Trump’s fusillade of tyrannical behavior is giving the media a severe case of whiplash. The pardons, the lies, the illegal executive actions, the groundless accusations, the Nazi salutes, the delusional policy pronouncements – all of it combines to create a firehose of outrageous behavior – and the media simply can’t keep up. Right before our eyes, Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the America we’ve taken 250 years to build. And when it comes to reporting on it, the media has been caught completely flatfooted.
Let me suggest why:
The standard for political reporting has been the “horse race” – who’s winning, who’s losing and who said what this week. And the reporting is always “balanced” – featuring the false equivalency of “both sides-ism,” where truth and lies are given equal exposure.
Note to media outlets:
This is not a fucking football game. So stop treating it like it is. By reporting Trump’s actions as moves in some political game, you are doing America a grave disservice. Face it:
This is not politics. It’s war. And America is losing. In fact, the war may well already be lost.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but one thing’s for sure: the media has failed us miserably. And as a direct result, our very democracy now hangs in the balance.
Trump is waging war – a war against the American people, the Constitution and democracy. That’s how it’s manifesting itself; in reality, Trump is really at war with anyone who isn’t Trump. “All’s fair in love and war” is how the saying goes and the phrase has never been more apt (except for the “love” part, of course.)
Yes, it’s more information war than shooting war – thus far – but it’s war nonetheless. And in a war, people die. Trump’s lies have already been responsible for over 170,000 unnecessary deaths during COVID (read about it here.) That’s roughly three times as many Americans who were killed in the Vietnam War.
Trump’s final death toll is anybody’s guess. If RFK Jr. ends up serving as HHS Secretary, his anti-vaccine policy will undoubtedly kill thousands. Thousands more will die when (not if) Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are cut. (Bank on it.) And that’s just for starters. Trump’s plan to “delete the government” has already begun (see the Rachel Maddow link, below) and with Trump’s egregious violations of national security (see: theft of classified documents), Trump has declared open season on American targets for terrorists everywhere.
Putin, as former head of the KGB, knows exactly how to weaponize disinformation. He and Trump have been thick as thieves (literally) for years, so the world’s foremost expert on creating a totalitarian state has been on the case. And Putin has been doing a damn fine job.
Without Putin’s help in 2016, Trump never becomes president in the first place. Every Republican knows it, especially Trump, and they’re all bowing down to the former Soviet spymaster in willfully spreading his hateful disinformation, disinformation the media happily parrots in their mindless search for ever more eyeballs.
Like Putin, Trump will not be bound by any rules, nor will he stop short of total victory. Even Trump’s rich friends aren’t safe; all you need to do is take a look at the history of some of Putin’s oligarch friends to see how the story ends for all too many of them.
The point of this post isn’t to give a blow-by-blow analysis of Trump’s actions. There’s plenty of that already out there. Rather, my point is to show how everything Trump is doing is fits much better into the context of war than that of politics. A lot of people hate politics, a lot simply don’t understand it and a lot don’t even want to.
But everybody understands war. Especially Republicans. They use the metaphor all the time. (War on Christmas, War on Woke, InfoWars; the list goes on and on.)
Republicans have been at war with Democrats and the American people for years. And unless the Democrats get their shit together – and fast – the war is already lost. (We have some suggestions here.)
By its very definition, politics implies policy. There’s no policy behind Trump’s actions; Project 2025 is mere window dressing. It’s a fascist takeover, pure and simple.
Unless it’s stopped somehow (I don’t see how), Trump’s plan to buy out government workers will basically “delete the government” in one fell swoop. And even if that doesn’t succeed, Trump’s appointment of Project 2025 architect Russell Vought as head of OMB will give Trump total control over the nation’s purse strings.
Impoundment of funds is illegal (that’s what Trump’s first impeachment was for), but Vought supports it lock, stock and barrel. So once Vought is confirmed, it looks like game over to me, unless, of course, the Supreme Court stops him. (Don’t make me laugh.)
From National Womens’ Law Center:
“Through impoundment, the federal government would refuse to spend money Congress allocated, potentially even clawing back funding that has already been approved through the budget process, and instead use this money for purposes not approved by Congress. Vought doubled down on his views on impoundment during his confirmation hearing, stating his opinion that the law stopping impoundment is unconstitutional.”
Make no mistake about it: Trump is waging a war against American democracy and the American people. It’s a war which, if successful, will have one victor and one victor only: Trump himself.
Everybody else loses, including the suckers who fell for the con by voting for him. In fact, red state voters may be the hardest hit of all. Only time will tell.
But in the meantime, the daily – if not hourly – assault on America by its own president needs to be described as what it actually is:
War. And the media needs to start reporting it that way.
Must-Read Links
- Rachel Maddow reports on Curtis Yarvin, architect of the Trump plan to “delete the government” by offering buyouts to government workers while threatening their jobs at the same time. Chilling.
- Thom Hartmann: Trump’s Hostile Takeover of America: The Corporate Raider’s Final Heist
