If we save democracy, our ratings will tank!
Sadly, I see more and more traditional media outlets giving ground to authoritarian yakking points - I can’t even call them talking; they are just a smokescreen of manufactured nonsense. Most of the purveyors of this garbage are well aware that what they say is bullshit. Take Kelly Ann Conway: the famous line that she didn’t call them lies, she called them “alternative facts”. lol how cute! See what she did there? Like using “alternative” - a word often employed in political correct seeking for ann unloaded term? To justify just lying? And make the people questioning her so flummoxed they just back off- like did she really say that?
Now, I’m remembering Sara Longwell from the Bullwark, a while back. She came on a podcast/ video stream immediately after appearing on a panel discussion that included Kelly Ann, as well as other right wing MAGA figures, I think Mike Johnson maybe? I forget who all were there. She was visibly, audibly upset by the exchange, in which she deviated from the accepted “script”, of “this is how these shows / presentations go”.
Sara had done something quite untoward! Sara reported that she told the truth. She said what she felt and believed. She didn’t sit quietly through the lies. And she kept saying, as she recounted this… “I was so BAAD, you guys. No one will ever ask me back. I was BAD.” She seemed to really FEEL bad, because she had transgressed the social contract that usually governs these interactions: “ We all listen politely to opposing ideas, and try to find common ground, or to explain, with logic and facts, why we cannot agree.”
This is the scholar symposium / conference model. This is the model which was inherited by journalists, for “round table” television broadcasts. Let men/ women of goodwill sit and explain their ideas, and surely the truth will out!
Now, imagine that someone- say, an agent of an enemy state, or just a totally morally bankrupt human, looks at all this and says “but, how do you know these things are true? Why does this man allow his opponent to make him admit a point against his side? Why doesn’t he just do the Soviet thing and make a new fact up to counter that uncomfortable truth? It’s not like the audience will know !”
This all goes to say, one side is out there, fervently defending moral beliefs, seeking consensus, wanting to “make things better for everyone”. This means they are afraid of giving offence - often the most active in the Democratic Party and movement are the most offended, usually not even on their OWN behalf… usually it’s about some group they aren’t even a member of- for example who decided everyone has to put their pronoun on emails and everywhere ? Not trans people, who mostly (not always, but mostly ), try to blend into the gender they live within… anyway, that’s another day.
Ok so side One says : low taxes, family values, fiscal responsibility , personal freedom, government out of my business.
Side two says: health care for all, equality, progressive taxation where the wealthiest pay the most tax, equality and civil rights for all, pro choice, anti war, regulation necessarily constrains capitalism to keep people safe, rather than allowing them to be sacrificed to profit. Welfare. Old age pensions. Disability pensions.
Except side One will flip their position like a light switch, as soon as they see a benefit. Side One has no interest in seeking consensus any more . They are standing up on tv and podcasts and radio and just lying and they know it, they accept it, they think it’s funny.
Side two is just … buffaloed. WTF ?! This isn’t how it is supposed to go.
They are all LYING! They SAID this is bullshit. They admitted their guy is wrong five minutes ago. Then we hear the sideways references to “Republican friends tell me in private that Trump is senile and frankly evil, that he has no respect for law or the Constitution and his level of ignorance is terrifying.” As in “youfuckeryousaidthiswhenwespokeinprivateniwyoupretendheisagenius”.
The reporters and commenters and producers hear it all. They know it’s lies. Right out in the open. Why don’t they say “Confront them!!!”?
They are afraid of RATINGS. They are scared that these people will never come back on their shows, or their whole network. They are afraid the far right loonies and the campaign and Washington staffers will log into their medium and leave terrible reviews and comments critiquing them and their show. They are afraid of the far far right fascist psychos who send threats or dead animals or swat teams to their houses. They are afraid of being beaten in the streets by fanatics - stirred up by the dark corners of the internet.
The normies don’t know what the hell to do. They are afraid of being cancelled.
Executives shy away from confrontation, because most of all, they see that whenever Trump does something insane, it causes millions of viewers to tune in, in outrage. Trump getting ousted would kill their viewership. Audiences would be halved.
Media builds complicity because the producers can’t possibly get ratings like an actual insurrection against the US Capitol. Dragging out talk of the Muller Report? That took up a couple thousand hours. Then, the INSTANT Bill Barr stated “no charges” everyone just folded their tents up and walked off.
The Democrats, the media, they didn’t get the instant gratification of a sound bite, saying “criminal charges”, so they just fucked off. A few days later, some industrious reporters noticed that the actual report RECOMMENDED 10 charges of obstruction of justice be levelled against the President and his closed advisors, and that other charges could NOT be proven BECAUSE President Trump and his goon squad obstructed justice to avoid answering questions or providing evidence about potential crimes.
Biden was so boring, Rachel Maddow had to do a long series on historical American Nazis, just to keep things interesting.
On side One- all they care about is WINNING.
On side Two- they care about values, and playing the game the way their grandparents did, with tea and little sandwiches for after…
But all of them are getting rich off the spectacle of the downfall of civilization. Because without Trump, what else would they all talk about, 24/7? You might have to hire back a newsroom, CNN.