Molly Jong-Fast: Let's Not Sleepwalk Into Another Trump Presidency

[Celerity]

The GOP front-runner’s “treason” talk makes clear, yet again, that he’s a danger to democracy.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/donald-trump-democracy-media-2024-election

https://archive.ph/KYusj



In late September 2016, Salena Zito wrote glowingly in The Atlantic about Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Pittsburgh and famously postulated that “the press takes him literally, but not seriously,” while “his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Leaving aside Zito’s kid-glove treatment of Trump, she wasn’t wrong about the media, which even now—a chaotic presidency, a couple impeachments, an insurrection, and four criminal indictments later—isn’t taking the former guy returning to power “seriously” enough. With the 2024 cycle in full swing, he’s being largely covered like a normal candidate rather than someone who tried to end democracy. As Trump recently tossed out wild accusations of “treason” this past weekend, The Nation’s Jeet Heer Link to tweet
?s=43&t=_QRJyoOzF_j38wmPRaz5Qw" target="_blank">noted how the Drudge Report “is more accurately conveying the gravity of Trump’s threat to USA democracy than the mainstream media.”

I can’t speak to what lurks in the hearts of political reporters and editors, but one has to wonder why there isn’t more coverage about Trump musing about sentencing the nation’s highest ranking general to death than, say, the age of the current president. “Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week. This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, a day after an Atlantic story about how Milley, the soon-to-be-retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had “protected the Constitution” from the former president.

“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump continued. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!” Oddly, Trump’s dangerous rant was not treated as the major news it absolutely should have been. “Only CNN and MSNBC covered Trump’s inflammatory Truth Social post about the general,” Media Matters noted Tuesday, “while broadcast news outlets and Fox News completely ignored it.”

Someone who surely didn’t ignore Trump’s post was Paul Gosar, the white nationalist adjacent congressman from Arizona. He wrote Sunday in his congressional newsletter how “in a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.” The notion of a Republican front-runner floating the idea of executing the chair of the joint chiefs of staff—a scenario echoed by a sitting member of Congress—is the kind of thing that should make your blood run cold. This is not what happens in a normal, healthy functioning democracy. We, in the media, need to be clear-eyed here.

Link to tweet

snip

[MagickMuffin]

1. It certainly is baffling that the press is totally ignoring the canary

He chirps his intentions daily and the media lifts him up, instead of reporting on the darkness in the mine. And yet they never never get enough, whether by their constant coverage or by their fabricated and manufactured polls they will report non stop.


I would love to see the reporters and talking heads discussing the dangerous situation he is taking everyone of us, if they would stop propping up and promoting him as a leader and providing him free airtime that would be courageous act indeed. He is a danger to our country.


Nero O Nero, your music is so hypnotizing!
Will you play on and on.
We have nothing else to do!
But be in love with you!

[Silent Type]

2. OTOH, when a network puts trump on, they are bashed for giving him a platform.

trump is his own worst enemy, let him run his mouth/keyboard 24/7.