Trump may have tapped into a large well-spring of racist, ignorant, rage but he neither created it nor is he essential to it. Getting rid of Trump does not rid ourselves of the people who are ultimately behind the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. I feel the need to point this out because article after article I read on Daily Kos focuses on Trump like he IS the problem. I also say this because too many articles act surprised every time media organizations “fall for” some lame Republican spin. Both Trump and corporate media are tools of American oligarchs. The Murdochs, Kochs, and Crows of the world are the real power, menace, and conspirators out to destroy America.
Ever since FDR and the New Deal implemented aggressive Progressive taxation (70% top tax rate or higher) to fund social programs in the US, the conservative oligarchs have been waging a political war to reduce taxes on the wealthy. While they had some early successes, it was the Reagan “Revolution” which began in earnest the decoupling of elite wealth with that of the rest of us. And the myth of trickle-down-economics was pushed by corporate media at every step of the game.
The Reagan mantra of “Government is the Problem” and the only solution to our problems was to shrink the government is the Oligarchs’ core message. If people were dissatisfied with how the government was run, Oligarchs could convince them to vote for “Fiscal conservatives” by pointing at dysfunctional government and promising that by getting rid of it things would get better. The elected Republicans needn’t have solutions to make government better, they could just muck things up worse and use that as justification that even more government needed to be eliminated. Republicans are anarchists and nihilists. So over the years we have privatized some parts of government, downsized much of it, and in Red States essentially removed much of it all while oligarchs got richer on it.
When the initial results came in and most of us saw no benefit to the downsizing of government, the oligarchs needed to up their game to keep the momentum in their favor. The oligarchs tied themselves to racism, guns, and abortion as the polarizing topics to keep getting their servants elected while weakening anti-trust statutes allowing for media consolidation to push their message. With Citizens United, they legalized bribery making the process more streamlined for themselves.
None of what I am saying here should be new to anyone on this site. Which is why it amazes me we continue to focus on Donald Trump and that we are amazed that the corporate media continues to faun all over him. Donald Trump merely tapped into the conditions that oligarchs have been setting up in the United States for decades. Our risk of fascism taking over our country only marginally and temporarily goes down with Trump going to jail. The risk will spring up again and again until the Kochs, Murdochs, and Crows of the world are stopped.
And the corporate media will consistently support these efforts again and again through biased reporting because that is what the owners want. Biased journalism is nothing new. It’s been around since the first newspapers were printed. Enough good journalism has happened over the years to create a sense of what good journalism should be. And the major corporate news sources have done enough good journalism to give themselves cover to push a corporate agenda while maintaining an illusion of impartiality. And when they “miss” something it is spun as being missed. They don’t miss. They put out the exact story they wanted to. The New York Times doesn’t “miss” when they cover the average republican voter in a diner somewhere. They are giving you a carefully crafted message. It’s not a mistake when they repeatedly ignore Republican transgressions while diligently reporting on the slightest Democrat error.
And the next coup attempt in America doesn’t have to be Trump related. None of the people bankrolling Republicans around the country care which figurehead gets installed so long as that figurehead gets the job done both in terms of getting elected, keeping control, and increasing the wealth of the oligarchs. We haven’t come close to defeating the Fascism arrayed against us right now. We’ve barely kept the first attempt from succeeding while addressing NONE of the conditions which led us here. Until we greatly reduce the power of the oligarchs and keep them in check, we will simply face a Trumpian threat again and again.