we would LITERALLY not have to deal with Trump if Newsmax, OANN, Fox, and their like weren’t allowed to just lie
Okay, but while we’re rounding them up for the gulags, can we sweep through and pick out all the fuckwits at NYT, WaPo, WSJ, and The Economist that were insisting Joe Biden was our Last Best Hope To Save Democracy and Actually Whip Smart And Totally Ready To Lead? Hell, even NPR gets in on this shit, and its supposed to be the nice polite republican media rather than the frothing bomb-everyone-that-criticizes-Israel news outlet.
The reason Trump exists in the form that he does, with the support that he does is 110% at the feet of the fucking propaganda that gives him cover.
Trump is the direct result of Republican rhetoric outrunning its own policy. For the last 40 years, we’ve been told that immigration is the root of every problem in the country - from bloated budgets to housing crises to drug use to violent crime to COVID. And as things keep getting worse, and immigration keeps getting blamed, the only conclusion Americans are allowed to make is that they’re not hard enough on migrants.
The celebrity candidacy of Trump was made possible by a news media fixated on the opulence of rich white guys, a conservative leadership that saw enormous profits in using migrant laborers to supplant labor unions, and an aging American public with a Pavlovian hatred of brown people. (And also, Hilary Clinton backing him in the GOP primary because she thought he’d be easy to beat).
But the real root of the problem is our national fixation on scapegoating. If Trump hadn’t won in 2016, it could just as easily have been Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, both of whom are perfectly happy with our home grown brand of fascist tendency. They’re riding the same Hate Wave as Trump, he just did it better.
Okay, but while we’re rounding them up for the gulags, can we sweep through and pick out all the fuckwits at NYT, WaPo, WSJ, and The Economist that were insisting Joe Biden was our Last Best Hope To Save Democracy and Actually Whip Smart And Totally Ready To Lead? Hell, even NPR gets in on this shit, and its supposed to be the nice polite republican media rather than the frothing bomb-everyone-that-criticizes-Israel news outlet.
Trump is the direct result of Republican rhetoric outrunning its own policy. For the last 40 years, we’ve been told that immigration is the root of every problem in the country - from bloated budgets to housing crises to drug use to violent crime to COVID. And as things keep getting worse, and immigration keeps getting blamed, the only conclusion Americans are allowed to make is that they’re not hard enough on migrants.
The celebrity candidacy of Trump was made possible by a news media fixated on the opulence of rich white guys, a conservative leadership that saw enormous profits in using migrant laborers to supplant labor unions, and an aging American public with a Pavlovian hatred of brown people. (And also, Hilary Clinton backing him in the GOP primary because she thought he’d be easy to beat).
But the real root of the problem is our national fixation on scapegoating. If Trump hadn’t won in 2016, it could just as easily have been Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, both of whom are perfectly happy with our home grown brand of fascist tendency. They’re riding the same Hate Wave as Trump, he just did it better.