Thursday, October 27, 2016

2016 Crisis Part 5: A Media Coup D'etat

The second Presidential debate was quite interesting. Besides my typical dismay about the fact that our choices are down to these two, I never cease to be entertained by the media. They were immediately fixated on a comment by Trump that when President, he would appoint an independent prosecutor to, as he said it, get to the bottom of what actually happened. He then later made a joke about that if he was in charge of the justice system Hillary would be in jail. I say that was a joke because he already said what he planned, to actually have a prosecutor appointed to get to the facts, not just outright jail her. But, that didn't stop the media from misinterpretting Trump's words to the absolute worst possible meaning. That, when elected, officers were going to show up at Clinton's doorstep with shackles and haul her off as a political prisoner.

Their outrage was obvious. "This is like living in a banana republic!" "This is the actions of a third-world dictator!" Blah, blah, blah. All the while missing what a third world dictator wouldn't do...which is to get to the truth through a transparent legal process.  You know, the type of legal process that was used to investigate Watergate, Iran/Contra, Valerie Plame leak, White Water, etc. If there is one thing we've learned through this investigation it's that the Justice Department and FBI seem incapable of investigating the Administration currently in power.

Then there was the next shoe to drop. Trump had answered that he never actually did the behavior that he discussed in the hot mic incident. Within a day, the floodgates began opening up of video testimony from women who claimed to be the victim of sexual assault.

(As a side note, just because I have a hard time letting any left-wing media hypocrisy go unhighlighted, I want to point out that groping in these terms and "kissing" woman without permission is now considered "sexual assault." During the Clinton scandals we were asked by the media if oral sex was really sex since vaginal penetration hadn't occurred. Just thought I'd mention.)

The video testimony didn't take long. Over the next few days I can summarize CNN's coverage as follows: Have a Trump surrogate on the panel, make the Trump surrogate watch the video tape of an alleged victim say in her words what happened, then turn to the surrogate and ask something like "how can you still support Mr. Trump given these revelations?"

If they even hinted that none of these accounts are actually proven, the women on the panel explode and ask "why would all these women lie?"

I'm sitting there, as a viewer, and as a US Citizen, and I wonder if this is how elections are always going to be in the future. Besides the fact they keep misrepresenting Mr. Trump has not talking about issues (he has given major policy speeches on a) the economy, b) immigration, c) the military and defense, and d) cleaning up corruption in government. During the entire campaign I can sum up the Clinton policy as making sure the rich pay their fair share and we don't build a wall. And, almost every time she is asked about policy, she refers the moderator to her web site.)  Issues really don't matter. Just has Saul Alinsky said, make your opponent a villain.

Hillary supposedly won all three debates. And, if you asked the media without forewarning them about where you would go with their answer, they would most likely summarize those victories for these reasons: Debate 1: She pounded Trump on not releasing his taxes and Alicia Muchado comments, Debate 2: He threatened to imprison her and said he didn't sexual abuse women, which they were able to discredit, and Debate 3: He said he wouldn't commit to conceding until he actually sees what happens during the voting process.  They would never even attempt to convey that she convinced the majority of Americans that building a wall is wrong, that lowering corporate taxes isn't a good way to stimulate the economy, that re-negotiating NAFTA isn't the correct thing to do. I could go down a laundry list of items that Trump's issues align with the majority of Americans. All of which Clinton has done nothing to persuade the majority of Americans that they are wrong. All of her "victories" are all about how she has been able to personally demonize Trump, all of which are amplified for about a week following the debate, with video tape, on all media outlets.

So, if we go back to the poor Trump surrogate sitting on the panel, when they are confronted with the video tape, I wonder what the reporter expects them to actually say. They fake surprise when they defend Trump is almost as if they expect them to say "Yep, your right. We give up."

Never mind the fact that he is a major party nominee, has the support of millions of America. The fact that hey five, even ten women, or maybe even more, who are willing to come forward and say he is or was a scoundrel, that alone overshadows everything. Let's be clear, we are talking about allegations with absolutely no corroborative evidence, no contemporaneous complaints of any kind. In fact, one of the biggest reasons sexual abuse or assault sometimes goes unreported is because the man, or the one doing the assault, has all the power. But in one case, we are actually expected to believe that a reporter for a magazine that is expecting to write a story about Mr. Trump's first wedding anniversary, was assaulted when his wife left the room. Seriously. She had all the power in this scenario. He knew she could write anything she wanted to in the story. The actions were actually germane to the story. I mean, isn't the fact that the husband is hitting on the reporter a point of discussion in an article about the state of his marriage? It is the most ludicrous assertion.

But again, I don't want to look just at that. I want to discuss what we as voters are supposed to do with these sorts of things. I mean, in the last election it was that Romney didn't care about a fired employee whose wife had cancer, or that he put his dog on the roof of the car so that it wouldn't vomit in their car. Or, the election before that when McCain had a supposed affair with a lobbyist, that we were later told by the Washington Times that they never really meant to insinuate he had an affair. Or, before that the fake documents that showed Bush never really did his national guard service. Or perhaps before that Bush's DUI arrest just days before election. It seems as if they are getting more serious about personally destroying any Republican nominee. It seems more extreme this year because Clinton is such an awful candidate. I recognize the warts of Trump. And, I recognize that for a lot of Americans they have a difficult time accepting that he might actually be President. I do understand. But, those feelings doesn't give the media the license to do what they are doing.

We are a nation of 320 million Americans. Of those, about 220 million are eligible to vote. The will of those 220 million cannot be governed by the uncorroborated, unprovable allegations of ten to fifteen women. We cannot give that much power to that few. You cannot run a democracy this way. We have freedom of the press to protect our democracy, not to attack it and try to control it. I'm not saying you don't report these incidences, but I am saying that you try to put them into some proper context and proportionality. With each passing day the media sound more like petulent children, trying feverishly to find a new allegation that will help them get what they want. But, allowing about 100 media elites and a few women making allegations just a month before an election, determine who are next President is nothing short of a media coup d'etat. Please don't give them this much power.

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