While the republic burns, the press chases clicks
Watching Day 3 of RNC convention coverage last night on a couple of channels, I found most of it as horrible as Donald Trump finds Milwaukee. Republican speakers shamelessly spewed lies, distortions and smears. (Daniel Dale deconstructs just a few for CNN.) Republican conventioneers held signs reading MASS DEPORTATION NOW! (CBS reports it was, in part, a deliberate troll intended to “make heads explode.”)
The convention’s message is horrible, yes, but so is the coverage.
But what made my head spin was a promo during a commerical break on MSNBC, the kind featuring a snappy clips of recent coverage. The montage was all Biden is old, will he or won’t he drop out, etc. Nothing about the stakes in this election for women and for international order and democracy. Nothing about Donald Trump’s incoherence, the GOP’s rejection of the rule of law, Project 2025 plans for terminating our republic (with extreme prejudice), our country teetering on the edge of dictatorship.
The days of news divisions being loss leaders for TV networks were gone decades ago. The Fourth Estate is no longer interested in fulfilling its role of informing the public. What once was news (print included) now is infotainment. Drama is entertaining. Joe Biden is old and could be forced out of the race is entertaining. It draws eyeballs and clicks and sells soap (yes, I’m that old).
Jennifer Rubin has noticed. Networks have moved on from the Trump phenomenon to “Biden is old” because they’ve become bored with Trump.
“The media … has done an abominable job of prioritizing what’s important and what’s not. We are on the brink of going down the road of a dictatorship,” Rubin warns. “That is more important than anything else. I know it’s attractive. You can say people have gotten used to Trump. Why have they gotten usded to Trump? Because the press has gotten used to Trump, because the press does not cover his insanity.”
Sharks and motorboats and Hannibal Lechter, etc. The press got bored with it, says Rubin. Getting bored is not the job of a free press in a free country, she adds. The job is informing the public.
But in a country that places making a buck above all else, that’s fallen by the wayside.
Reporters focusing on the drama surrounding Biden “is not reporting what is there. This is driving a narrative because they think it’s exciting, because it is exciting, and because they are personally offended that they weren’t told that [Biden] has bad days.”
Rubin is “shouting that we should pay attention because we’re 1933. We’re not 1938. We have the chance to stop the train.”
MASS DEPORTATION NOW! suggests the train (of boxcars?) and detention camps might soon be real, not metaphorical. The spectacle will show the world that the U.S. has abandoned its democratic heritage for xenophobia, grievance, and dictatorship. Our global adversaries must already be thrilled.
This morning, George Conway is launching Anti-Psychopath PAC in an attempt to refocus attention on the threat the MAGA movement and its dangerous, lunatic figurehead represents. Trump is “a sociopath or psychopath.”
Laugh or cry as you will, but get busy beating this threat to everything you hold dear.
Update: Just spotted this from last night. “We’re absolutely killing our nominee and our chances of winning.”
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