Sure, Donald Trump is a chronic liar and con man. Yes, the anti-American right wing rallies to his candidacy. And of course a Trump presidency will lead to economic collapse, a loss of democracy, wars – and probably famine and locusts. All that’s pretty obvious.
But Trump is getting shortchanged. No other winning major party candidate has ever humiliated the main-stream-media as thoroughly as Trump. The MSM has been degraded and shamed, turned into water carriers and weasels.
And its not just the people you see and read, the news anchors and by-lined journalists. Its the News Directors, Editors, media Vice Presidents, Division heads, Publishers and division and corporate Presidents. The people who assign stories, choose what gets aired or printed, and direct coverage. They’ve all become weak-kneed lapdogs. They eagerly debase themselves.
The New York Times, tossing away their “newspaper of record” title, becomes an anti-Clinton Trump tabloid with no credibility. When Trump deigns to take the offer of free, uncritical television time he ‘phones in the interview – on television! Television. You know, that thing that beat out radio because it had pictures. He even bullied his natural ally, Fox News, into being even more subservient.
I will grant that Trump had the ground plowed for him over the last forty years. The Republicans have played a long, hard game, with the goal of making the media their servants. But Trump deserves credit for a final manipulation and mastery that even tops that. He plays the media for fools every day, all day. We must give the monster his due.