{"id":32534,"date":"2024-03-28T13:08:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T20:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32534"},"modified":"2024-03-28T13:08:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T20:08:29","slug":"the-mainstream-media-isnt-the-bulwark-against-totalitarianism-we-wish-it-were","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/28\/the-mainstream-media-isnt-the-bulwark-against-totalitarianism-we-wish-it-were\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Mainstream Media\u2019 Isn\u2019t the Bulwark Against Totalitarianism We Wish It Were"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Charles Pierce\/Esquire<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"TheDonald Trump. (photo: Intercept)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

27 march 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s not 1993 anymore, so we better stop acting like it.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

On the electric Xwitter machine, Brynn Tannehill brilliantly eviscerated<\/a> this hopeless Politico <\/em>piece about the consequences of a Trump presidency<\/a> that makes Pollyanna read like Mickey Spillane. I recommend reading all of Tannehill\u2019s demolition, but in light of events over the weekend, I\u2019d like to concentrate on one element of the Politico <\/em>story\u2014the one that deals with my chosen profession and its continuing failure properly to confront the threat posed by El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago. <\/em>In fact, the author cites the \u201cmainstream media\u201d as one of the primary bulwarks against encroaching authoritarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But the problem for him will be the persistence of the old guard\u2014the independent media outlets and mainstream news channels which do not sing from the MAGA hymn sheet and continue to provide good journalism to raise questions on his judgment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The author, a Turkish journalist who lived through the rise of authoritarianism in that country, argues that because it took several years for Tayyip Erdogan to take over the \u201cguardrail\u201d institutions in that country, we should calm down about a second term for the worst vandal ever to sit in the White House. On that theme, the piece argues that it took Erdogan a decade to defang the Turkish media so, therefore, our sturdier media infrastructure will prove to be an indestructible wall. Two events over the weekend made me wonder if that wall is the equivalent of the Maginot Line, if not the South Fork Dam in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First came the preposterous hiring of Ronna McDaniel by NBC News. This has raised holy hell online and, apparently, within the network itself. McDaniel appeared on Meet the Press <\/em>on Sunday, which put new host Kristen Welker in a position so awkward that even Chuck Todd noticed. The corporate mentality that thinks that McDaniel, a serial poolroom liar who was up to her eyeballs<\/a> in the white-shoe side of the insurrection, especially in her native Michigan, is a \u201cget\u201d is a sign of softheadedness in the elite political media that may well be terminal. (The person behind the hiring of McDaniel, NBC senior political VP Carrie Budoff Brown, used to be the editor of Politico, <\/em>so the great circle of banality has become complete.) Even on the level of political analysis, what does McDaniel bring to the dance? She presided over three crash-and-burn electoral cycles. She left the party broke and in thrall to the crazies with whom she allied herself for purely careerist reasons. She was a demonstrable failure as a national chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came this Maureen Dowdiest of Maureen Dowd columns in Sunday\u2019s New York Times. <\/em>As is her wont, Dowd came to grips with an important political issue\u2014the inability of washed-up political consultants<\/a> to tell dirty jokes to college students. It\u2019s a world gone mad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI said: \u2018Here\u2019s what you\u2019re going to do. You don\u2019t pop it like you see in the movies or you\u2019re going to poke somebody\u2019s eye out. You take the foil off. Now you\u2019re going to take a dishcloth, and you\u2019re going to execute the classic counterclockwise movement. The bottle is going to go one way; the cork is going to go the other way. You just ease it out, and the sound that you are looking for is the sigh of a satisfied woman.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Good lord. This is creepily creepy in a very creepy way. The student, understandably, spoke to a dean about it and the dean spoke to Carville about how not to be creepily creepy in class. We continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He wanted to mutter to the dean, \u201cHer boyfriend has never heard that sound,\u201d but he simply said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll endeavor to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I think I speak for the entire civilized world when I say, \u201cOoh, ick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But this is the Ragin\u2019 Cajun we\u2019re talking about, so \u201cdo better\u201d really meant \u201cgo further\u201d: \u201cI went back in the classroom, and I told the Gilbert Gottfried joke from \u2018The Aristocrats,\u2019\u201d Carville continued. \u201cI said: \u2018Girl, you wanted me to get in trouble? This is what you do when all is lost and you\u2019re up against the wall.\u2019 Of course, it\u2019s the grossest joke ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody puts Bayou Baby in a corner.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This whole column is like opening the Mummy\u2019s tomb, all stale air and lethal, brain-eating spores. Outdated columnist talks to outdated political figure and drops outdated pop culture reference as a kicker. Folks, it\u2019s not 1993 anymore. I checked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Pierce\/Esquire Donald Trump. (photo: Intercept) 27 march 24 (RSN.org) It\u2019s not 1993 anymore, so we better stop acting like it. On the electric Xwitter machine, Brynn Tannehill brilliantly eviscerated this hopeless Politico piece about the consequences of a Trump presidency that makes Pollyanna read like Mickey Spillane. I recommend reading all of Tannehill\u2019s demolition, but… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32535,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32534\/revisions\/32535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}