The election of Donald Trump almost ten months ago proved, not suggested, but proved, the irrelevance of the mainstream media. I didn’t think we had to keep restating this and wish Rush Limbaugh would quit saying that their medicine is still very great, just to make his own medicine appear great.
Milestone after milestone since January have re-proved this observation, that most of the people, not only those who voted for Donald Trump, but many who didn’t, except for several establishment Republicans in Congress and that narrow band of a few million along the liberal coastal corridors, and their recently graduated children, know the Media has lied, to the point they take their lying for granted. They don’t even bother to fact-check any longer. So now the media is disbelieved even when they tell the truth….which mean the way back to public acceptance and respectability for several networks and print newspapers may be slow, and probably measured by individual writers and journalists and on-air commentators, and not networks. If a narrative has been established it’s that the Washington Post can’t be believed, or that CNN lies with a bald-face, on purpose, except among that narrow band of aforementioned leftists who want to believe the lie in the first place..
This film falling from the media’s eyes may have come about only in the last day or two, with the unraveling of the Charlottesville narrative about Good vs Evil and the associated narratives about the justifiable defensive nature of the Antifa terror groups. It took almost two weeks for it to sink for the Media and political establishments, but was almost instantaneous among the people, to wit: almost in unison 1) the New York Times admitted five misquotes (lies) of Donald Trump about the equal guilt of parties at Charlottesville, 2) the turning on Antifa by Nancy Pelosi after having sicced them on the Prayer Rally in San Francisco only a week ago, (without any admission of prior guilt, of course), 3) the timely confession by Speaker Paul Ryan, after Pelosi confessed, that he too misspoke about Trump’s comments on Charlottesville, proving once again the true meaning of the word “Leader” and if there is one in the House, it sure ain’t a Republican, 4) the equally well-timed admission by the mayor of Charlottesville that he too misspoke about Trump’s comments, and the relative virtues of Antifa, 5) the highly publicized Marist poll, reported here, that a 65% of white and Hispanic Americans, and even a plurality of black Americans, by a 44%-41% margin, favored keeping confederate statues undestroyed. (Either Black Lives Matter weren’t consulted or there just aren’t that many of them in the African-America community.) and finally perhaps, 6) a concerted campaign by a few of the Fox News more outspoken commentators (who I stay up late enough to watch) especially Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Mark Steyn, who’ve bothered to carry the Antifa story into an inglorious retreat.
Now all these events took place in a short space of time, and why the quick turnaround is simply because of the simple point I made at the beginning. Regular people no longer believe the media, and even Nancy Pelosi found it out.
Now don’t look for a Night of the Long Knives, as Hitler’s Storm Troopers received once they no longer suited his purposed, but Antifa have lost much of their political base.
And Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe, his preferred successor, Ralph Northam, and Mayor Michael Signer of Charlottesville all saw a 12 point flip in polls before and after Charlottesville in a 7-day period when Ed Gillespie (the GOP candidate) had absolutely nothing brilliant to say.
Even Paul Ryan isn’t sleeping better, in part because his mea culpa sounded too much like a mea culpa, and it wasn’t the least bit leaderly. Nor did it appear spiritually or morally heartfelt, but more like a CPA’s report to the press about a corrected tax return. In fact he sounded exactly like Leader Nancy Pelosi.
All these things occurred because the people, simple-minded but observant, didn’t believe a single thing the Media or their the political class said.
This week has been the greatest re-proof of media irrelevance since the inauguration. And a few will try to come back, only, like a hot bath, by first sticking their toe in. It’s been awhile since many of them have known clean hot water. I think others, however, will be unable. CNN seems to already to have become a parody of themselves, most of their viewers watching for amusement more than content anyway. I’ve always believed many MSNBC and CNN shows have more conservative viewers than liberal anyway, there just for the same reason Mexican kids would build a ring around two scorpions, set it afire, then watch them sting themselves to death.
Now we can watch Antifa do the same. They may soon walk into a trap, in some blue safe space like Berkeley, and find themselves surrounded with n0 escape. And it will be Sonny’s Bar all over again. If I know the Left they may soon become expandable, or worse, have to regroup and repackage/rebrand, perhaps as they appeared in their Occupy Period. Remember, most of these are not True Believers, but Space Captains and mercs. Getting a year in jail and being beaten up by real bad guys, or getting their leg broken, isn’t part of the contract they signed in their mind.
We’re winning, Winning big, even. I can’t say as much for Republicans.
