Category: Donald Trump

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I lost faith in journalism during the 2016 election. The press likes controversy. It likes big personalities. it likes people who will say crazy things. Who better to provide those things than Donald Trump? Trump is a headline waiting to happen. The press dutifully gave him everything he wanted.

The press portray themselves as innocent in all this. They simply report the facts and leave it to the reader to decide. But this isn’t the way things work. Supplying the world with facts is important but the press really needs to sell advertisements. This means they need to show their potential customers their media outlet has a large customer base. This is the only thing that truly matters to the press. So while, they do print facts, they have a lot of discretion on what facts appear in the headlines and at the top of the hour. If it is likely to grab the audience’s attention, that particular fact has a better chance of seeing the light of day. All Trump had to do in 2016 is to say something crazy and the press aimed their laser like gaze on Donald Trump.

This was particularly true during the Republican Primary where the press couldn’t look away from Trump. Keep in mind, there was well over 10 candidates running for the Republican nomination in 2016. Governors, Senators, Business Leaders but the press ignored them because Donald Trump said crazier things which made for better news which meant more customers watching. All Trump had to do was call a press conference. The full press contingent showed up so they could duly report the facts. Trump received so much press coverage that he spent very little of his own money buying advertisements. He didn’t need ads, he had the press right in his pocket. They provided all the advertising he needed. The other poor saps couldn’t compete with the media savvy Trump.

This love affair continued after he was elected. It was Trump Trump Trump for four long years. Any crazy thing he said was put in the headlines, investigated and discussed endlessly by everyone in the press. While this was all going on, Trump’s allies were doing real damage to environmental and ecological regulation, replacing judges with hardcore conservative ones, giving tax breaks to their pals and undermining any government department they could wreak havoc with. The press, however, couldn’t take their eyes off of the very entertaining Trump and his headline grabbing antics.

So, here we are two years after removing Trump from the presidency and what is the press doing — putting him in the headlines every single day. This raid on his home is ridiculous. The only thing the press can do is speculate. Hour after hour of speculation. How is this valuable? The only facts they can report is that is happened and that Trump and a lot of Republicans are pissed off about it. There isn’t much else to say, at least that is a fact. It certainly doesn’t warrant the coverage Trump is getting and the only person that can be happy about all the attention he is getting is Trump.

And, of course, the press is loving it too. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. They love Trump. It isn’t a healthy love. It is very much a sick co-dependent love. But when Trump speaks, they will be right there reporting. What actual reporting can be done about Mar-a-lago? The press even admits that they don’t know anything yet. They keep saying we will have to wait to know what the raid was about. Why not wait then? But they kept help themselves. Instead, our best and brightest reporters are speculating about what the Mar-a-lago raid means, how it will affect Trump and what Garland might be thinking.

The net effect of this is it gives Trump all the attention he craves. He is a narcissist. He doesn’t care if the press is unfavorable to him, he just wants to be talked about. The press is co-operating with him in spades. Trump is Moby Dick and the press is Captain Ahab. They won’t give up until they put him in prison. Trump is 76 years old. He can drag this on for years and still die in the comfort of his own home. It isn’t going to happen. They also want Trump true believers to admit they were wrong and Trump is a bad man. This isn’t going to happen either. They want to prevent him from running for president in 2024. This could happen but the present strategy is putting Trump in the headlines again and he is loving it and the people who love Trump are back at his beck and call. The very things that propelled him to the White House in2016.

If nothing else, taking Trump off the front page would stop this co-dependent relationship. The press doesn’t have to play Trump’s game. It would require a lot of discipline and, sadly, it doesn’t look like the press understands or even cares to learn the lesson as long as Trump sells advertising.

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While listening to the January 6 hearings, I was struck by the number of Republicans and White House staff that have turned against Trump. So I googled people who have turned on Trump to see if there are any lists of these people. There are (see below), in fact, there are many lists.

Then I thought maybe this is a common experience for presidents, so I googled people who have turned on Obama. I could find one person — a secret service agent who ran as a Republican for congress. His main complaint was about the deals Obama made to pass Obamacare and not specifically about Obama himself. So even this critic, who served under Obama, was more critical of the system as opposed to the man himself.

Think about this for a moment. Person after person who worked for Trump are saying that he encouraged them to commit crimes, that he was detached from reality, that he bullied his employees and elected officials, that he turned on his own Vice-President, and the list of his bad behavior goes on. While the worst thing somebody said about Obama was he made deals to get a bill passed in Congress.

This speaks volumes about both Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/officials-who-criticized-donald-trump/index.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/19/the-growing-list-of-ex-trump-officials-who-now-denounce-the-president/?sh=473707053965

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/18/all-aides-allies-even-family-who-have-spoken-out-against-trump/

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I attach this link for your perusal: https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-says-us-should-just-mark-its-planes-with-chinese-flag-and-bomb-russia

Every time a Republican complains about Biden being too old and weak to hold his position, I stop and think: would I make the same decision today. After thinking about it for a second and a half, I come back with a resounding yes. When I read that Trump thinks the American military should disguise our planes like Chinese planes and then bomb the Russians you know that you are definitely better off with Slow Joe.

I don’t know where to begin there is so much wrong with what Mr. Trump is saying. But I will put this one out first: Who would believe that the Chinese would bomb the Russians? I didn’t know that there was that much animosity between the two that would warrant an attack. Why would the Chinese suddenly and without provocation attack the Russians? Wouldn’t this cause someone in the Russian government to think something is a bit fishy.

Modern technology. Radar would point fingers in the right direction and then, fairly quickly, the Russians would, through the other wonders of modern technology, figure out who the real culprit was. So we would move from one nuclear power a little pissed at us but nowhere near mad enough to go nuclear to two nuclear powers really pissed at us and more than willing to press the nuclear button.

Nuclear fallout. Mr. Trump thinks it is a good idea to provoke the Chinese and the Russians into a shooting nuclear war. Yes, I can see that he might experience a small cathartic thrill of eliminating two rivals in one swoop but the rest of us would suffer from the radioactive material blowing across Europe and Asia. And we aren’t talking Chernobyl levels, we are talking a nuclear fallout from two well armed nuclear powers. It won’t be pretty for anyone.

Ethical. The Chinese government is evil. But we are risking the Russians launching nuclear warheads on the Chinese people. Millions of innocent people could die based on our trickery.

More ethical. If we bomb a country, and by doing it, putting the whole world in danger — we need to have the balls to admit it. Though I don’t think it is wise, given the present circumstances, I can see a case for bombing the Russians. They are behaving like a bunch of assholes and, if Putin didn’t have nuclear arms, the Russians would be facing more than just sanctions right now. A country of our size and stature needs to come clean when we use our power in war. We need to show we have nothing to hide and we had good reasons.

One more ethical consideration. Besides the whole world is watching. Someone somewhere will figure it out. Until they do, good people will have to lie to protect the lie. And, what happens when someone can prove it was a lie? It is lie upon lie upon lie. Not all people are as comfortable with lying as Mr. Trump and it is terrible to needlessly put them in that position of having to lie.

This man was our president.

So, when some nitwit says Biden voters need to apologize for our choice, I say make me. Biden was not my first choice, Hell, he wasn’t even my one hundredth choice, but I can say I am happy with my vote. Joe may be slow but, at least, he isn’t an unprincipled idiot.