Bait and Switch
This Short Video from The Other 98% says it all...or, as Mark Shields said on The PBS Newshour last evening, since practically no one is in place to make all this happen, he's pushing buttons that aren't connected to anything!
I really believe that if Trump supporters watched that video they would call the sources for the info contained in it
fake and not believe it. Their slogan for the last month has been "Give him time" or "Give him a chance." Conservative
media has gotten their supporters to feel aggrieved concerning just about everything over the last few decades...aided
and abetted by conservative politicians who want their votes.
Conservative and Liberal ideas should be like yin and yang, complimentary to each other that ultimately
is beneficial to the whole. We are certainly far away from inhabiting that idea anytime soon.
Charlie Sykes is a conservative radio show host in Wisconsin who recognized his own role in this.
He recently wrote a piece titled: "Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying"
Mr. Trump understands that attacking the media is the reddest of meat for his base, which has been conditioned to reject
reporting from news sites outside of the conservative media ecosystem.
For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to delegitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled.
The news media’s spectacular failure to get the election right has made it only easier for many conservatives to ignore anything that happens outside the right’s bubble and for the Trump White House to fabricate facts with little fear of alienating its base.
Unfortunately, that also means that the more the fact-based media tries to debunk the president’s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines.
Trump's insidious campaign rally yesterday is a testament to this. Trump lies, misleads, glories in the adulation and promises
remedies for his aggrieved followers. And he tells them who to blame if these promises cannot be delivered. The media,
Democrats, immigrants...basically everyone else.
It's worth noting the dictionary definition of aggrieved:
feeling resentment at having been unfairly treated.Never mind if, as Charlie Sykes wrote, these people feel aggrieved because they have "been conditioned
to" for years by right-wing media from Fox News, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart, ad infinitum.
(Aided and abetted by the Republican politicians who want their votes.) Never mind that the aggrieved
are feeling resentment over things that they were told to feel aggrieved about, regardless if these things
are true or not. The aggrieved now have a long list of people places and things to resent: Immigrants,
Democrats, Liberals, job loss, minorities of any stripe, China, biased news media, TPP, NAFTA, progress,
President Obama--ad infinitum. All of these have sub-sets of resentment as well. And the real problems
are ignored or lied about--climate change is a hoax, all voters are suspect, coal jobs are sustainable, Trump
is a danger, Obamacare (AFA) is a diaster, etc.
What happens when people feel aggrieved, whether or not the reasons for feeling that way are valid or not?
The aggrieved want other people to feel their pain. They begin not to care if they destroy things, mentally or
physically. They want to put one over on the powers that be that they feel have wronged them, that they blame
for their pain. It's why rioters often burn down their own neighborhoods. That's where their pain is. Trump is that
kind of vessel. As Michael Moore said, even before the election, these voters want to send the biggest "fuck you"
message to the entire establishment of both parties and they did so in the form of rallying behind the reality star
joke candidate. What do they like most about him? That he lets people have it, calling anyone out who disagrees
with him. You read the comment sections on any articles about Trump and you'll see that his supporters are
enjoying the chaos. As MiloMorris wrote a few months ago on this thread about the concerns of others regarding
Trump: "We simply don't believe they are true, or they just don't concern us." Or, "I don't care."
I just watched that Oscar nominated documentary, near 8 hrs. long, O.J.: Made in America. This aggrieved mentality
was on display in the verdict in this trial. The difference being that the aggrievement was rooted in a lot of truth, not
the lies and distortions evident in the current situation.
What's going on now is the last line of the article quote about:
"...the more the fact-based media [or anyone] tries to debunk the president’s falsehoods, the further it will entrench the battle lines."
In other words, MM's "We simply don't believe they are true, or they just don't concern us."
Trump's a poison that will affect everyone. How long it's going to affect us
will depend on how long he's in office and/or how long his supporters stick
with him.