I’ve spent a ton of words here, trying to put my finger on why it is America’s press consistently fails to adequately report the story we’re all living through.
The answer to my question, ultimately, is perspective. Our MSM (not their fault, really) have no perspective on an historical event so monstrous, so huge, so far-reaching, so corrupt on so many levels that it will take historians a generation or so to completely wrestle our story to the ground. The Netflix limited series will take a dozen seasons or so to pack it all in.
Failure of imagination also plays a part in the news media’s inability to see and report on Donald Trump. They’ve bolted their Normalcy Bias Blinders to their heads and can’t get them off. As insanely abnormal as everything about Donald Trump has been, they STILL treat Trump as if he WERE normal. They treat his presidency – with all ITS disturbing abnormalities as a NEW normal – instead of the aberration that it is. Again – perspective would help here.
The instant our news media let go of “Mexicans are rapists”, they normalized Trump’s abnormality. When they whip-sawed from “pussy grabbing” to the Comey letter without whipping back, the fix was completely in. Bullshit had superseded Truth as the Trumpian touchstone. Bullshit would now be seen AS “the truth” where Trump was concerned.
Con men con by bamboozling the bamboozle-able. Another problem solved with perspective.
Spies – and active intelligence assets – also con via misrepresentation. Look at the picture Trump has painted of his relationship with Russia and especially Vladimir Putin. Look at the WHOLE picture, start to finish, with every lie, evasion and outright deception included. THAT paints a picture, too. Not the one Trump wants us to see.
When the American Press finally pulls back far enough to see the whole story with the perspective it might have started with, they’ll conclude: Donald Trump is a traitor. He betrayed the country, our ideals – perhaps even our future. They’ll also discover that the whole Republican Party also betrayed us but that’s another whole story unto itself.
On that day, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS & NBC – and every talking head on their air – will crow about Trumpian treason. They’ll scream and shout how obvious it is (now that they can see it). But the problem is, Trump and the Republican Party will not start being traitors on the day the American Press finally gets it, they’ll have been traitors all along. Up until the moment the Press got it, the traitors were getting away with their treachery.
THAT, right there, is our problem.
The feeling I’ve been trying to describe is a lot like that feeling one gets during an English Pantomime. If you’ve never seen one, they’re amped up common stories (like Cinderella or Puss In Boots) told in an amped up theatrical fashion that encourages audience participation. There is no fourth wall and the players (the lead especially) regularly talks to the audience and engages them in repartee.
There’s always a moment here the villain of the piece enters the scene – but our hero (seems) totally unaware. The audience (now part of the show), tries to warn the hero. He turns to look but the villain ducks just in time. The audience howls at the hero to look the other way – which he does – but not in time to catch the villain who ducks away again.
It’s fixed, of course. The hero’s not supposed to see the villain just yet. But the audience, sucked in to the theatricality, feels frustration and panic (by design) because the bad guy is getting away with it.
Voila! Is that not how we feel every day? That we’re watching a show where the bad guys couldn’t be more obvious yet every attempt to stop them fails in large part because the people best able to stop them, haven’t grasped yet the massive size of the thing that they’re trying to stop. It’s very, VERY hard to solve a problem you don’t know (or admit to yourself) that you have.
Our problem is treason. For real. Actual war-time treason. We’re under attack (anyone want to argue?) in a cyber war – just as real, just as dangerous as a shooting war. Welcome to the future, boys n girls, where THIS is how wars get fought. Just because we don’t admit (or even SEE) that we’re under attack, doesn’t mean we aren’t. The citizens of Pearl Harbor had no idea as the Japanese Navy approached that an undeclared state of war existed. And THEY were going to be where the first shots would be fired.
It sucks to be the last to know.
How ironic – that’s our MSM’s story, too.