Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
Tapper's retweeting that "Trump is 100% insane" only further undermines the media by reaffirming for many that the media is campaigning against Trump rather than covering him. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
7:49 AM · Apr 7, 2020
UPDATE: Seems to follow the same idea. Sorta.
The Babylon Bee
@TheBabylonBee
Liberal Treated With Hydroxychloroquine Hopes He Still Dies Of COVID-19 To Prove Trump Is Stupid
NEW YORK, NY—When Jeffrey Walton tested positive for COVID-19, he hoped for a speedy recovery. But since he has been treated with hydroxychloroquine, the experimental treatment President Donald Trump ...
babylonbee.com 2:30 PM · Apr 7, 2020
I respect Turley. It doesn't mean that I always agree with him.
ReplyDeleteHe is consistent, doesn't seem to have an agenda, is open to persuasion, doesn't go the route of personal attacks, doesn't remain silent when the Left spreads lies.
All admirable qualities.
It would be nice if there was some sort of explanation as to how and why Trump is "insane." Thing is, it is something that is just assumed. There is rarely, if ever, anything to back up this.
ReplyDeleteEven worse, this tactic of making people mentally unfit is a page straight out of the old school communist playbook used extensively by the USSR.
The assumption of elites seems to be that anyone who isn't 'one of us' is by definition insane. Or something like that.
DeleteCNN has been discrediting itself since 2016.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and step-son hate Trump, and so they have CNN turned on whenever they want some news. I try not to pay attention to it, but I see enough to recognize that CNN is just Trump-hate 24/7.
I am happy that CNN's ratings remain low. Other people too recognize that CNN is just Trump-hate.
Informed criticism or disagreement is one thing, but simple Trump-hate is self defeating.
DeleteMuch, if not most, Trump-hate ultimately stems, from hate of Western Civ and the white patriarchy.
DeleteThese haters routinely attribute informed criticism or disagreement, to the basest of motives.
More details:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2020/04/07/cnns-tapper-insists-he-wasnt-calling-trump-insane-retweet
Trump is getting the Media to show their true selves. To unmask themselves. The daily briefings are doing a great job of that. I am amazed at who let in the China propaganda reporter into yesterday's briefing.
Thanks for the details.
Delete"Or something like that."
ReplyDelete6+ years ago, it was mostly *something* like that.
Nowadays, it's *quite* like that.
We (my family) are appalled, by the changes we're seeing in heretofore reasonable, "educated" people, who've become monsters spewing stuff, like their rooting for the virus to *bump off* DJT backers.
Some of these folks we've known rather (and some, *very*) well, for decades.
I'll quite bet, that this intellectual, emotional, and moral collapse owes much, to bullhorns wielded by folks like Bezos, Baquet, and Obama.
-->The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.<--
ReplyDeleteOK, who's insane? It might be the viewers who keep watching Jake Tapper/CNN, et al..
Remind yourself: Media is entertainment, and Jake Tapper is a sideshow clown pretending he's a carnival barker exhorting the public with attractions of novelty.
It's a derivative of "the disaster channel"--it's a car wreck you should avert your eyes from, but you can't. It's gripping, attention-grabbing, disaster porn--prurient with no redeeming attributes, meant to excite base emotions and voyeurism.
And that's why viewers watch.
Tapper's behavior seems to me to reflect a classic Marxist concept of 'truth' = whatever advances the cause. No serious person can maintain that Trump is in a clinical sense 'insane'--although that's the contention the Left is constantly advancing in the MSM. What it boils down to, then, is that for Tapper and his ilk 'truth' becomes 'whatever you can get away with.'
ReplyDeleteClassic Marxist, but recently, and stealthily, enshrined in Western higher-Ed, as post-modernism.
DeleteCNN became big due to the Gulf War. They had sole access to the Iraqi government. There was a reason.
ReplyDeleteThing is, they made a conscious decision to publicly ignore Iraqi atrocities. The reason put forth by Eason Jordon in 2003 was to protect CNN staff and reporters.
They had no issues covering a group of Navy SEALS coming ashore on a mission or giving the Iraqi propaganda head his time on air, but the abduction and torture of a CNN journalist or a young Iraqi girl tortured in front of her father in which she was later killed, dismembered and the pieces sent to her parents was not covered on purpose.
But, hey they got the market on news and made a boat load of $$.
Extensive (sometimes quite close) experience, w/ folks on the left side, leads me to this ballpark map of their mentalities:
ReplyDelete1) at least 1/3 have become radioactive sociopaths. I totally avoid them, and am open to exploiting opportunities to hinder them (by prudent, moral means).
2) c. 1/3 are in principle open to reasonable dialogue, but are rather haunted by fear of being doxxed etc. by the monsters, and so Go With Flow, and join in piling onto any Party Poopers.
3) c 1/3 are moderate liberals, who are (well?) on the way to facing the magnitude of crowd #1's sociopathic bent, and who toy with/ trend toward IDW-type thought.
If, say, Durham can make mega-busts of the D.S. plot vs. DJT, this last 1/3 may well get enough fire in belly, to dare to give the other two crowds quite an earful, so as to put these crowds quite on their heels.
Until then, expect the sociopaths to continue their current campaign, of intimidation of all dissent.
A *somewhat* similar ballpark map has existed and evolved, on the right side:
Delete1) Likely much under 1/4, the Conservatism Inc. types who had their heyday before DJT, and sneered at those questioning the "obvious" virtues of (e.g.) Seeing No Evil on the left, quasi- Open Borders, etc. This crowd has been increasingly on its heels, as these Lefties have kept showing more of their true colors.
2) At least 1/2, the Mainstream righties who once tagged along w/ Conservatism Inc., but who've recently been increasingly inclined to hear-out firm DJT backers, about the utter degeneracy of Lefty sociopaths.
3) Likely over 1/4, the *very* "Deplorable" firm DJT backers, whose fire-in-belly is increasingly affecting crowd #2.
4) The likely-smallest crowd, on the very Far Right, who see DJT as our first "Jew POTUS" in the pay of Wall St. etc. They were gaining ground before Charlottesville, and now wait in the wings, for the sort of help from events which Adolf got from the Depression.
Just adding to what you've already said, I think if whatever Durham, et al end up doing is enough to get Trump reelected and for the Dem Party to lose power generally, then and probably only then will you see many Dems start turning against this hoax / political prosecution crap. As long as it's actually keeping them in power, no meaningful amount of shame will be felt, and what little thee=re is won't have any effect at all.
DeleteJust IMO of course.
"what little thee=re is won't have any effect at all" upon the ones with power.
DeleteQuite so, but much less so, upon the ones with no real power.
For a view of the tension, between those with real power vs. the rest, see Julius Krein, at
https://americanAffairsJournal.org/2019/11/the-real-CLASS-war/ :
"The real class war is between the 0.1 percent, and (at most) the 10 percent— or, more precisely, between elites primarily dependent on capital gains, and those primarily dependent on *professional labor*....
the conspicuous embrace, of “elite values” by *journalists and academics*, is often little more than an *aspirational* attempt, to remain connected to an economically distant elite....
exacerbates the *temptation*, to double down on parts of the current paradigm— such as enlarging the NGO racket —which only *strengthens* the billionaires in the long term...."
I'll have to read that. I like it very much.
DeleteWhile I'll grant that the majority of journalists and academics may well stay w/ the Dems, no matter what, if a large minority flips toward us (e.g. like Dersh and the IDW), this could make a huge diff.
DeleteOf course, if DJT loses this Nov., the Lefty intimidation of which I write here will skyrocket, and many moderate liberals will beg the Dem brass for forgiveness (for their having toyed with heresy).
Aside from the Durham angle, another prospect for huge flight from the Left may stem, from the MSM demonization of choroquine.
DeleteTucker hammered away tonite, showing CNN etc. talking heads gaslighting, vs. DJT's "anecdotal" touting of this medicine.
Another interesting quote from Krein:
Delete"If more elite professionals remained *in the Republican* Party, they might take advantage of voter discontent, to challenge the billionaires, and replace the entire decrepit apparatus.
They would likely find that task *much easier* on the right, than it is in the Democratic Party."
Yet another prospect for huge flight from the Left, may emerge from the brewing row about China's pick to run the WHO.
DeleteLindsey etc. are seeking his head, while Fauci is sticking up for him.
Wouldn't it be a gem, if big links emerge between Fauci, China, the WHO, the Bidens, and the D.S.
It'd be the perfect storm, of the non-Lefty public vs. the Dem brass!!
Turley says: "Tapper's retweeting that 'Trump is 100% insane' only further undermines the media by reaffirming for many that the media is campaigning against Trump rather than covering him."
ReplyDeleteForbes responds: "Remind yourself: Media is entertainment, and Jake Tapper is a sideshow clown pretending he's a carnival barker exhorting the public with attractions of novelty."
Isn't it long past time that we simply accept what Forbes is saying and move on. CNN is not news. Its entertainment. End of story. Except this probably applies to Fox News, too.
Matt Taibbi (with whom many of you may be familiar) has just announced that he is separating from Rolling Stone to provide his brand of 'journalism' directly to readers. Here's a link to his announcement, which touches on many of the issues addressed above. Maybe he's on to something...
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/announcement-to-readers-im-moving
I disagree that we're faced with an either/or: news v. entertainment. There's another alternative which is called perception management or propaganda. People do watch outfits that claim to be purveying news and they're going to continue doing so. They may claim to be critically judging what they here, but they will nevertheless be influenced. Rejoinders such as by Turley are important in that context for maintaing morale among those of good will and also for providing a counter viewpoint--especially given that Turley's audience is overwhelmingly liberal.
DeleteI'll bet you meant "critically judging what they SEE here".
DeleteOf course, the point of MSM propaganda is to present their agitProp, as if it were normal news, this ploy being assisted by the entertainment aspects.
LOL! Mindreader.
DeleteMy apologies if I'm repeating myself. Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postmen wrote about the manipulative influence of media over 50 years ago. There's nothing (conceptually) new under the sun.
ReplyDeleteWhat is new-ish (since their time of writing), is the incorporation of drama by utilizing techniques from entertainment media into so-called news reporting--especially visual media. E.g., the use of B-roll and stock footage to accompany stories, and on-the-scene/on-the-street interviews that have zero news value, but introduce emotional drama. This is the disaster porn I wrote of above--it adds to the emotion, it doesn't add to understanding. Hence, it's functionally entertainment.
So-called news programming is filled with one-on-one interviews of secondary sources (other journalists, "experts," officials making pronouncements, special interest activists) all in pursuit of an agenda, with ethical conflicts, i.e. the appearance of a conflict of interest IS an ethical conflict.
Media's advertising revenue business model drives this relentless pursuit of an audience with outrage and sensation. The insane are those who believe this will change.
And in one sense, viewers shouldn't want it to change--people like Tapper are utterly transparent with such pronouncements. Are we better served if Tapper censored his true feelings, which pervade every pore of his soul, while using deception to insinuate he's reporting the "news" straight?
I don't watch him--that's how I deal with it.
I'm not disagreeing with any of that. Just saying that pointing it out is a very necessary, although perhaps somewhat tedious, chore. People need to be reminded.
Delete