The idea that one’s hair is on fire as a derisive comment may need some rethinking. If ever there were a time in America since the New York Tribune during the Civil War, now is a time when a scribe’s hair should be in flames. We are in the midst of a full-on fascist takeover, and the polite parlor talk from the media, which entertains us with faux arguments and staged yelling, is not a solution but a sideshow from what should be real panic. Critiquing the media is so hard for me; it pains my heart, as my great-granny used to say. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and seeing the Washington Post being destroyed by a corporate oligarch to appease Donald Trump is disheartening to say the least. Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, The Washington Post, and phallic rocket ships, is not alone. Others, like Mark Zuckerberg, have also fallen under the weight of their own dollars.
Truth has a liberal bias…
It has become a clichéd joke to minimize the effects of the truth on our discourse, with terms like “alternative facts.” Pundits on nightly and now daily shows are highlighting faux outrage, while at the same time subjecting the public to paid sycophantic excuses for the President’s racism and bigotry. The GOP’s obvious efforts to control elections and turn law into a weapon of mass destruction should send the media screaming at us daily in both print and visual media.
Warning: Language Courtesy: Yellow Dot Studios
The self-congratulatory fawning for access that has overcome our media will be its downfall. It is appalling to watch Donald Trump insult female reporters regularly who ask legitimate questions he does not want to answer, and the next reporter does not follow up. The censoring of the Steven Colbert show in recent days, which forced his interview with Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico onto YouTube, should have been met with outrage, not timid disapproval. The alleged maneuvering of the choice of late-night guests by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr—to most—was an attempt to censor the candidate, whether you agree or not, who is the most feared threat to GOP Senate control in Texas. The media has reached a nexus with the current president that has them believing that capitulation will stop the bully from taking their lunch money. After Steven Colbert fell under the jack boots of the administration, the bully came back for more and has turned the revered 60 Minutes into the untrustworthy vision of Bari Weiss.
ABC settled a dubious lawsuit with the President in hopes that he would no longer come back for their milk-and-cookie money. That strategy, which never works with a bully, just emboldened the administration to rid itself of Jimmy Kimmel. The power of the people, which is the saving grace to any authoritarian regime, stood in the breach, and Kimmel was returned to the air a week after his removal. After the death of preacher, activist, and two-time presidential candidate Jesse Louis Jackson, Mr. Trump published a series of pictures, in part to prove that, after his racist post of the Obamas as apes, the racism charge against him is false. In his written remarks about Reverend Jackson, he made sure to mention that Jackson disliked Barack Obama. “He had much to do with the election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who (sic) Jesse could not stand,” Trump wrote. Not a lot of people, black or white, are falling for the ruse by the President to convince us that his years of over-the-top racism can be explained away because he has black friends. People have to demand more of the media, which is the legacy of trust, and make it the watchdog again, not the lapdog.
Your Vote is Still Your Voice
