billyerock1991
Gold Member
- Apr 24, 2012
- 7,106
- 506
- 140
Chris Hayes just nailed the "Trump phenomenon".
Last night Chris Hayes just put it better than anyone else I have heard so far. He had the wonderful Charlie Pierce on last night to discuss, what else, the Trumpster fire. He played a phone in interview that The Orange Julius had done that morning with CNBC. In it he once again insulted Elizabeth Warren by calling her “Pocahontas”, and accused the head of the Federal Reserve Board, Janet Yellin of being a political tool of Obama, even though the Fed is a completely apolitical department. More of the same for Trump.
That was the entire point Chris Hayes had to make. He quite correctly posited that Trump had made so many outrageous statements that the press had ceased to notice. To quote Chris from the segment, “You don’t cover the planes that land”. Charlie Pierce agreed with Hayes completely, stating that any one of 100 different Trump outrages would have killed the candidacy of any other candidate. Insulting a sitting U.S. Senator with a racial slur, proposing to ban Muslims, showing his ignorance by trying to politicize the Fed, but none of these stick.
Sadly, this is not new. In the 1930’s-40’s the Nazis went all in on “The Big Lie”. If you controlled the media, you could say almost anything you wanted to, and the press would report it. And it worked. People became numb to the news, they just came to accept whatever they were told, and if they disagreed with it, they kept it to themselves. The big difference is that the press in Nazi Germany had no choice but to go along. Here in the U.S., we allegedly have an independent press, that makes a difference. And NO, I was not claiming that Trump is Hitler, I am simply comparing the similarity.
Donald Trump is doing the exact same thing. When he started this campaign, his insults to Mexicans and illegal immigrants brought quite the firestorm, which was exactly what Trump wanted, he was calling his junkyard dogs . But as the atrocities continued to pile up, slowly but surely the press lost their interest. Instead of continuing to be appalled at the candidates behavior, it just became “more of the same”, they simply played the clip, or quoted him in their articles and let it go. This is the real problem here.
The difference between the United States and totalitarian countries is the fact that we have a “free” press to guide us with the real facts. And the press is failing miserably at it. They have become so used to the bullshit from Trump that they don’t bother to fact check, or do a little investigation into the veracity of Trump’s statements to provide context before just blanket reporting them as just another Trump “quirk”. And this is a problem. When the press stoops to chasing ratings or revenue by simply reporting what the candidate said, and not whether or not it could hold any water, they prostitute themselves, and they do a disservice to us, their readers, listeners and viewers. It must stop.
I give full kudos to Chris Hayes for bringing this issue into a clear and easy to understand focus, and I applaud Charlie Pierce for providing additional examples of the abject failure of the media. God knows Charlie is doing his part in his articles. Let’s just hope some more media flacks pick up on this trend.
I wonder when trump will start growing his little mustache that his hero had....
Last night Chris Hayes just put it better than anyone else I have heard so far. He had the wonderful Charlie Pierce on last night to discuss, what else, the Trumpster fire. He played a phone in interview that The Orange Julius had done that morning with CNBC. In it he once again insulted Elizabeth Warren by calling her “Pocahontas”, and accused the head of the Federal Reserve Board, Janet Yellin of being a political tool of Obama, even though the Fed is a completely apolitical department. More of the same for Trump.
That was the entire point Chris Hayes had to make. He quite correctly posited that Trump had made so many outrageous statements that the press had ceased to notice. To quote Chris from the segment, “You don’t cover the planes that land”. Charlie Pierce agreed with Hayes completely, stating that any one of 100 different Trump outrages would have killed the candidacy of any other candidate. Insulting a sitting U.S. Senator with a racial slur, proposing to ban Muslims, showing his ignorance by trying to politicize the Fed, but none of these stick.
Sadly, this is not new. In the 1930’s-40’s the Nazis went all in on “The Big Lie”. If you controlled the media, you could say almost anything you wanted to, and the press would report it. And it worked. People became numb to the news, they just came to accept whatever they were told, and if they disagreed with it, they kept it to themselves. The big difference is that the press in Nazi Germany had no choice but to go along. Here in the U.S., we allegedly have an independent press, that makes a difference. And NO, I was not claiming that Trump is Hitler, I am simply comparing the similarity.
Donald Trump is doing the exact same thing. When he started this campaign, his insults to Mexicans and illegal immigrants brought quite the firestorm, which was exactly what Trump wanted, he was calling his junkyard dogs . But as the atrocities continued to pile up, slowly but surely the press lost their interest. Instead of continuing to be appalled at the candidates behavior, it just became “more of the same”, they simply played the clip, or quoted him in their articles and let it go. This is the real problem here.
The difference between the United States and totalitarian countries is the fact that we have a “free” press to guide us with the real facts. And the press is failing miserably at it. They have become so used to the bullshit from Trump that they don’t bother to fact check, or do a little investigation into the veracity of Trump’s statements to provide context before just blanket reporting them as just another Trump “quirk”. And this is a problem. When the press stoops to chasing ratings or revenue by simply reporting what the candidate said, and not whether or not it could hold any water, they prostitute themselves, and they do a disservice to us, their readers, listeners and viewers. It must stop.
I give full kudos to Chris Hayes for bringing this issue into a clear and easy to understand focus, and I applaud Charlie Pierce for providing additional examples of the abject failure of the media. God knows Charlie is doing his part in his articles. Let’s just hope some more media flacks pick up on this trend.
I wonder when trump will start growing his little mustache that his hero had....
