The Trumpified GOP wasn’t born in a vacuum
It’s the sum of collective greed and evil (from Sep 2020)
American media, particularly its DC/NY political media, has many virtues: doggedness like David Fahrentold who uncovered Trump’s grifting, righteousness like Eugene Robinson and Mike Barnicle whose op eds are useful chronicles of our “interesting times”. What it fundamentally lacks is the ability to think outside itself and to call out, forcefully, how we got here, with a Trumpified GOP and Roger Stone calling for Trump to imprison the Clintons, Mark Zuckerberg and even Gen. Mattis.
Rupert Murdoch looks at one of the first copies of the new Sun newspaper, November 1969. Photograph: Pa/PA Archive/Press Association Images via The Guardian
Murdoch destabilized democracy on 3 continents
Rupert Murdoch will be remembered as the man whose greed and cunning destabilized and upended democracy in the English language world, save for Canada. His vulgar tabloidization of the news in the UK, Australia and the US over 6 decades has contributed to sapping the public good that was the news in the post WWII era. Murdoch’s wily manipulation of naive politicians on 3 continents remains a case study in how a captain of industry can become more powerful than titular heads of government. Since 2017 the leaks of his post-Trump phone calls says everything one needs to know: as recorded by Michael Wolff “I can’t get the asshole off the phone” or “What a fucking idiot”. No President of the United States before Trump has been similarly insulted by the great puppetmaster of right wing media. In the UK Tony Blair’s infamous suckup to Murdoch in 1997 all but guaranteed the Sun newspaper’s endorsement and therefore the keys to Downing Street. The systematic right wing deconstruction, Jacques Derrida-style, of the American center right will also remain a case study in an Oz-like behind the scenes orchestration. This writer has already detailed how Murdoch’s puppetmaster ways have neutered debate on the right, where Congresspeople audition in the US Capitol for a few years before their real “job”: paid commentator on Fox News.
This state of fact has too seldom been outlined or criticized in American media, by a combination of laziness, lack of focus and fear. How the Murdoch family maintains its ability to operate in plain sight without much media or public scrutiny is a mystery, or rather a testament to how low the body politic has stooped in America. Murdoch’s greed and evil, coupled with the media’s own greed as personified by Les Moonves’ disgusting intonation that “Trump may be bad for America but damn good for CBS” tells you all you need to know. How this escapes most commentators is a point of personal anger for this writer, aghast at the state of the country where he grew up.
Even-keeled Republicans gone mad
Trump was surely not brought to the forefront of politics and to the White House by accident, he is the product of a decades-long sapping of the public good, of values of good neighborly relations, of even-keeled Republicans going mad, stoked by the echochamber built and financed by Rupert Murdoch. This week’s barrage of on the record tapes where Trump spills his bile against all of America’s institutions should provoke at least a modicum of raised eyebrows on the GOP side, instead we get crickets. The sad reason was given by columnist David Ignatius this past week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe: cowardly GOP lawmakers are afraid of the buffoon President and keep their silence for more time on the DC merry go round, in the vain hope to stay relevant.
A case study of the power of greed
Should America re-elect Trump and the GOP this fall, 2015-2020 will be a case study of the power of greed and media complacency. DC media like to portray itself as defenders of truth and the American way and they are, for the most part. What they fail to properly assess is the degree to which their “légitimiste” treatment, their constant daily normalization of Trump has made them the “suckers”. European media has been rightfully aghast at the level of rewriting of Trump’s word salads by DC journalists and keep wondering why reporters would continue the charade. Thankfully, DC demigod Bob Woodward is draping his colleagues in his professionalism and they’re happily amplifying his huge scoops this week. Nevertheless, the past 5 years are a sad display of near incessant laziness and lack of self analysis on the part of US media, an essential lever of American democracy.
The way forward
The way forward is to rebuild the foundations of democracy, dying from a thousand tweets lazily broadcasted without context by the 24/7 cable tv beast. This momentous effort needs to be a society-wide project, lest America be content to remain divided. David French has written about the permanent divorce between 2 Americas, the chasm French writes about is in the country’s DNA, and keeping the chasm from being too wide has been the main challenge to the American project. The rebuilding should start with steps including increased regulation of Big Tech’s media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), self-regulation by broadcasters too addicted to Trump’s 24/7 mayhem, and citizen-led efforts to bridge the tribal nature of the current era. How likely this could start in 2020 is anyone’s guess but reasoned optimism is more than possible.