Turning the purely ratings-driven platforming of a spectacle that only helps the far-right demagogue who once before tried to abolish democracy and constitutional government as a necessary civic service to get Libs and Lefties to leave their echo chambers is utterly cynical and insulting. 1/
The claim itself is laughable. No one learned anything new from the Trump town hall. We are about eight years into the Trump-as-leader-of-the-Right experience - there is no journalistic justification for what CNN did. Forget the “exposing him” nonsense: If that actually worked, we wouldn’t be here. 2/
This whole affair should serve as a reminder that the mainstream media will not change its approach. It’s futile to keep shouting “Have they learned nothing?!” They evidently haven’t - or, more precisely: They reject the lessons the (small-d) democratic camp wants them to learn. 3/
The mainstream media is not coming to the rescue of American democracy. The struggle against both Trump the person and Trumpism the political formation will have to be won in spite of a media environment that provides fertile ground for this kind of rightwing extremism. 4/
The cynical “You need to get out if your silo” spin is also indicative of how pervasive narratives of liberal “echo chambers” and “tribalism” on #BothSides - highly misleading dogmas that do not hold up empirically - are being weaponized in order to justify pseudo-journalism. 5/
@tzimmer_history “Simultaneously, in the most complete ambiguity, they [media] propagate the brutal charm of the terrorist act, they are themselves terrorists, insofar as they themselves march to the tune of seduction.”
Let’s remember this every time we come across an “expert” or pundit who belongs to the sprawling industry that thrives on obscuring rather than clarifying the conflict with such “tribalism” nonsense and prescribes nothing but vacuous “reaching out” gospel. It’s actively harmful. 6/
The argument is not that the established media should ignore Trump, that he and the forces that have fueled his rise would vanish if we only pretended they didn’t exist. But this wasn’t critical coverage - it was a spectacle staged in accordance with the demagogue’s preferences. 7/
But, again, we have been having this exact debate for many years. At this point, we are looking at a complete inability and/or unwillingness to “learn” - because financial incentives, ideological preferences, and the dogmas of neutrality-theater journalism all point in the same direction. /end
@tzimmer_history Minor quibble. I don't think this is about actual financial incentives. CNN may be aiming to pick up RWNJ viewers, but they never will. The brand has been toxic with them for years and FOX is losing viewers to more rabid outlets, not less rabid ones. At best this is an attempt by management to spin a very short term narrative because they know there is no audience for the current product of both-siding.
@MikeBon Yes, but in a less direct way than most people think. CNN CEO Chris Licht likely is doing what the parent company's most influential shareholder, John Malone, wants. The parent company, Warner/Discovery, makes so much money that Malone doesn't care whether CNN itself makes money, because putting Trump and other Republicans in power will make him FAR more money than even a highly profitable CNN will. So he wants CNN to get Trump & Republicans elected. That's where the money is.
@tzimmer_history@RiaResists The tsunami of negative feedback to #CNN was a good start. I personally removed the CNN bookmark and blocked it in Google News. At least these news orgs need to realize there will be a cost when they give fascists unfettered access to public airwaves. It is the duty of news to support democracy. Drum them out if they won’t.
Anderson Cooper telling folks that they MUST listen to both sides is classic CNN bothsidism.
By this twisted logic, we are mandated, by a false sense of "fairness", to listen to the manifestos of mass shooters, consider the "good parts" of slavery, and weigh the pros & cons of an anti-democracy movement.
Hard pass.
Life is short, don't waste it listening to the ravings of a conman funded by Republican billionaire donors.
@Npars01@tzimmer_history it makes me bring up his background. Raised in a family of oligarchs (historically) might color his ability to see this clearly
“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the #masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.”
@Npars01@tzimmer_history i agree with you. However, did he actually say that? I heard him say that we can choose to only listen to pls that agree with us/that we agree with or listen to other side, not necessary Trump. But Trump will most certain be GOP president candidate.
In the clip I saw, he said we could go ahead and never watch CNN again, but we needed to understand that about half the country supports Trump, and just because we may want Trump.to go away,we can't stay in silos.
Paternalistic crap. They only did this for us because we can't see the threat at hand.
Anderson Cooper is lying about "half the country voted for Trump"
In 2016, Trump only won by 70,000 votes in three states by having Russia microtarget certain counties with disinformation.
Trump lost in 2020 by over 7 million votes, this, despite a flawed census and redistricting that turned Democrat counties red through gerrymandering & voter suppression.
The percentage of Americans who vote Republican is expected to continue to shrink.
1/2
No one talks any more about Paul Manafort passing internal campaign data to Russia via via via for the 3 states Trump won with a combined margin of 70K votes.
@DemocracySpot@Npars01@Hey_Beth@jimpalimpa@tzimmer_history And no one talks about Bernie’s Campaign guy Tad Devine’s close ties to Manafort. Or that he emailed Manafort twice asking for work in the month or so before going to work for Bernie. Bernie who’s surrogates propagandized his voters with recommendations for non voting or voting 3rd party, demonized Hill even after the primary & got zero push back from St Bernard #farL
@Pineywoozle
LMAO- no one talks about Clinton's pied piper strategy of boosting trump to the top of pack by telling the media to take him seriously so that other republican candidates would have to be even more extreme in their positions, and so HRC wouldn't have to go up against another centrist like bush.
That's the rub of the two party system and a main reason why I want proportional representation. New parties should emerge and have their place in a nation's history.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
At this point, all options should be considered, because our particular two-party system has been devolving across all 3 branches. Whether it's PR, ranked-choice, or LOTS of tweaks (like term-limits, nixing the electoral college, etc.), I think the major change that will have to happen is getting substantial control of the money in politics- both election spending & lobbying. It's insane & obscene. @Pineywoozle@DemocracySpot@Npars01@Hey_Beth@jimpalimpa@tzimmer_history
The problem is the wealth concentration itself at this point.
Because wealth organized in the 70s to capture government (which is another way of saying quietly perform a coup), we live in a far different kind of political system in kind and nature.
Their political industry, Cato, Heritage, ALEC, Federalist Society etc is the political system
You already have Term Limits - it's called "The Vote". Don't want your representative? Don't vote for'em. Don't want mine? Tough - it's none of your business.
All "Term Limits" do is allow you to tell me who I can vote for.
@video_manager
So we should get rid of term limits for prez? Toss out the 12th amendment, & article 2- don't want anyone telling me I can't vote for a 34 year old non-natural born citizen!
How about the supreme court? I never voted for Alito, but he's there for life.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I'm hard pressed to think of many politicians with that level of competence and experience who haven't. I keep hearing about 'negatives' but mostly in very vague terms. So no, I don't actually know what they are. I've heard she was competent as Secretary of State and worked well with people of both parties.
@Npars01 Anderson Cooper got stern with the nation in defense of Donald Trump. He has a lot of masks, but chose the authority figure for lecturing us about our failure to properly appreciate the party CNN threw for a gangster rapist. I've never been so done with a group of people in all my life.
According to Susan Ronald's "Hitler's Aristocrats" it's common for the scions of Gilded Age robber barons to be anti-democracy.
It's not simply conservative beliefs, it's a fear of a democracy that has the power to thwart the inherited wealth needed to creates their leisure class.
The wealthy disguise their antipathy to the working & middle classes by calling it "anti-communism", it's really corporate fascism.
Republican billionaire donors fear a democracy where they are required to pay taxes, obey the law, stop frying the planet, and accept the existence of a multiracial pluralistic democracy where everyone can vote.
@Npars01 It sounds silly but it's like when people pretend that LIV Golf is just another tournament and not the creeping spectre of Saudi authoritarianism and the bitter, bloody fruits of its unlikely alliance with Christian Dominionism.
"There is nothing in journalistic standards that says you have to give a platform for someone to spread lies, even if they are a senator or representative (or even the [ex-]president)...
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