Rich Lowry, no great fan of Trump, writes what I think is a very astute column on the antics of parts of the media concerning recent “stories” about the man:
For all that Trump complains about negative press coverage, he wants to be locked in a relationship of mutual antagonism with the media. It behooves those journalists who aren’t partisans and reflexive Trump haters to avoid getting caught up in this dynamic. If they genuinely want to be public-spirited checks on Trump, they shouldn’t be more bitterly adversarial, but more responsible and fair.
This means taking a deep breath and not treating every Trump tweet as a major news story. It means covering Trump more as a “normal” president rather than as a constant clear and present danger to the republic. It means going out of the way to focus on substance rather than the controversy of the hour. It means a dose of modesty about how the media has lost the public’s trust, in part because of its bias and self-importance. None of this is a particularly tall order. Yet it’s unlikely to happen, even if it was encouraging that so many reporters opposed BuzzFeed’s decision. The press and Trump will continue to be at war, although only one party to the hostilities truly knows what he is doing, and it shows.
Sense can break out from unlikely quarters. This article by Piers Morgan, focusing on the absurd treatment of Trump, is right on target. Parts of the media, at any rate, does understand the self-inflicted mistakes the media is making, and that this must stop.
The press conference will go down in history as the moment when the 4-year hate formally started. Sort of like the invasion of Poland and Pearl Harbor mark the start of WWII for Europe and the US.
I doubt very much that the media will temper its attitude. Trump is not going to change, and all the people who despise him are not going to change. And those people drive the media frenzy.
“Parts of the media, at any rate, does understand the self-inflicted mistakes the media is making, and that this must stop.”
I am sorry but i don’t understand how people keeping giving the benefit of doubt that “media”.
They are Marxists. Their objective never was to give the news. Their objective is to indoctrinate.
The attacks against Trump are not worse than the auto censorship about Obama abuses.
I’m not sure why it “must stop” since it is causing the worst parts of the leftist press to whip themselves up into an atavistic frenzy seeking a return to the not-so-good old days when people took newspaper copy at face value.
The more manufactured (or at least excessively biased) news that the leftist media puts out the more their own readership are put off by it. Sure, it will attract the blowflies of the Social Justice mob, but that is to feed off the carcass.
As readership of the mainstream media declines, so does their income and their influence. I cannot wait for the day when the Grauniad finally declares bankruptcy caused by them alienating their general readership to become an echo chamber for the SJW crowd, who will praise them all the way to the bankruptcy courts.
When your enemy is making a mistake, don’t interrupt.
The “mainstream” media (including the entertainment media) reflects the attitudes they received from the education system – the schools and the universities, and this reflects the doctrines of the Frankfurt School “Political Correctness” or “Critical Theory” (which is never “critical” of socialism – for obvious reasons).
Even when one goes the cinema (as I did yesterday) one is bombarded by the messages of the Frankfurt School of Marxism (so called “cultural Marxism”) – and before the film even starts. The advertisements are full of “anti sexism”, “anti racism”, “environmentalism” – basically “Down with Capitalist Big Business!” and paid for by…. “Capitalist Big Business”.
Making an advert about the goods and services your company produces? Oh dear me NO – an advert must have a leftist “social message”. And again this is before the film even starts.
The film will have “subtle” touches like the bad guys having Texas number plates (even if this bit of the film is set in California) and the camera will linger on the number plates so that one gets the message “Texas is evil”, ditto “traditional religion is evil”, “big business is evil”, even “men who dress in suits are evil”.
It is not always as extreme as Matt Damon hunting down “the rich” in outer space to make them provide free health care for the masses (that actually was the story of one film) – but the general message is on these lines (just a bit more subtle than the crude Marxism of Matt Damon – which is basically Marxism after a lobotomy).
Attacking Donald Trump is just a small part of the general Frankfurt School approach – it is not just that he is white, male and heterosexual (three crimes right there), Mr Trump also clearly enjoys his wealth and does not constantly apologise for it by denouncing success and praising “Social Justice” – so Mr Trump must-be-destroyed.
Still – a note of warning.
The “alternative” to the Frankfurt of School of “Cultural” Marxism (the Hollywood crowd and the television stations and newspapers – all stemming from the education system) is often just as bad.
Often it is just another form of collectivist “Identity Politics” – just the Black Flag rather than the Red Flag.
Fascism and National Socialism are no solution for the Marxism of the “mainstream” media and the education system.
Both the Red Flag of the media and the education system, and the Black Flag of the “alternative” produce nothing, in the end, apart from ashes and dried blood.
It’s been the same with every Republican president in my lifetime, tribalism.
The difference today is that Trump does not need the mainstream media, he has Twitter and YouTube, who are highly unlikely to ban him no matter what he says.
Lowry really gives away his sympathies. I’ve wanted him to take a vacation for quite a few months now, or at least be honest and publicly claim the mantle of a Hillary Democrat.
Why would ostensibly Republican pundits concentrate so heavily on advising Democrats how best to quell Trump? STFU.
Why? Why must it stop?
I’d say that much progress towards a better world hinges on this NOT stopping.
Exactly so–it must go on and accelerate.
“This article by Piers Morgan…is right on target.”
Someone please remind me, which sign of the apocalypse is this one? I’ve lost track…
This is making Bush Derangement Syndrome seem like a case of the sniffles by comparison… Trump Derangement Syndrome is more like full on dementia
I love these retarded ‘calls for civility’ designed to re-establish the DC cocktail party schedule, especially from most of the National Review guys.
At best, Trump’s going to be a mixed bag for individualism and personal freedom, but I hope we can all agree that he’s going to entertain us for the next 4 years.
We do live in interesting times though, where we can agree with both Piers Morgan and Glenn Greenwald.
Jonathan, the link under Piers Morgan leads not to his article, but to a search page.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4110700/PIERS-MORGAN-hookers-story-cheap-lazy-journalists-ran-fake-Trump-sleaze-urinate-presidency.html
Thanks Bobby – meanwhile I also found this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4102026/PIERS-MORGAN-Sorry-Meryl-hypocritical-anti-Trump-rant-easily-worst-performance-career-apart-time-gave-child-rapist-standing-ovation.html
We do live in interesting times indeed…
Sometimes I think of some poor schlub living in Pompeii in 79AD thinking that exact same thought . . .
Having now read Morgan’s article, and although I largely agree with it, I actually subscribe to Greenwald’s take on BuzzFeed in this context:
Bobby, I imagine the poor schlub was humming…
I’m torn between two views of the behavior of the press, and the media more broadly, since the election. The simplest view is just that it’s ongoing symptoms of cognitive dissonance — a continuing shriek of “This can’t be happening!” That seems accurate an accurate enough impression at the trench level.
At the strategic level, though — what the political leaders and media editors are thinking — I suspect that it’s more like political asymmetric warfare. They can’t confront and defeat Trump in open political battle, so the plan is to deny him initiative and momentum. Trump himself seems to aid this with his Twittering habits. As long as the media can keep him responding to some petty rumor or celebrity comment, they keep him from focusing on and advancing an agenda.
In this, however, I think they’re mistaken. Because it’s not the whole current Republican apparatus that’s being distracted — just a few top-level figures and Trump himself at best. The machinery of dismantling Obama’s “legacy” has been engaged, and grinds on unimpeded, and I suspect (as a non-fan of Trump’s) that delegating and multi-tasking is one of Trump’s legitimate strengths. The Left may fight what feels to them like a successful guerilla war against Trump for years, only to look back four years from now to find they haven’t successfully impeded much of anything.
Of course, at my most cynical, I doubt that actual policy results ultimately matter to much of anyone in the political class. It’s chiefly about the posturing — the maintenance and increase of power within the choir they preach to, and that financially supports them — and only secondarily about power in the wider world, and only after that about implementing policy.
It’s unfair to call it the Mainstream media (insert generic joke about mains and streams here.)
It would be more accurate to call them the Upper Class Media.
It is fortunate that Trump is aggressive, thick skinned, and the fighting kind, who hits back twice as hard as he gets (and enjoys it!). A more delicate soul would have been apt to succumb.
That is a necessary attribute that has been under-appreciated until now.
Not under-appreciated any time these last twenty years; just missing.
It is fortunate that Trump is aggressive, thick skinned, and the fighting kind,
A man who reacts the way Trump did to Meryl Streep is not thick skinned. He’s a very thin-skinned man, who simply cannot abide anyone taking a shot at him. Ever. That includes, unusually, an inability to let anything slide even from people who could be allies.
I didn’t think much of G W Bush, that’s what a thick skinned man acts like. People abused him, and he just ignored them and moved on.
The dossier is as idiotic as the whole Obama birther thing, but it’s worth noticing how the Beltway media treat one as serious and the other as fruit loops.
We’ve heard a lot of analysis on just how thin- (or otherwise) skinned Trump is. An attack on Trump has historically been an attack on the Trump Brand, and just as with Trademarks and Patents, if you do not protect your name, you weaken your case in the event of litigation. I see Trump’s responses being in the nature of a ‘brand defense’; sticking a flag in the ground as his objection to an attack.
Much was made during the primaries about his interactions with the other candidates, but note that at a certain point, a concession was made, an apology offered, a reconciliation brokered – and the story disappeared. That sounds more like a guy who’s very much in control of his emotions and capable at calibrating his behavior.
My belief (apropos of nothing but some anecdotal evidence) is that Trump may well be a vengeful, bombastic guy who can carry a grudge, but he’s got a well-tuned sense of self-control. I’d go so far as to speculate that EVEN with the “Melania Porn” reporting, his response was carefully planned and edited for tone.
It’s going to be interesting to see if he can be provoked into a genuine tantrum, because to date, we’ve not seen one.
“I didn’t vote for him but…” is becoming something I’m hearing quite often. In fact I blogged about it
https://ombreolivier.liberty.me/i-didnt-vote-for-him-but/
The fact that I’m finding myself
a) repeatedly agreeing with Piers Moron columns (a good 4 or 5 since Nov 8)
2) sharing Glenn Greenwald articles
has me concerned. Although the fact that many others are also in a similar boat does reassure me slightly. The fact that MSM and the sneering classes in general simply can’t figure out what they are doing astounds me. I thought they were the smart ones, they’ve told us so repeatedly
As the philosopher Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.
No, it mustn’t stop…at all. When left to their own machinations, we have absurdities like “Russia hacked the election”. But when someone publicly pushes back…hard…they drop their illusions and show the world exactly what they are, pathetic, weak, insecure liars. It’s GOOD that the common man is now distrusting legacy media, distrusting Leftist propaganda and distrusting our intelligence agencies. Lest we forget, this is the same CIA that ran/runs drugs during the Vietnam war and later, the same CIA that said yellow cake uranium was smuggled from Africa to Iraq for their weapons of mass destruction as a preface for invasion, the same CIA that said the Benghazi embassy fiasco was due to a spontaneous reaction to a youtube video.
They are the CHAMPIONS of lies. And when the FBI is not allowed to inspect the DNC’s computers, but must accept someone else’s report and they themselves have so little confidence in it that their own report front-page disclaimer states that they don’t stand behind their own report. We’re told by “Hollywood” and the press that we must accept what’s written in the report or be guilty of unAmericanism.
It all smacks of vast and deep stupidity.
No, the animosity mustn’t stop. Not ’till the swamp is drained and everyone laughs out loud at the liars, even the gullible and stupid.
FrancisT, Realize that hardcore leftism in America isn’t merely a worldview or opinion, it’s a crypto-religion. Otherwise “intelligent” people implode over cartoon drawings of Muhammad, and otherwise intelligent people think that Trump is going to put gays and the transgendered into internment camps. They’re losing their mind, not because they’re retarded, but because Trump is a walking blasphemy to them.
All this media wailing and rending of garments is probably not good for the country in the long run.
It’s so entertaining, though.
Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS.
Those exhibiting it will soon be ‘tedious’, and discredit themslves.
The CIA is, and always was, a joke. They don’t have a clue, know nothing, and were totally and absolutely surprised by everything that ever happened in the world. It’s an absolute and total waste of several dozen billions of dollars, their annual budget.
Their “terrible” reputation, of intervention in foreign regimes is all commie propaganda. They are, and always were, totally ignorant and incompetent. Now they are also as insane and politicized as the media, but they weren’t any use, never.
There were several reasons (some of them good) that we (libertarians and conservatives, fine people) didn’t like Trump (beside being too much influenced by the lying media).
One of the reasons was that he is a vulgar, bad-mouthed bully and blowhard. Now, I think we have to concede that his fighting spirit is an asset.
This is a great comment thread. For example:
“The fact that I’m finding myself a) repeatedly agreeing with Piers Moron columns… has me concerned.”
“As the philosopher Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.”
The communist media is behaving not unlike that bloke with the moustache in the film “Downfall”. Their world is falling apart, their orders have no effect but they can’t admit it.
In a democracy the left always creates chaos and the “right” enables it. The winner invariably is the left. What a surprise! 😀
I think the right/left (a false dichotomy) is equally driven by ideological bases. And I am with Wendy James on this.
The Donald is an arsehole. Full stop.
Personally, I couldn’t give a fuck about PPE stuff. I care about things like this:
http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/TechnicalReports/TechReports/2004/2004-11.pdf
(and not being taxed and being scrobbled for taking drugs etc.)
“Fascism and National Socialism are no solution for the Marxism of the “mainstream” media and the education system.”
Fascism came from Marxism.
And Karl Marx once penned an article desiring for a world without Jews.
Correct Lucklucky.
“This must stop”
Was it Napoleon who said you should never interrupt your enemy when he is busy destroying himself?