Thanks to the American Thinker for running this piece. You can visit the website at: https://www.americanthinker.com/
There was a rally in Washington, DC on September, 18 to say/do/whatever something – the point was not terribly clear – about what happened on January 6, the point of which is still also not terribly clear.
With an attendance of about 400 protestors and about 800 law enforcement officers (the only protestor arrested was a fed) and reporters and looky-loos, to call the rally an embarrassing failure would be an insult to other embarrassing failures, like when Keith Olbermann “took his talents” to Current TV.
But the rally did spark something, that being an opportunity by the media to yet again to talk about its most vilified ratings booster, Donald Trump.
The Sunday shows were full of standard issue fear/mockery-mongering, Trump was raked over the coals, and many pundits were able to briefly fill the gaping chasm where their integrity should be by being able to righteously condemn the great unclassed from the hinterlands. Good for them – whatever gets you through the day.
This playbook is so simple that even Cam Newton could follow it, but the decision to spend more than a nano-second on the supposed wrongs of The Donald in light of what happened less than 24 hours before – border collapse, furious French people, and the discovery that the “terrorist” cabal droned recently in Kabul was in fact a supply-delivering aid worker and his family (hint for the Pentagon – if what you think is an ISIS bomb says “Aquafina” on the side, check again) – should be an affront to, well, everyone. And attempts were made to blame Trump for those messes, too.
But it does raise a pair of interesting points: Can the nation expect an end to the continuing blaming of Trump, already out of office for nearly three trimesters, to ever end? And has the media, by creating the disease of Trump and then self-righteously telling everyone it was going to cure the disease, actually killed the patient?
Trump was not a perfect president. When he came into office, he was unprepared. First, he assumed that since he was President government officials would have to listen to him. Second, unlike Hilary Clinton, whose campaign had literally spent millions vetting thousands of people for thousands of government jobs and ready-to-go before her presumed Inauguration Day, he was forced to rely on a multitude of staffers that not only could not be trusted but immediately worked against him and his policies (remember, the leaks began within days of the election).
He was not so much a detail man but still had trouble delegating and with follow through. He seemed to tend towards the chaotic, a problem with running an administration but – if anyone had been paying attention – proof positive that he was far too disorganized to be a totalitarian (Antifa has no idea how good they had it because if Trump were actually a fascist Portland would now be a forcibly forgotten smudge). His use of Twitter was helpful(ish) to him at the time but it did legitimize the platform as a political public square, not a good thing at all. And his personality…well, it has been opined that the main thing that kept Donald Trump from getting re-elected was Donald Trump. That being said, the only thing that got Donald Trump elected in the first place was Donald Trump.
So, for a properly grounded and trustworthy media, there was more than enough to work with to make your bones, to prove you fight the powerful, etc. but then (because the economy was strong, real wages were growing, no new wars were being entered into, China was getting nervous, our allies were paying more of their fair share, etc.) they had to go and start making things up and they must continue to do so in order to justify their previous falsehoods.
Collusion. Russia. Kids in cages. Bleach drinking. Incontinent hookers. Family graft. Racist. Homophobe. Unpaid taxes. Coarse language (well, maybe give them that one). Fat. Insane. Coup plotting. Feeble. Liar. Corrupt. Power mad. Ill-gotten fortune. Embarrassing. Abusive. Hated. (As he was in office for 1,461 days and was accused of a scandal a day, there isn’t space to continue but feel free to add your favorite).
And, for good measure, everything that has gone wrong during the Biden presidency is also Trump’s fault.
So what did this media-imposed “cure” actually do?
Destroyed trust. Degenerated public discourse. Created hermetically sealed echo chambers. Encouraged the ending of friendships. Made everything political. Weaponized social media (well, weaponized it more). Demanded that personal “truth” be treated as actual truth, making the very concept meaningless. Denigrated the scientific method. Allowed aggressive public shunning of the different. Made heroes of tattle-tales. Made empathy a hate crime. Provided fertile ground for the flourishing of actual lies. Sowed discord amongst family members. Amplified stupidity. Enriched the overclass.
Even those who dislike Trump admit that his impact will be comparatively transitory when compared to the on-going damage done by the ramifications of the reaction to Trump which, it can be argued, is killing the patient.
Even if one considers Trump a disease, diseases can be cured. Murder cannot.