Trump Lives In A Facsimile Universe
D. S. Mitchell
Last week President Trump set off another Twitter firestorm when he began a vicious attack against MSNBC TV hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. Trump’s bad behaviors and odd proclivities have made for interesting chatter on their early morning political news show, ‘Morning Joe’. The Twitter attack came after several months of negative Trump coverage by the two TV hosts.
The heat of the outrage following Trump’s disgusting attack came from a wide swath of the public, Capitol Hill and the media. At the height of the Kerfuffle, Joe and Mika came on their own show as “guests”. The pair answered a slew of questions from their regular panel.
In short order, I watched the story shift from Trump’s questionable mental capacity to an even darker and more sinister sets of behaviors. Behaviors that support the James Comey’s recent testimony; threats and bullying being standard practice by the thug from Queens.
Joe and Mika told a hair raising tale ‘on air,’ of being excessively pressured, or “blackmailed”, by several White House officials. The staffers were demanding Joe and Mika call and apologize to the President, for their recent unflattering reporting of Trump on their show.
The pair described many ominous phone calls being made to their children and other family members threatening publication of an ugly National Enquirer story. Mika stated that White House staffers made frequent phone calls to her, telling her to back off the negative reporting of Trump.
Not only was there pressure to change reporting, but also to call the president and apologize. All they needed to do was cave to the threats by the White House thugs. If Joe made that apology call he was told the negative National Enquirer story would be scrapped.
Joe told his television audience that he had called Jared Kushner directly. During that conversation Kushner, confirmed, “All you need to do is pick up the phone and call and apologize, and the National Enquirer story will disappear”. Joe said he refused to apologize, and things deteriorated into Trump making the subsequent disgusting tweets attacking the two TV hosts.
The Trump attack against the commentators soon segued to how can Trump control what is published in the National Enquirer and how is he using that power to control and manipulate reporters and the news itself?
It is well-known that National Enquirer, CEO David Pecker has been friends with Donald Trump for decades. Despite Pecker denials of biased reporting favoring Trump it has been obvious for many months that The National Enquirer and TMZ are having a print love affair with Trump. And Pecker has been allowing his personal relationship with Trump to effect editorial decisions at the tabloid.
So, why all the positive stories when covering Trump? The National Enquirer went out of its way to promote and endorse the Trump campaign.
TMZ, another celebrity scandal tabloid, seems to also be sharing the love fest with Trump. TMZ known primarily as a celebrity expose rag, notably shifted gears during the 2016 Presidential campaign and jumped with both feet into the political arena. One former staffer for TMZ thought the one sided Trump coverage was “gross”.
It was long rumored that Trump was having an affair with a Playboy model during his early years with Melania and that expose was buried by both the tabloid papers, before finally being printed by the Wall Street Journal.
Recent National Enquirer Front page stories include, “Trump Cleaning Up Obama Mess”, or another, “Trump Takes Charge”. Such headlines have convinced many, that TMZ and The National Enquirer are colluding with the Trump Administration to distort and shift the world reality.
Neither publication can be accused of being the pinnacle of centrist political thought. Both tabloids are famous for their disrespect for the truth, or people’s reputations, accuracy, or honesty. Trump has a similar reputation, lots of noise but little truth.
Trump, by his daily harping on the “fake news” theme, is in effect shifting the paradigm of the Presidential news cycle. Trump is not a man who thinks strategically, but rather seizes the moment and says what is convenient to say, without regard to veracity, or the potential crowd reaction. This tendency by Trump, ties nicely with the premise that the tabloid press is never expected to be consistent from one issue to the next, or to print retractions when they are shown to be wrong.
What this president wants is a kiss ass press that will fawn all over him, reporting only stories that paint him in a favorable light. He wants a cabinet that will lavish praise, a cable news channel that will only ask the questions instructed to ask, and a body of lawmakers that are so in love with their own power and position that they refuse to challenge this rogue president.
It is well known that for years before becoming president, Trump would call news outlets, pretending to be his own “publicist” and plant stories about himself in the tabloids. For the first time in history we have a tabloid president. A man comfortable in that tenuous world between truth and fabrication. As Kheifets said in his story, “He ( Trump) thinks like a tabloid editor, and he talks and acts like a tabloid celebrity”.
This twisting, shifting and shaping of the news reality is becoming quite alarming. If the public is unable to trust main stream news reports the future of our country is at serious risk. According to Aaron Kheifets story for Crackle, the National Enquirer and TMZ’s primary goal is to “create an entertaining facsimile of the the news”. This country does not need to live in an entertaining facsimile of reality, or the week to week episode of ‘The Apprentice”.
This cartoon president with his tabloid buddies, his sick and weird tweets needs to be investigated for conspiracy, blackmail and intimidation in his attempts to subvert and suppress the news. The founding fathers knew that at some point, sooner or later, the country’s commitment to democracy would be challenged and, as such, provided mechanisms for the country to remove a president and other officials from government office. It is not necessary for us to wait for the Mueller investigation to conclude, we can demand that Congress impeach Trump on multiple charges, now.
Calamity Politics is a progressive political blog that attempts to provide commentary and analysis on current U.S. political news. I invite you to join me as I examine the calamity that is Washington, D.C. politics.
Remember to call your congressman and demand the immediate impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
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