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Two facts (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/aiop@lemmy.world
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If we survive this time, two facts mustn't be forgotten: ① Corporate journalism couldn't tell the truth, that a madman was in the White House, and ② Democrats were never an opposition party.
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[–] 14 points 8 months ago* (8 children)
  1. Corporate journalism couldn't tell the truth, that a madman was in the White House

The national news services were, if anything, too hysterical in describing Trump as a "madman". Neocon Don was right in line with the long legacy of Nixonian Republicans. And he delivered policies popular among business conservatives going straight back to Eisenhower.

But because any criticism of Trump that ran afoul of a broader indictment of US imperial foreign policy, capitalist economic policy, or unitary executive theory got dismissed as "too leftist", what you were left with was largely court gossip about who the President was currently fucking and whether or not he was about to die of dementia or COVID.

"He's crazy because he too old and fucks hookers" wasn't the kill shot liberals desperately needed it to be, especially when Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer were their proscribed panacea.

  1. The Democrats were never an opposition party

Ain't that the fucking truth.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 8 months ago (7 children)

    The national news services were, if anything, too hysterical in describing Trump as a “madman”.

    When was this? I follow news fairly closely, and never heard anything like this beyond an occasional op-ed column or a direct quote. A madman in the White House needs to be newsworthy beyond the opinions page.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    never heard anything like this

    The 10 worst things Trump did in 2019

    I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration. I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

    Ken Griffin, Republican Megadonor, Is Wall Street’s Loudest Trump Critic

    We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated. The president and his enablers have replaced conservatism with an empty faith led by a bogus prophet.

    Republicans, it’s time to choose between autocracy and a republic

    Like, always and forever, these criticism are from some Bush Era flaks and other "moderate" reactionaries. But they were littered all through the back end of the Trump 1 regime and early 2024 election cycle.

    A madman in the White House needs to be newsworthy beyond the opinions page.

    At the very least, the dementia allegations have been front-page news since his first election campaign back in 2016.

    After that, I'm not sure what you're asking for. Trump isn't a foreign leader, so you're not going to see the kind of truly hysterical coverage we reserve for enemy nations. One of the perks of running the secret services is that you can just fire all the guys who publish that shit. Not a coincidence that Trump took a hatch to the State Department in his first term nor that his first move in term two was to ax Voice of America and the USAID program. When these calls are coming from inside the house, just cut the phone lines. Problem solved.

    Trump building a much closer relationship with Silicon Valley also curbed the negative coverage, given that virtually every major news organization is now owned or administered by a tech company. So you're not seeing "madman" coverage anymore, thanks to Trump's move to cozy up with the people who run the news business. But it wasn't abnormal to read about it five years ago.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    After that, I’m not sure what you’re asking for.

    Well, wouldn't say I'm "asking," because you & I already know the answer is no. Sanewashing is all we'll get, with Trump's meandering statements and destructive policies presented blandly. Months and months of his tariff pronouncements, with media rarely mentioning that they're illegal; his routine insults and firings for blacks and women, without mentioning in the headline or paragraph one that the insults and firings are wildly black- and woman-centered; all his daily drivel on Truth Social, without saying in plain English that it's crazy.

    Your listed links are all op-eds or reports quoting someone, but America needs to hear Trump is a madman as news coverage, not a column or commentary. It's not an opinion; Trump is a madman, ipso facto pepto bismo. Facts ought to be reported factually.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    Months and months of his tariff pronouncements, with media rarely mentioning that they’re illegal;

    I mean, they're not illegal in any material sense. Even when the SCOTUS finally got off it's ass to give a ruling (5-4) they didn't actually establish a way for anyone to get their money back

    Your listed links are all op-eds or reports quoting someone

    That's all modern journalism is anymore.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Tariffs are a Congressional function. They've handed limited tariff authority to the White House, pre-Trump, but Trump's tariffs are beyond those bounds, and were illegal via common sense long before the Supremes heard the case.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Tariffs are a Congressional function. They’ve handed limited tariff authority

    Like so much else, they're functions that the legislature has empowered the executive to administer.

    Congress hates doing anything. And so we've spent decades vesting more and more power into the President, creating the modern day unitary executive.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    And I've always wondered ... why?

    The Congressional habit of yielding power seems so at odds with... everything I've ever seen and (pretend to) understand about human nature.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Because Congress operates slowly and as a majority lead unit, any individual representative rarely gets everything they want. But a friendly relationship with an autocrat can deliver so much more.

    Especially when you pull a Rubio or Cheney and jump from the legislature to the executive.

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