With Trump slamming the Times even as it crusades against Biden, a press critic explains how Trump scams the media into adopting a huge double standard on each man’s fitness to serve.
There was no time in the last decade that you could realistically describe Donald Trump as fit to serve as president. He has always been a terrible person.
Dude is unfit to make hamburgers at fast food. Of course he is unfit for the presidency. He is certainly unfit to be a babysitter cuz he'll probably rape the child. But of course republicans don't give a flying fuck if their candidate is a child rapist because they have no moral compass whatsoever.
No surprises here given that a profit driven media apparatus is going to favor the sensational. Look back over the last four years. What was the longest stretch you went without thinking about the office of the president. I bet for most of us, it was a wider window than 2017-2021. It wasn't perfect, or even really good but it felt less like there was a constant anvil hung over our heads by a frayed rope.
You know who hasn't liked Biden as president for that very reason? Every profit motivated news organization. We're less scared, and we're paying less attention to the news. In fact, the news is a fucking bummer and we already know the salient details night after night. There's a genocide going on in Ukraine, Palestine, and China. Our government is being inconsistent about the kinds of genocides that matter and the kinds of genocides that don't (well... Not really. Palestinians and Uyghers are Muslims and... Well you know... That's amongst our favorite groups to genocide ourselves). The fact that we know there's a problem and watching the news won't change anything leaves a lot of us checking out to focus on the things we can do and getting the mental health break during the news o'clock hour.
But now its an election year. Now we HAVE to talk about the republican candidate for president because he might become president. And guess what? He's even more unhinged than ever and the coverage for the news is great. They love it. Meanwhile, I can't blame the journalists covering the Republican candidate for president because it needs to be documented that he's unhinged. Meanwhile, though, what would we do with this info in a functioning democracy? We'd vote a different way than the fascist dictator. But every single system in America, while not explicitly DESIGNED to hand power to whatever fascist has the worst things to say HAS been slowly granting more and more power to fascist cronies in the name of stimulating the economy, keeping socialism at bay because it would be fucking horrible for our freedom if we taxed billionaires or whatever, and ultimately slowly stealing everything away from us so that our corporate overlords can maintain their control over us.
The purpose of a system is what it does. The system of government we employ in the united States hasn't been adjusted to prevent authoritarians from wielding power since we realized that was something they were interested in doing. Every Barry Goldwater ran for president, the fascists in our country have taken every chance to pull every lever in their own political favor. Goldwater transformed the Republican party to emphasize hatred in their platform, Nixon got the ball rolling for that the FBI and NSA needed to spy on us for "national security." Ronald Reagan reinvented what our government should do from ensuring society should benefit society to society should benefit our corporate overlords. Not to mention the large amount of international crimes his government committed to both make a quick buck and ensure the soviets didn't extract more benefit more value from their system of colonialism than we did from ours.
HW Bush kept the colonialism ball rolling and ensured a constant power vacuum in West Asia. Pat Buchanan ensured the most successful third party in American History would be a fascist party, both getting his fascist message more visibility AND tanking a major threat to the two party system that favors a slow march to fascism. W Bush and the Republican party of the 00s gave us... So much. Trump is OPENLY fascist and I don't feel the need to explain that.
Look. Here's where I'm at. In tired of people telling me America has checks and balances in place to keep a descent into authoritarianism possible, but where have those been the last 40 years? Why aren't they working? Is it maybe that they don't exist and we need to adjust the system because the purpose of a system is what it does?