The farcical pearl-clutching of the Main-Stream-Media (MSM) would be just as comfortable within the genre of slapstick comedy as it would be a parody. Hard to say which of these best defines the pearl-clutchers but, in any case, watching the devolvement of the MSM is nothing short of epic.
In the gospel according to Obama, it was written about the then not-yet-seen prophecy of Donald Trump’s election, that President Obama declared there had never been evidence of a presidential election ever being rigged. It was also written in the Obama gospels for Mr. Trump to get over it and, “…if he (Trump) got the most votes then it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to make sure that the American people benefit from effective government.”
Pffft.
It was the same pervading mockery wrapped in graciousness that both damned the erstwhile Democrat candidate Clinton to lose and laid bare the arrogance of the left. An arrogance that still infects the media. It’s the same kind of prevailing wisdom seen in the media when a young and brash Cassius Clay, in 1964, was challenging boxing’s heavyweight champion, Sonny Liston. Liston was assumed by the sports press as far superior. The media saw the mouthy challenger as all talk but couldn’t bring it home. Up and until Liston threw in the towel in the 7th round.
At least Liston knew when to throw in the towel.
Despite President Obama’s prediction of Clinton’s graciousness, Hillary went on to an endless excuse tour along with the press’s meltdown that’s made Chernobyl seem like the tiny nub of a birthday candle.
And Trump has been no less brash.
Jim Acosta is CNN’s White House correspondent. The job of the correspondent is to cover the White House stories and not be the story. After a recent raucous telecast from a Trump rally wherein rally attendees chanted dislike of Jim’s employer, Acosta wept that, “It felt like we weren’t in America anymore…” Acosta got back in front of his CNN camera’s and tightly gripped his pearls for all the world to see and lamented at the fall of western civilization because people, you know, didn’t like him. Funny enough, according to the AP’s Meg Kennard, those self-same chanters asked for Jim’s autograph not so long after the shout down.
I’ve seen the fall of the western world and it’s going to be reasonably polite and Acosta will retire to the post-apocalyptic Hamptons…where the scarcity of gruyere will probably set off another Antifa riot.
Conversely, if you were Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens, an African American woman, and were accosted by a nearly all white Antifa mob, no biggie. Go ahead, search Google for an MSM article about the incident. Chanters calling a black woman a racist. White kids. It was white kids shouting at a black woman. Again, largely white kids. Then further shouting at the police calling them racists (though the police at the confrontation were largely minority). The media, outside of Fox and right leaning publications? Crickets. Groups of mostly white kids shouting at minorities doesn’t fit the narrative.
That’s not totally true though. The once venerable Newsweek did mention it, reporting it as a possible conspiracy of Owens and Kirk.
In fairness, Kirk’s Turning Point USA is not a news organization but an advocacy group for rightward policies. Versus CNN? Well, CNN is a news organization advocating for leftward policies. You see the difference.
Nonetheless, the pearl-clutcher’s in the MSM do now feel the burn (not ‘the Bern‘) from the aforementioned President Trump. It’s no secret that Trump has an adversarial relationship with the press. Sure, the press chuckled with the brash Trump’s habit of giving opponents nicknames. Monikers like Little Marco or Low Energy Jeb were fodder for a chuckling press. ‘Tee hee, Trump is making fun of Republicans‘. It’s the Trump style; knock your opponent down a notch. The press ate it up. The press saw the circus of the Republican primary with 17 candidates and Trump at its center, as a sideshow. A very full clown car to be ridiculed from the coastal ivory towers.
Up and until Trump won and Martha Raddatz cried.
Set forth was the Fourth Estate meltdown. You see, President Trump no longer had to contend with Republican challengers. Hillary was but an amusing distraction for the Tweeting ire of the Presidential smartphone. Trump instinctually knew the press was the real nemesis.
Trump’s often riffs on the press and did so from the outset (Feb 2017); “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
The response from the press?
Long abouts August 15th 2017, nearly 380 news organizations ran Anti-Trump editorials as led by the Boston Globe. Globe editor Marjorie Pritchard stated regarding the en mass editorial, “We are not the enemy of the people,’’ continuing, “I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable…We are a free and independent press; it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.”
So is the free exercise of religion, the first actual right enumerated in said amendment, but who am I to quibble.
Still, the President complains that the press is out to get him. Their response? Collude and try to ‘get him’. Genius.
What is astir is the media’s inability to contend with the counter puncher Trump. The media had become accustomed to a docile and supine Republican party all too willing to collapse at the cowing of the liberally biased press. The press enjoy their power. Moreover, they love their power. I’d correct further to state; they’re addicted to their power.
Trump just keeps pokin’ ’em in the eye.
The absence of MSM self awareness is breathtaking. As you, the press, complain the President is a threat to the First Amendment, your response is an unfettered ability to exercise your freedom of the press.
Congress shall make no laws prohibiting the free exercise of the press.
Last I checked, no legislation has been proposed since the Trump election. That is largely the point: Trump stopped being the victim as many Republicans had long become. The number of actions Trump has taken to prohibit the press? Exactly zero. Name calling does not equal prohibition.
The main stream media had a lock on informational power for a very long time. In recent years, the digital age has crippled the press. They are a wounded predator but still on the hunt for anything that is outside of standard issue liberal dogma.
Trump doesn’t care. That’s his super power. Trump is a Honey Badger with a combover.
He’s also right that the media have become the enemy of the people. Specifically, of the average Joe or Jane. The press have become aggrieved that their insular dinner party culture of coastal elitism has been overturned. They view the middle of America as the great unwashed. The uncultured.
Trump understands that most of America meets in their backyard, around a tin fire pit picked up from Walmart, drinks American beer while listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Trump is speaking to these folks and cares little of the pearl clutchers…and they can’t handle it.
