Charlie Pierce Tells the Truth About the Media

And their role in tearing this country to shreds.  Here's an excerpt from an excellent article from Esquire, the rest of which is well worth a read:

"You know who in the media really created He, Trump? Anyone who laughed at Ronald Reagan's casual relationship with the truth and with empirical reality. Anyone who blew off Iran-Contra. Anyone who draped C-Plus Augustus in a toga after 9/11. Anyone who cast Newt Gingrich as a serious man of ideas. Anyone who cast Paul Ryan as an economic savant, that's who. Anyone who wrote admiring profiles of how shrewd Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were. Anyone who put Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck on the cover of national magazines based simply on their ratings. Anyone who put Matt Drudge on a public-affairs program. Anyone who watched the conservative movement, the only animating force the Republican party has, drive the party further and deeper into madness, they are the ones who share the blame. He, Trump merely has taken the bark off ideas that were treated as legitimate for far too long by far too many people, most of whom don't really give a damn about the plight of the vanishing middle class except for its use as fuel for rage-based, self-destructive politics."

Well, of course, we are only allowed to have a couple of people like Charlie Pierce or Paul Krugman in the whole mainstream media who will actually tell the truth; and of course virtually none on TV; look how Keith Olbermann was shoved off the air.

I repeat my perpetual observation:  The Democrats could crush the Republican party into oblivion any time; what they cannot beat is the Republicans and the press, ganged up against them.

Comments

Marc said…
A renewed 'Fairness Doctrine" would go a long way, but the folks who would craft and pass such a thing don't exist in our government. One little light in the darkness is the news of iheartmedia impending bankruptcy. Short version, they were loaded up with debt when they were taken over by Bain Capitol and partners, aka 'leveraged buyout'. In true vulture capital form, the money is given to the acquiring companies, with the victim left to pay off the debt. Here is the Wikipedia run down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHeartMedia

From what I was reading elsewhere, the president of iheartradio was going to an emergency meeting to see about staving off the bankruptcy. Good luck with that. If they can't service their creditors, then their assets will be broken up and sold off to whomever is willing to acquire them at fire sale value - since they've probably been cannibalized to pay the debt up to this point.

Oh by the way, Bain Capitol? It was founded and once headed by Mitt Romney. You know, they guy who ran for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008 - the same year Bain Capitol took over iheartmedia. Then Mr. Romney did run for President in 2012, and well, was unsuccessful. Just sayin'...
Frank Wilhoit said…
The Press came along for the ride, and that is plenty culpable enough; but they didn't cause anything and couldn't have prevented anything. All that they, and the Republican Party, have done is give the People what they wanted. The People are the problem, in every time and place.
Green Eagle said…
Bain Capitol? All they exist for is to plunder corporations and destroy jobs. This is what "capitalism" is these days, and it's why socialism has a higher approval rating among Americans than capitalism. Never saw that happening, did they?

And as for the press not causing anything, I suppose I could enter into a discussion of the Aristotelian four cause theory here, but instead I will say that, for example, when the New York Times published all sorts of lies about Al Gore, and refused to confront the obvious inadequacy of George W. Bush, they certainly were a cause of what happened in the next eight years. And when they willingly published what I am sure most of the readers of this blog knew were lies from the moment they were told, they were a cause of the disaster in the Middle East stemming from the Iraq invasion. And when the press willingly presents the predatory schemes of Paul Ryan et. al. as brilliant policy analysis, they are a cause of economic disaster.
Pinku-Sensei said…
I have another link for you on this topic, Nate Silver's How Trump Hacked The Media. Trump has learned how to exploit the media's weakness in his favor. It doesn't hurt him that "politics is show business for ugly people." No wonder he's a natural.

As for Keith Olbermann, I've been a fan of his since he was a sportscaster on KTLA, TV 5 in Los Angeles, in the late 1980s. He's really great at telling the hilarious and outrageous truth about sports and politics. Unfortunately, he's apparently a huge pain in the @$$ for management, so they keep letting him go, much to the disappointment of his fans, like me. I once wrote out my hopes for his return to political commentary in Will Al Jazeera America hire Keith Olbermann? Current TV picked it up and put it on their website. That was the good news. The bad news was that they filed it under "humor." :-P
Green Eagle said…
Well, Pinku-Sensei, don't despair- remember that the only news shows that dares tell the truth are the "comedy" ones The Daily Show and its spinoff. A characteristic of authoritarian societies is that you can only tell the truth through comedy or science fiction.

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