope all this was reasonably on topic and contextually apropos of the piece Matt posted. My sincere apologies if not -- I don't want to analytically polemicize or too colorfully breach a tolerable poetic license when conveying my perceptions in comments. I appreciate the comfort-range of that license may be subjective from person to person and perhaps it's best to be less imagetic and more matter of fact. Sometimes less really is more! I appreciate all who post their thoughts here and Matt's great work that brings it all together for discussion and analysis.
noting like that and no provocations -- just all metaphor and cultural criticism by analogy and imagination images -- other than people think for themselves, sit on their sofas and try not to fall for spin and propaganda. Being in charge of a nation is hard, there's always going to be critics, always people unhappy, and some of them really are wackos. Fair criticism is fair, that's democracy. But making a circus of the national mind-space makes for freak shows. I think we've got a lot right in the USA over decades of hard painful work -- lots of good people have sacrificed enormously for it. I don't like the rhetoric I see these days, the riots, the violence, the accusations, the hate. I wish the national conversation were more grounded in fact, more mature, more thoughtful. The only people who can make that happen are each one of us, privately in our own minds -- demanding of ourselves integrity, sanity, clarity of thought and refusing to become playthings of our demons (by metaphor). It may be a sentimental notion, but so what.
Yes, I got compared-- in my thesis, linked short stores (later published at Wayne State)-- to Sherwood, mostly our structures. This is pretty interesting and an unsual reason for voting for Trump, but I like it. I'll take the magical dollars. Though I admit I don't remember in detail that particular short story. So I probably don't deserve it.
Took a class about Southern American Literature (as opposed to South American Literature, i.e. Flannery O'Connor not Borges) and we read Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson can write his ass off. Sad, strange life though. He died from swallowing a toothpick, if I remember correctly---a very Southern Gothic way to go out.
I like South American literature better b/c they don’t dwell on hypocrisy-right, left, whatever-put it out there and deal with it-with family ties and mermaid tails...
This is from an article at the Daily Beast by someone named David Giffels.
"Trumbull County (Ohio), where the Lordstown plant is located, went 51 percent for Trump in 2016 to Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent, the first time since Richard Nixon that the county had voted in favor of a Republican presidential candidate. Four years before, Barack Obama had taken Trumbull by 23 points. Every person in the region who told me they’d voted for Trump said their previous vote had been for Obama, whose picture—snapped during his presidency when he made a visit to the Lordstown shop floor—still hung in the local union hall."
This is what partisan Democrats who look at Biden as some kind of sane alternative to Trump completely miss. It's what limousine liberals who tweeter 'the resistance" from their mansions in Hollywood wouldn't understand if you tutored them for a year. It's what all those glorified & overpaid teleprompter readers at CNN completely and, in my opinion, willfully miss as they shift the Trump narrative to one of racism.
It wasn't "racist white America" that supported Trump it was working class people who had been screwed raw by the Democratic Party since Bill "I'd like diddle your underage daughter" Clinton
stood next to Al "If my lips are moving I'm lying" Gore as they told everyone how NAFTA would cause jobs to fall from the sky. They just left out the small fact that those jobs would be falling from the sky over Mexico & China.
We are literally between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
I don't really see how any of this ends well.
And if I say I have a really bad feeling about our future as a country that would be a monumental understatement.
Very well put & very true. Frankly, it baffles me completely how any sane person cannot understand all of that. One may still prefer Biden over Trump. Or Hilary in 2016. Or feel nostalgia for Obama. Fine. That's our right as voters. But what I don't understand particularly well is the psychological drivers of the ideological transmutation -- the turning of wine into blood -- that makes the honest legitimate pain and political grievances of tens of millions of dis-employed Americans -- many of whose ancestors built cities, towns, fought in wars, ran farms, worked in businesses, built the country -- and turns it into a demonic, racist, sexist, homophobic, multi-gender-hating dragon that every good person should despise and slay like in Raphael's famous Renaissance painting. And also, "Because Look! It's that dastardly Vladimir Putin destroying our Democracy"! (TM)
THAT is what I find appalling -- that these absurdities should have taken such control across a vast swath of our society and somehow become Truths. Many readers here concur. That's good to see. Because this is all so absurd and absurdly venomous, I personally look for explanation in group psychology and the ideas of 20th century psychoanalytical theorists, along with great writers and artists who always have something useful to say. These phenomenon have happened before in other places. But I also appreciate my preferred line of inquiry and analysis doesn't interest everyone.
I do understand, from a mathematical and statistical perspective -- and at a fairly rigorous level -- how the use of machine learning, math and statistics is used to separate all of us into niches for political message marketing using web-based analytics. It may seem demonic, how effective it is. And it is. But it's old wine in new bottles. These forces have always been in the air, channeled differently perhaps. It's always a Manichean contest in every heart and mind to see ourselves in "the other". For a period of several decades America was doing a decent job in that regard.
But to your point -- the Future?? I am pleased to see Kimberly Klacik's now-famous "Save Baltimore" ad. She's a very attractive African American woman running for congress in Baltimore as a Republican. I'm also pleased so see Trump polling at (I read this a week or two ago & don't know how reliable it is) at 30% among African Americans. Not that I'm a big Trump fan. I'm frankly not even political and don't get excited about any politician. I was a Bernie Bro when that was possible. But the one thing I do have contempt for is wretched hypocrisy and it makes me angry to see it for a few decades now in places and people I naively thought would be "better than that". Maybe the Kim Klacik's of the world will save us. I would vote for her if I could. At least there's "Hope and Change" somewhere in there. And I'd like to see our fellow Americans of African descent tell the corporate Democrats to go to heck. hahahaha. That would make me smile.
Good points. IMO, there is a rising tide of mental illness/depression/“issues” amongst the millenial/Gen Z cohorts-supported by #s/research, and this attitude has seeped into politics. Political disagreement isn’t horse trading over taxes or tariffs anymore, it’s “You and your issues are TRIGGERING me and driving me into a state of inchoate rage/confusion/terror”. Psychological pathologies are being transformed into political action-it’s why the Ds went #resistance against Trump from day 1, and see everything as a jihad against American norms-respect for the 1st Amendment, respect for private property, etc,etc.
what many are missing is that a significant minority of americans have had booming incomes for decades thanks to Democrat and Republican policies to pump up asset prices, offshore jobs, and financialize everything. that minority has a large influence on elections, both because they donate to campaigns, and because they vote far more often than those who have been shafted by Democrat and Republican policies.
I never meant to give the appearance of exonerating the Republican Party. They tried to do NAFTA & welfare reform before Clinton, but Clinton succeeded. I never mistook the Republicans as the party that gave a shit about the working class. It was quite obvious that they didn't. But the Democrats literally betrayed their base.
They're amazingly good at play acting while they need our votes but once we cast them & they're elected they veer quite happily into corporate donor land.
I saw one of Biden's ads this morning where he promises to make the wealthy "pay their fair share."
Now, either the Democrats are complete idiots or they think that their base are complete idiots because Hillary publicly said pretty much the same thing. The problem was, in private, she was telling folk at Goldman Sachs, I believe, that they had nothing to worry about. She was just saying what she needed to say to get elected.
Am I supposed to believe that Biden isn't going to do the same thing?
In my opinion, the one "right" America has wholeheartedly embraced is the right to be entertained 24/7. If they're being lied to while they're being entertained seems to be completely irrelevant. I read a psychologist, years ago so his name escapes me, who was asked how an otherwise "sane" person could be made to exhibit the signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He said that you'd just have to systematically & relentlessly lie to them over a period of time. We have a political system that lies to us. We have a news media that lies to us. We have a Madison Avenue ad barrage that lies to us.
So, I don't think it's much of a mystery why this place explodes into irrational bursts of individual & mass insanity. It's probably more amazing that it hasn't completely imploded. But that may be coming soon.
"Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business"
Great book; trenchant (or a rant... depending on you :), and though written in 1985 so incredibly relevant to today's communication and entertainment culture that it's scary.
It's old. Probably older than a lot of commenters. But so worth a read. Even if you don't buy into its "typography vs. visual" paradigm (I do), it contains a wealth of insights.
It’s unfortunate that we cannot see one another’s smiles, currently. And I wear a mask relentlessly simply to be certain that I don’t harm anyone (and I’m looking after my 68 yo mother and 88 yo grandmother). A seemingly small thing in light of all of the other obstacles that we’re facing but it makes me sad lately
Wonder if that CNN "media reporter" sniveling turd Brian Stelter will cover this? That's a joke, obviously. IMO, the biggest media story of 2016 was the AP calling the Dem nomination the night BEFORE the California primary, based on anonymous Superdelegate sources. He never covered that, either. Even the venerable Diane Rehm here on NPR in DC said in effect that was an appalling move by AP. #NeverForget #TGIF
I've been researching the history of the CIA and our media and...it's really no surprise why things are the way they are. Combine the greed of the media with the carte blanche access the CIA/intelligence apparatus has to our newsrooms and you get an amoral media willing to push any flimsy story as long as it rakes in the dollars. In 2013, the Smith-Mundt Act was rescinded. Look into that and the 2016 Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. It's legal to push fake news and propaganda to the American people if it's in the 'best interest of the country'.
Watch out for those who think they what is in the best interests--
Paris Review., Mundo Nuevo.
"I will say, I don't think positive propaganda is quite as nasty as disinformation and negative propaganda, which are almost always the same thing."--Joel Whitney.
“Just listen to the tape. As a business, they’re more than fond of “the boss.” They just can’t have us knowing it.”
While earlier reports from the left countered with the fact that Tucker Carlson has even more sway with President Trump, that take missed the point.
The key takeaway here is the colossal public manipulation by CNN, and by extension all the networks that profit by emotionally manipulating their audience to cheer and jeer in unison.
The end result is the erosion of democracy - the erosion of a sound basis for decision-making. That’s why the ongoing trial of Julian Assange, right now in the U.K., has an information blackout in the U.S. His devotion to transparency would upend the 24/7 propaganda information environment we find ourselves inhabiting in the U.S. (That information is a commodity to WikiLeaks only in so far as it is something they give away freely to the world’s public.)
Given the snow job we received on Trump, who do you think made the American people hate Julian Assange?
"The key takeaway here is the colossal public manipulation by CNN, and by extension all the networks that profit by emotionally manipulating their audience to cheer and jeer in unison. "
I just want to write and say thank-you Matt for your outstanding analysis of Trump and the media. I've learned a lot from reading it. Your analysis of the causes for Trump's popularity and his destruction of the remainder of the Republican field (and subsequently the Clinton campaign) has been insightful and easy to follow. In particular, I find your analysis of the parallels between his debate style and the theatrics of pro-wrestling to be particularly interesting and insightful. The notion that Trump does not know how to debate is foolish, given his obvious talent for dominating staged competitive events like this (and the fact he has been doing it for decades). It is fascinating to read this history with CNN and see what is happening in the executive levels of these media companies.
I know you're a big fan of old-school gonzo journos like Hunter S. Thompson. I can't speak to you being quite as wild as him, but I prefer your writing and analysis, so don't change a thing. I personally think you have earned your way into the pantheon of journalists who will be remembered beyond their own active years, and will stand as a template for young journalists of the future (at least those rare ones who decide to pursue the profession honestly, instead of as media propagandists). Your analysis of modern politics and media has the ability to cut through the propaganda and noise and remind people of underlying truths that others try desperately to obscure.
The fact that I just gave $50 to the guy I have almost never agreed with and had been taught to loathe since (almost) 19 years ago today is so 2020, I almost can't wrap my head around the hope it inspires for our future as Americans.
Taught to loathe? Is that a offered course? It seems that loathing should come naturally without instruction. Where did you learn to loathe? I need to avoid that place.
My younger brother was among the first to go to Afghanistan. At that time, I lived in an echo chamber. Matt staunchly opposed the war. Ergo, he staunchly opposed my brother.
I'm starting to think Russian interference in our elections might be a good thing to help counter the U.S. media's interference and manipulation of our elections
What's crazy is that RT reports our news waaaaay better than we do. So now we have a law to counter "foreign propaganda" with our own. It's pretty messed up.
I'm waiting for the reports that it's the Russians trying to interfere in our elections that leaked these damaging tapes in order to undermine the legitimacy of our domestic media and sow discord....something like that
Russia Russia Russia (In the voice of Jan Brady) is a parody now. Even legitimate evidence of attempts to “sway” the election by foreign actors pale in comparison. I’m not a fan of Trump, but he has definitely exposed the dark underbelly of Mordor on the Potomac.
Ya think! My god every country in the world has a good laugh at the US about that. Hell you have even tried to interfere in Canada's elections (LOL!!!) it all about the mighty buck. Hows that working for you?
Ugh... so all this brainwashing TDS propaganda was so they could get ratings. And we now have a completely divided America because of their bs propaganda. I didn’t think I could hate the left wing media more. I blame them for all of this lack of civility in America. You have people with TDS attacking children for god’s sake! The left wing media is absolutely evil.
This guy is a poor second to Roger Ailes who didn't have to pretend where he stood. Negative coverage of Trump's provocative ,often stupid ,statements only makes them more effective. McLuhan had it right...it's the medium not the message. Having been the star of the Apprentice, Trump understood that better than any of the candidates. His only problem is governing..especially when there's a crisis. Then it doesn't matter because the public has to deal with the crisis in their everyday lives. Trump's BS won't cut it.
Doesn't this cut to the core of the problem. Politicians, media corps., overpaid teleprompter readers, all have a hidden agenda. To the public they're one thing, behind closed doors they're another.
I saw Joe Biden's ad this morning where he "vows" to "make corporations & the wealthy pay their fair share." Sounds good.
Same bullshit Hillary prattled on about. Then came the Podesta emails & we know her "vow" was political theater for deplorable rubes like me. She really had no intention of doing any of that. I suspect Joe Bob's vow is just as empty. Obama wasn't any different.
Trumps' corruption needs shouted from every virtual hilltop in America.
Joe Bob's corruption isn't really corruption &, anyway, getting rid of Trump is more important.
The media gleefully plays along. And those that don't , like Julian Assange, must be dangled by their testicles before they're publicly beheaded.
I really don't know how people watch TV news anyway. I disconnected my TV from the outside world about 6 years ago. I only see CNN at work and it is, at best, an annoying joke.
They give no history or context with their stories. Everything happens in a vacuum.
When Covid was raging, they had a third of their screen taken up with the Covid counter. As soon as the rioting began, the Covid counter completely disappeared...until Trump started holding rallies then it returned with a vengeance.
As things burned, CNN ran "news specials" that could have been subtitled "Why the cops suck."
Funny, during Occupy, I don't remember CNN running any specials subtitled "How bankers & the wealthy raped America's economy during a time of war."
It all leads me to believe that the upper classes don't give a shit about power grabs among society's bottom feeders, they just don't want anyone looking upwards at them.
CNN's reporting on the Tulsa Massacre was equally suspect. They acted like this was some hidden horror from America's past. I think I read about it 30 years ago. It was hidden alright. Hidden in books that no one reads. Americans have an annoying tendency to need their information spoon fed to them.
Of course, while mentioning the Tulsa Massacre, they conveniently left out other massacres like The Ludlow Massacre or the WW1 vets who were fired upon when they marched on Washington during the Depression.
In fact, violence was what the upper classes always used to keep the bottom feeders in line. It would be more remarkable if black folk weren't massacred at some point.
Of course, violence leads to bad press.
So now the wealthy just buy everything & everyone that could oppose them.
The media, politicians, watchdog groups. The American Diabetes Association accepts large donations from candy & soda manufacturers. They aren't alone. In fact, that appears to be business as usual.
Don't know the solution.
What I do know is neither Biden or Trump will offer any.
There’s disagreement between America’s two mainstream political parties about the exact underlying cause of protests against racism, injustice and police brutality, but they’ve narrowed it down to either Russia or China.
Matt Taibbi just changed my opinion on something important—again.
That’s why I’m here—for a legitimate challenge. My brain just exploded and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it whenever I hear another story in the media. What else have I missed?
That’s why I subscribed. Matt legitimately wants the truth, unvarnished and raw, and is remarkably restrained in his ideological instincts towards unveiling it.
Well said.
What a sorry state of affairs the CNNs of the world are. I'm thankful that in an era where more and more media outlets are proving their lack of integrity, we have increasingly lonely yet committed voices in the wind such as Matt.
What I enjoy most is that it has always been this way only now we are getting to see it. The game has been the same forever. It was always ugly, it was always back room deals. What we always felt was happening and now we get to see the proof.
The greatest gift of the Trump presidency has been that we get to see just how disgusting it is making the sausage.
The way the FL Dems split the electoral vote in 2008--HRC won FL primary, but DEMS had moved the date for the primary giving the DNC a reason to have a closed door meeting and split the result so Obama got enough electoral college votes. It was on C-SPAN, then they all went into a closed door session and came out with the split result. The party wanted Obama in 2008 no matter what. And because DEMS were happy that bit of history is overlooked. There is a Wikipedia page about it--2008 Florida Democratic presidential primary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Florida_Democratic_presidential_primary)
and this shows how the back room deals makes the good hearted voter a rube.
If you want to talk about back room deals and you vote democrat ask yourself why Elizabeth Warren remained in the race Super Tuesday after every other candidate polling in her range dropped out? They all got the message and so did she. Her’s was different, stay in the race and weaken socialist Bernie Sanders support so they could crown a dementia patient. She will of course be rewarded down the line for her fealty (if she hasn’t already).
Ah ye-- the Harvard elites....
Hear Hear!!!! Trump really does prove it aint the monkey at the top its the system that stinks baby!
"...lonely yet committed voices in the wind..."
Matt the Baptist? :::snickers:::
Nobody puts a gun to our heads saying we have to watch this shit. I mean really. There's a point where people have to take personal responsibility for their own minds. Most of these people on TV and in the media are pimples on the butt of America. They're hilarious spectacles of themselves -- gapeworthy as the animated gluttons of a Hieronymous Bosch painting come to life. Dogs have more self control. Cats have more self possession. Reptiles have higher ethics. They're psychic bats whose method of wordly navigation is to emit their own sounds and hear their echos as they bounce off us. Why on earth does anybody care what they think? About anything? Oh, well, "they're in charge of our media" someone says. Not really. If you -- the citizen -- were in charge of your own mind, they wouldn't be in charge of anything but a haircut and makeup session.
Having said all that, I'm voting for Trump because I think at a deeply unconscious level he's not a born killer. He's not a psychopath. He's not possessed. He's not a form of Roman theater where the deaths were real slaves killed on stage. He's Greek theater where all the killing was done offstage and only by report and metaphor and that made it more potent as an art form. It's acting, not acting out. It is a performance but a performance that knows it is. Many of the others, many of the critics, they're not acting but acting out as puppets of jealousy, of lust, of sanctimony, of entitlement, wounded hubris-- and all these demons are real. The demons show their faces through their faces, twisted in grotesque emotional masks hovering invisibly superimposed on the skin but visible to mind-sight [Comment editor's note: Did anyone read Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg,Ohio where he had a short story about the grotesque faces that would come into his mind at night? I hereby offer 100 magical bonus dollars as a prize to anyone who does know what I'm talking about! No lie.]. Now back to my comment: You can see the demons now all across the circus of "public life". Hovering looking for minds and bodies to jump into and feasting like flies on the energies of those they've entered. It is really scary sometimes -- how the universe works. You really do need take care of your own soul and not watch so much TV..
Jeff Deist had a nice comment, riffing on Maya Angelou, about the Far Left “showing you who they are” with the last 100+ days of chaos. The Left, and Right, are splitting because of fundamental differences within. Any group that wants to suppress free speech is dangerous to a healthy civilization.
The "far left" is responsible for the violence and looting? Not the "umbrella men" (Google it) or the militarized police using strong arm tactics against previously peaceful demonstrations or the unbadged federal gestapo agents driving around in unmarked vans and unconstitutionally detaining people far away from any border or port of entry? Interesting take.
These were isolated incidents and from months ago. Google Rochester, Dallas and DC Chicago restaurant RNC protests and you'll see raw video of looting, vandalism, attacking right wing press, attacking RNC attendees, and attacking just plain people dining outside. That's what Dale is talking about, and no spin like what you're saying will take away from the visual power of the anger of the mobs and the fear of the people they are surrounding and accosting. It doesn't take anything away from the straight up looting that occurred in Chicago, or the head of BLM in Chicago saying that looting was reparations. This is happening, and the Dems are letting it happen, playing right into Trump's hands.
I would add: look up what happened to Adam Haner in Portland. Watch the full video (30 minutes or so) that shows all four of the people the BLM "protesters" were harassing, beating, and robbing before they turned their attention to Haner.
Agreed. The Adam Haner attack is truly chilling and disturbing. And...crickets from the MSM. Incredibly frustrating that we have one set of rules for BLM and another set of rules for peaceful MAGA protestors.
Not voting for him, but that’s a pretty righteous speech. “He’s less sociopathic than his opponent” is not a good campaign slogan.
Oh shit do we have a Q-Anon'er in the house? Lock the cabinets!! Just kidding. Welcome, friend.
Honestly, if this place became a Q Anon hotbed, I'd be intensely bummed about it. Every political conversation I've had online since about 2017 has been vapid and one-note outside this comment board. Been nice to find some common ground with Trump supporters and learn how some see the world without bystanders yelling about Russians or something. Turns out a lot of them diagnose the same problems I do---we just disagree that Trump is part of a solution.
If you force attention on the problem enough, one can inadvertantly become part of the solution. Smacking the Ds/woke corporate media nexus upside the head is part of that.
“...diagnose the same problems I do.” Glad to hear it, and I experience the similarly. Most Americans want the same things in life and living. This is where we should take a big step back to. I fear we’ve been trained to be used as pawns in capitalistic and Democratic takeovers by the few. It’s sad, as we’re all losing while arguing about what color team uniforms are better and who gets to flip the coin.
LOL. Not at all. I have heard of it but I have frankly no idea what it even is. Really no clue. Just like to spin some serious ideas out between colorful lines for contemplation and hopefully some entertainment and amusement value. And support Matt's great work too. Politics really makes me fall asleep mostly. I don't follow it much.
Dude, you owe me 100 magical bonus dollars. Pay up.
Since journalism is writing, and writing is about words, and words are nodal points of numerous ideas, predestined to ambiguity, and people make ambiguities into truths, and truths become ideologies, and ideologies become . . . well, we know what they become . . . Here is the real thing . . . .
from The Book of Grotesque from "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson
https://www.bartleby.com/156/1.html
" That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.. . . . In the bed the writer had a dream that was not a dream. As he grew somewhat sleepy but was still conscious, figures began to appear before his eyes. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. . . . . It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood."
I hope all this was reasonably on topic and contextually apropos of the piece Matt posted. My sincere apologies if not -- I don't want to analytically polemicize or too colorfully breach a tolerable poetic license when conveying my perceptions in comments. I appreciate the comfort-range of that license may be subjective from person to person and perhaps it's best to be less imagetic and more matter of fact. Sometimes less really is more! I appreciate all who post their thoughts here and Matt's great work that brings it all together for discussion and analysis.
He also owes me!
???????? who is the agent provocateur eh?
noting like that and no provocations -- just all metaphor and cultural criticism by analogy and imagination images -- other than people think for themselves, sit on their sofas and try not to fall for spin and propaganda. Being in charge of a nation is hard, there's always going to be critics, always people unhappy, and some of them really are wackos. Fair criticism is fair, that's democracy. But making a circus of the national mind-space makes for freak shows. I think we've got a lot right in the USA over decades of hard painful work -- lots of good people have sacrificed enormously for it. I don't like the rhetoric I see these days, the riots, the violence, the accusations, the hate. I wish the national conversation were more grounded in fact, more mature, more thoughtful. The only people who can make that happen are each one of us, privately in our own minds -- demanding of ourselves integrity, sanity, clarity of thought and refusing to become playthings of our demons (by metaphor). It may be a sentimental notion, but so what.
Yes, I got compared-- in my thesis, linked short stores (later published at Wayne State)-- to Sherwood, mostly our structures. This is pretty interesting and an unsual reason for voting for Trump, but I like it. I'll take the magical dollars. Though I admit I don't remember in detail that particular short story. So I probably don't deserve it.
Took a class about Southern American Literature (as opposed to South American Literature, i.e. Flannery O'Connor not Borges) and we read Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson can write his ass off. Sad, strange life though. He died from swallowing a toothpick, if I remember correctly---a very Southern Gothic way to go out.
I like South American literature better b/c they don’t dwell on hypocrisy-right, left, whatever-put it out there and deal with it-with family ties and mermaid tails...
Thank you and -- CNN and other corporate media not a word about the torture of true and invaluable journalist -- Julian Assange...
This is from an article at the Daily Beast by someone named David Giffels.
"Trumbull County (Ohio), where the Lordstown plant is located, went 51 percent for Trump in 2016 to Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent, the first time since Richard Nixon that the county had voted in favor of a Republican presidential candidate. Four years before, Barack Obama had taken Trumbull by 23 points. Every person in the region who told me they’d voted for Trump said their previous vote had been for Obama, whose picture—snapped during his presidency when he made a visit to the Lordstown shop floor—still hung in the local union hall."
This is what partisan Democrats who look at Biden as some kind of sane alternative to Trump completely miss. It's what limousine liberals who tweeter 'the resistance" from their mansions in Hollywood wouldn't understand if you tutored them for a year. It's what all those glorified & overpaid teleprompter readers at CNN completely and, in my opinion, willfully miss as they shift the Trump narrative to one of racism.
It wasn't "racist white America" that supported Trump it was working class people who had been screwed raw by the Democratic Party since Bill "I'd like diddle your underage daughter" Clinton
stood next to Al "If my lips are moving I'm lying" Gore as they told everyone how NAFTA would cause jobs to fall from the sky. They just left out the small fact that those jobs would be falling from the sky over Mexico & China.
We are literally between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
I don't really see how any of this ends well.
And if I say I have a really bad feeling about our future as a country that would be a monumental understatement.
Three Cheers for Kim Klacik
Very well put & very true. Frankly, it baffles me completely how any sane person cannot understand all of that. One may still prefer Biden over Trump. Or Hilary in 2016. Or feel nostalgia for Obama. Fine. That's our right as voters. But what I don't understand particularly well is the psychological drivers of the ideological transmutation -- the turning of wine into blood -- that makes the honest legitimate pain and political grievances of tens of millions of dis-employed Americans -- many of whose ancestors built cities, towns, fought in wars, ran farms, worked in businesses, built the country -- and turns it into a demonic, racist, sexist, homophobic, multi-gender-hating dragon that every good person should despise and slay like in Raphael's famous Renaissance painting. And also, "Because Look! It's that dastardly Vladimir Putin destroying our Democracy"! (TM)
THAT is what I find appalling -- that these absurdities should have taken such control across a vast swath of our society and somehow become Truths. Many readers here concur. That's good to see. Because this is all so absurd and absurdly venomous, I personally look for explanation in group psychology and the ideas of 20th century psychoanalytical theorists, along with great writers and artists who always have something useful to say. These phenomenon have happened before in other places. But I also appreciate my preferred line of inquiry and analysis doesn't interest everyone.
I do understand, from a mathematical and statistical perspective -- and at a fairly rigorous level -- how the use of machine learning, math and statistics is used to separate all of us into niches for political message marketing using web-based analytics. It may seem demonic, how effective it is. And it is. But it's old wine in new bottles. These forces have always been in the air, channeled differently perhaps. It's always a Manichean contest in every heart and mind to see ourselves in "the other". For a period of several decades America was doing a decent job in that regard.
But to your point -- the Future?? I am pleased to see Kimberly Klacik's now-famous "Save Baltimore" ad. She's a very attractive African American woman running for congress in Baltimore as a Republican. I'm also pleased so see Trump polling at (I read this a week or two ago & don't know how reliable it is) at 30% among African Americans. Not that I'm a big Trump fan. I'm frankly not even political and don't get excited about any politician. I was a Bernie Bro when that was possible. But the one thing I do have contempt for is wretched hypocrisy and it makes me angry to see it for a few decades now in places and people I naively thought would be "better than that". Maybe the Kim Klacik's of the world will save us. I would vote for her if I could. At least there's "Hope and Change" somewhere in there. And I'd like to see our fellow Americans of African descent tell the corporate Democrats to go to heck. hahahaha. That would make me smile.
I love your comment but especially this:
"Maybe the Kim Klacik's of the world will save us. I would vote for her if I could. At least there's "Hope and Change" somewhere in there."
What we need right now are politicians and leaders with VISION. I want to move forward. I want to be inspired, not beat down, not driven by fear.
Good points. IMO, there is a rising tide of mental illness/depression/“issues” amongst the millenial/Gen Z cohorts-supported by #s/research, and this attitude has seeped into politics. Political disagreement isn’t horse trading over taxes or tariffs anymore, it’s “You and your issues are TRIGGERING me and driving me into a state of inchoate rage/confusion/terror”. Psychological pathologies are being transformed into political action-it’s why the Ds went #resistance against Trump from day 1, and see everything as a jihad against American norms-respect for the 1st Amendment, respect for private property, etc,etc.
I've been saying it for months now - TDS should be declared a pandemic by the WHO.
what many are missing is that a significant minority of americans have had booming incomes for decades thanks to Democrat and Republican policies to pump up asset prices, offshore jobs, and financialize everything. that minority has a large influence on elections, both because they donate to campaigns, and because they vote far more often than those who have been shafted by Democrat and Republican policies.
I never meant to give the appearance of exonerating the Republican Party. They tried to do NAFTA & welfare reform before Clinton, but Clinton succeeded. I never mistook the Republicans as the party that gave a shit about the working class. It was quite obvious that they didn't. But the Democrats literally betrayed their base.
They're amazingly good at play acting while they need our votes but once we cast them & they're elected they veer quite happily into corporate donor land.
I saw one of Biden's ads this morning where he promises to make the wealthy "pay their fair share."
Now, either the Democrats are complete idiots or they think that their base are complete idiots because Hillary publicly said pretty much the same thing. The problem was, in private, she was telling folk at Goldman Sachs, I believe, that they had nothing to worry about. She was just saying what she needed to say to get elected.
Am I supposed to believe that Biden isn't going to do the same thing?
In my opinion, the one "right" America has wholeheartedly embraced is the right to be entertained 24/7. If they're being lied to while they're being entertained seems to be completely irrelevant. I read a psychologist, years ago so his name escapes me, who was asked how an otherwise "sane" person could be made to exhibit the signs of paranoid schizophrenia. He said that you'd just have to systematically & relentlessly lie to them over a period of time. We have a political system that lies to us. We have a news media that lies to us. We have a Madison Avenue ad barrage that lies to us.
So, I don't think it's much of a mystery why this place explodes into irrational bursts of individual & mass insanity. It's probably more amazing that it hasn't completely imploded. But that may be coming soon.
"Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business"
Great book; trenchant (or a rant... depending on you :), and though written in 1985 so incredibly relevant to today's communication and entertainment culture that it's scary.
It's old. Probably older than a lot of commenters. But so worth a read. Even if you don't buy into its "typography vs. visual" paradigm (I do), it contains a wealth of insights.
It’s unfortunate that we cannot see one another’s smiles, currently. And I wear a mask relentlessly simply to be certain that I don’t harm anyone (and I’m looking after my 68 yo mother and 88 yo grandmother). A seemingly small thing in light of all of the other obstacles that we’re facing but it makes me sad lately
Wonder if that CNN "media reporter" sniveling turd Brian Stelter will cover this? That's a joke, obviously. IMO, the biggest media story of 2016 was the AP calling the Dem nomination the night BEFORE the California primary, based on anonymous Superdelegate sources. He never covered that, either. Even the venerable Diane Rehm here on NPR in DC said in effect that was an appalling move by AP. #NeverForget #TGIF
I've been researching the history of the CIA and our media and...it's really no surprise why things are the way they are. Combine the greed of the media with the carte blanche access the CIA/intelligence apparatus has to our newsrooms and you get an amoral media willing to push any flimsy story as long as it rakes in the dollars. In 2013, the Smith-Mundt Act was rescinded. Look into that and the 2016 Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. It's legal to push fake news and propaganda to the American people if it's in the 'best interest of the country'.
Watch out for those who think they what is in the best interests--
Paris Review., Mundo Nuevo.
"I will say, I don't think positive propaganda is quite as nasty as disinformation and negative propaganda, which are almost always the same thing."--Joel Whitney.
I love Matt’s ending -
“Just listen to the tape. As a business, they’re more than fond of “the boss.” They just can’t have us knowing it.”
While earlier reports from the left countered with the fact that Tucker Carlson has even more sway with President Trump, that take missed the point.
The key takeaway here is the colossal public manipulation by CNN, and by extension all the networks that profit by emotionally manipulating their audience to cheer and jeer in unison.
The end result is the erosion of democracy - the erosion of a sound basis for decision-making. That’s why the ongoing trial of Julian Assange, right now in the U.K., has an information blackout in the U.S. His devotion to transparency would upend the 24/7 propaganda information environment we find ourselves inhabiting in the U.S. (That information is a commodity to WikiLeaks only in so far as it is something they give away freely to the world’s public.)
Given the snow job we received on Trump, who do you think made the American people hate Julian Assange?
The money shot...
"The key takeaway here is the colossal public manipulation by CNN, and by extension all the networks that profit by emotionally manipulating their audience to cheer and jeer in unison. "
Precisely.
By the way, I’m Ann Batiza (Ann wisc)
I'm anxious to see how MSM will spin this story. Oh, the possibilities!... but instead I know it will be ignored.
I just want to write and say thank-you Matt for your outstanding analysis of Trump and the media. I've learned a lot from reading it. Your analysis of the causes for Trump's popularity and his destruction of the remainder of the Republican field (and subsequently the Clinton campaign) has been insightful and easy to follow. In particular, I find your analysis of the parallels between his debate style and the theatrics of pro-wrestling to be particularly interesting and insightful. The notion that Trump does not know how to debate is foolish, given his obvious talent for dominating staged competitive events like this (and the fact he has been doing it for decades). It is fascinating to read this history with CNN and see what is happening in the executive levels of these media companies.
I know you're a big fan of old-school gonzo journos like Hunter S. Thompson. I can't speak to you being quite as wild as him, but I prefer your writing and analysis, so don't change a thing. I personally think you have earned your way into the pantheon of journalists who will be remembered beyond their own active years, and will stand as a template for young journalists of the future (at least those rare ones who decide to pursue the profession honestly, instead of as media propagandists). Your analysis of modern politics and media has the ability to cut through the propaganda and noise and remind people of underlying truths that others try desperately to obscure.
Lovely! so true!
The fact that I just gave $50 to the guy I have almost never agreed with and had been taught to loathe since (almost) 19 years ago today is so 2020, I almost can't wrap my head around the hope it inspires for our future as Americans.
I just gave $50 to the Green Party and an early gift sub. of this blog to a friend. Hawkins/Walker 2020.
Howie needs to dispense with the Russiagate nonsense. He sounds like a Democrat.
Taught to loathe? Is that a offered course? It seems that loathing should come naturally without instruction. Where did you learn to loathe? I need to avoid that place.
My younger brother was among the first to go to Afghanistan. At that time, I lived in an echo chamber. Matt staunchly opposed the war. Ergo, he staunchly opposed my brother.
Tribalism is a helluva drug.
"Taught to loathe" great title for a book!
Shoot, as a White person, I feel that students are being taught to loathe me.
Me too! His voice it too compelling to ignore. I still disagree with him on a lot of issues, but his reporting is solid and well-sourced.
I'm starting to think Russian interference in our elections might be a good thing to help counter the U.S. media's interference and manipulation of our elections
What's crazy is that RT reports our news waaaaay better than we do. So now we have a law to counter "foreign propaganda" with our own. It's pretty messed up.
I'm waiting for the reports that it's the Russians trying to interfere in our elections that leaked these damaging tapes in order to undermine the legitimacy of our domestic media and sow discord....something like that
Russia Russia Russia (In the voice of Jan Brady) is a parody now. Even legitimate evidence of attempts to “sway” the election by foreign actors pale in comparison. I’m not a fan of Trump, but he has definitely exposed the dark underbelly of Mordor on the Potomac.
You still beat Dead Russian Horse? Now, China Horse winning "Beat Dead Horse" Race.
That’s pretty trenchant.
It’s not like the US doesn’t openly interfere with foreign elections.
Ya think! My god every country in the world has a good laugh at the US about that. Hell you have even tried to interfere in Canada's elections (LOL!!!) it all about the mighty buck. Hows that working for you?
Brilliant statement-- my laugh of the day -- thanks!
Ugh... so all this brainwashing TDS propaganda was so they could get ratings. And we now have a completely divided America because of their bs propaganda. I didn’t think I could hate the left wing media more. I blame them for all of this lack of civility in America. You have people with TDS attacking children for god’s sake! The left wing media is absolutely evil.
This guy is a poor second to Roger Ailes who didn't have to pretend where he stood. Negative coverage of Trump's provocative ,often stupid ,statements only makes them more effective. McLuhan had it right...it's the medium not the message. Having been the star of the Apprentice, Trump understood that better than any of the candidates. His only problem is governing..especially when there's a crisis. Then it doesn't matter because the public has to deal with the crisis in their everyday lives. Trump's BS won't cut it.
Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar,
You're gonna go far,
You're gonna fly high,
You're never gonna die,
You're gonna make it if you try,
They're gonna love you.
Ah Pink Floyd-- brilliant--they nailed it
It’s called riding the gravy train
Doesn't this cut to the core of the problem. Politicians, media corps., overpaid teleprompter readers, all have a hidden agenda. To the public they're one thing, behind closed doors they're another.
I saw Joe Biden's ad this morning where he "vows" to "make corporations & the wealthy pay their fair share." Sounds good.
Same bullshit Hillary prattled on about. Then came the Podesta emails & we know her "vow" was political theater for deplorable rubes like me. She really had no intention of doing any of that. I suspect Joe Bob's vow is just as empty. Obama wasn't any different.
Trumps' corruption needs shouted from every virtual hilltop in America.
Joe Bob's corruption isn't really corruption &, anyway, getting rid of Trump is more important.
The media gleefully plays along. And those that don't , like Julian Assange, must be dangled by their testicles before they're publicly beheaded.
I really don't know how people watch TV news anyway. I disconnected my TV from the outside world about 6 years ago. I only see CNN at work and it is, at best, an annoying joke.
They give no history or context with their stories. Everything happens in a vacuum.
When Covid was raging, they had a third of their screen taken up with the Covid counter. As soon as the rioting began, the Covid counter completely disappeared...until Trump started holding rallies then it returned with a vengeance.
As things burned, CNN ran "news specials" that could have been subtitled "Why the cops suck."
Funny, during Occupy, I don't remember CNN running any specials subtitled "How bankers & the wealthy raped America's economy during a time of war."
It all leads me to believe that the upper classes don't give a shit about power grabs among society's bottom feeders, they just don't want anyone looking upwards at them.
CNN's reporting on the Tulsa Massacre was equally suspect. They acted like this was some hidden horror from America's past. I think I read about it 30 years ago. It was hidden alright. Hidden in books that no one reads. Americans have an annoying tendency to need their information spoon fed to them.
Of course, while mentioning the Tulsa Massacre, they conveniently left out other massacres like The Ludlow Massacre or the WW1 vets who were fired upon when they marched on Washington during the Depression.
In fact, violence was what the upper classes always used to keep the bottom feeders in line. It would be more remarkable if black folk weren't massacred at some point.
Of course, violence leads to bad press.
So now the wealthy just buy everything & everyone that could oppose them.
The media, politicians, watchdog groups. The American Diabetes Association accepts large donations from candy & soda manufacturers. They aren't alone. In fact, that appears to be business as usual.
Don't know the solution.
What I do know is neither Biden or Trump will offer any.
Just more bullshit.
There’s disagreement between America’s two mainstream political parties about the exact underlying cause of protests against racism, injustice and police brutality, but they’ve narrowed it down to either Russia or China.
My money is on the Canadians.