I'm having a wonderful time munching the popcorn (heavily salted with irony) and watching the show. This is often the result of authoritarians -- the lies become too big to maintain.
I´ll just repeat a point you made that I think bears repeating: the Democrats have been lying. They´ve been lying about Biden´s mental fitness. And what makes this cringingly ironic is that these same Democrats make such a big deal about Trump´s lies. According to them, we shouldn´t elect Trump because he´s a liar. After the debate, Biden made a big deal about how he knows how to tell the truth. Only he doesn´t. He won´t come clean about his condition. He won´t take a neurological exam and share the results transparently. He´s as dishonest as the rest of them.
"The President is a figurehead, so it doesn't matter" vs "The Presidnecy is so important that Donald Trump will single-handedly bring down their democracy?"
I had an interesting conversation with one of my liberal friends whom had previously called me every name in the book for my political positions including claiming I was an idiot for saying Joe Biden should be in a memory care facility. He was actually surprised at how bad old Joe performed at the debate. This is a smart dude... PHD in molecular biology from top schools. I told him that I could not believe, with all the evidence over the last four years, even subtracting that which is Republican propaganda, that he would have been surprised.
I came away from that meeting with the theory that mass psychosis by the media is real. My friend is so desperate that his politics prevail, more desperate than me, that his media feeds fed that desperation and he ACTUALLY rewired his brain to see Joe Biden as Superman against the evil Lexluthor. He had media-made blinders installed where we would just discount and ignore any evidence of old Joe's infirmity and mental decline.
This has led me to believing that the media is our real threat to democracy. It is time we change our old views of what media is and is not, and what we might need to do for repairing it back to the independent press that acts as the gatekeeper of truth to keep our political forces in check. We are rightfully protective of 1A rights, but it is like our "news" and opinion media combined with tech algorithms have created a 24x7x365 propaganda machine that shills for the Wall Street-backed corporatist Regime that the Democrats feed from.
Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street together own controlling interest in most media and tech. These firms manage the assets of the global billionaires. I think we need to revisit anti-Trust rules and apply special requirements and restrictions to media business.
I think for the university educated PhD it's going against their class interest to not support Biden or whoever might replace him. He has a piece of paper that says he's smarter than other people, everyone with the same credentials vote Dem, they also run the government and the media. To someone who doesn't follow politics the whole story about Biden being mentally infirm sounds far-fetched. "Surely smart people, like me, would have done something about it if it were true. They wouldn't like about that".
I don't think the media is the biggest threat, I think it's the universities that supply the people who run the government and media.
Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street don't just manage the assets of the billionaires, most billionaires own huge parts of a single company they either created or inherited so they don't really invest in mutual funds or ETFs. They do manage the money of most peoples retirement accounts, index funds and ETF. This gives them board seats which gives them a measure of control. Almost everyone who has any savings is participating in the stock markets, which leads to the stock market standing in for the economy. If people wanted to fuck with Blackrock they would pull their money out of the stock market. Meanwhile, the backbone of the economy is small business which isn't listed on the stock market.
The universities are toxic, but the media used to be the lever and path of truth. Journalists would pull the masses back from mass psychosis. Today the media foments mass psychosis. The media is owned by Wall Street.
The backbone is no longer small business. 2023 there is a huge increase in small business bankruptcies. Corporate consolidation has exploded since the pandemic after small business starts crashed in 2008 and only started recovering under Trump. In 2014 big business supplanted small business as the nations job creator. Wall Street is behind much of it.
When was the media actually trustworthy? I think the information landscape is a lot healthier today with a lot of alternative news sources. I'm far more worried about education.
The controlled demolition of small business really went into overdrive with the lockdowns. But it really was Wall Street and their friends government who tried to kill them, that's true.
Thanks Brad, nicely written. I commented to Taibbi's story yesterday that I wasn't sure what all of the media and democrats are doing. Last night I came to the same conclusion as your article (therefore I am in complete agreement!) that once Biden's cat fell out of the bag for a national audience and the reaction was, "this guy is un-electable" the panic set in and the media lit Biden on fire.
Biden and team may have had some agreement with the deep state powers that be stating if he (Biden) held up his end of the bargain the MSM would paint as many cheap fake stories as necessary and gaslight the public ad nauseam to get Biden, Democracy and Truth across the finish line.
They made a lot of calculations and a few errors. They gambled on Biden's dementia not becoming too visible until after the election. Opps... Oh well, like you and others have said, they now want to replace him with an electable candidate of their choice. It will be interesting still.
This statement may not age well, but I think Biden will be the nominee. The only way to get rid of him is to 25th amendment him out. I don't think they will do that. Biden seems pretty insistent about staying in the race.
What will these corrupt institutions (government, law enforcement, media, education, etc) not do in order to preserve their grip on power? Put another way, is there anything they will not do? If Trump is such an existential threat, then will they not try to eliminate him by means other than the ballot box or prison? Maybe the Kennedy family has insight in this regard.
It’s ironic that Biden himself is the one who pulled back the curtain and exposed the Democrats and the media for what they are.
The wizard has been exposed as a fraud. Now the only thing left is for someone to throw a bucket of water on Jill Biden. “I’m mellltting!” That seems to be the only way this will end.
you make a good point about the average voter/media consumer.
I’m seeing the same reaction in my shit-lib friends and they actually have a point in their rage against the media (for all the wrong reasons). they all feel completely betrayed by the NYT, CNN, WaPo etc by this enormous about face. of course, the interpretations they push forth is that the media is creating this controversy solely for clicks and ad revenue. this is the only explanation they can comprehend and why not? the press has been telling them for years that any attack on Biden’s fitness is a right wing conspiracy theory.
the good news, regardless of the outcome in November, is that the 32% favorability the mainstream media now enjoys will be hovering somewhere in the teens by years end. it will be lowered thanks to the libs abandoning the MSM for the Heather Cox and Hartmann Report Substacks where they can continue being spoonfed the narrative diet of Biden is our fearless, capable leader…oh the irony.
why do they fear this so much? so obviously? especially if he’s stupid? like w? like ronnie? like brandon? like ford? we’ve survived stupid before, so what else has them so scared?
It's not that he's stupid, it's that he's an outsider. He's not part of a political dynasty, and he has not earned his way to the top by running for minor offices and he still got elected without putting in the decades of groundwork that everyone else does. If that's a viable way to get into office all the investment other people made in their political careers becomes worthless. You're supposed to stay in your lane, lest you ruin it for everyone else. It's also why they hate entrepreneurs.
It's a similar dynamic to the aristocrats of old times who didn't like merchants and other businesspeople being wealthier, that's not supposed to happen because it's their birthright.
Yeah, I think the Obidenite cabal is probably fine with a controllable, malleable lump of Play Doh as their figurehead.....and your "above whom an atmosphere of bullshit permanently hangs like a cloud cap on a green mountain" is fantastic!
There is only going to be one issue this election. It makes no difference what Trump does or says and it no longer matters what Biden does or says. The die is cast.
Yes, I believe that is correct except the die may be loaded by voting from the "new arrivals." New arrival voting is a wildcard. Biden's regime will veto the non-citizen voting bill and Trump's agenda talks about deportation. It will be interesting...
Just about an hour ago, Oliver Darcy of CNN reported that George Stephanopolous remarked critically on Biden -- "I don't think he can serve four more years."
But what's interesting to is how Darcy framed it: It's "...the latest example of the news media turning on Biden."
Turning on Biden. Not reporting. Not opining. They're turning on him.
I'm sure Darcy would say he's an independent, fair journalist, but if he's using terms like "turning on Biden," do you think he has a proper perspective on a healthy relationship between the media and government?
When criticism is framed as betrayal, it goes a long way toward explaining how deeply reporters like Darcy identify with Democrats. How they can't see past their own ideologies and biases.
For them, the Dems really are "The Good Side," and of course it's wrong to criticize "The Good Side," so that amounts to a betrayal of sorts.
This shows that the media is still functionally the same post-debate as they were pre. Their reporting will be shaped by their ideas of right and wrong, and for them the left/progressives/Dems are just obviously right and good. And not just some of the time, but all of the time.
If they don't interrogate Dems the way they do Republicans, it's because the Dems don't deserve that level of antagonism. It's because they're so clearly right on all the issues. There's no partisanship if you're just calling balls and strikes, right? Can they help it if, as Donny Deutsch noted, "We tell the truth"?
In this view, the Republicans are the necessary villain. You can't have a good guy without a bad guy. And so the plot twist to Biden drama is that now the media have joined Republicans to the extent that they, too, have turned on Biden. They've become a reluctant antagonist of sorts.
"But what's interesting to is how Darcy framed it: It's "...the latest example of the news media turning on Biden.
Turning on Biden. Not reporting. Not opining. They're turning on him."
This kind of reminds me of something Glen Greenwald recently pointed out: "Look at any network, liberal cable outlet, or major newspaper op-ed. They're all saying: 'Look, I love Joe Biden. He's my friend. I adore him, but...' That's not supposed to be the relationship between 'journalists' and a politician!"
This is extremely well said - thank you! A big thing that stuck out to me while reading was “the presidency is only one man”… when it’s the man they agree with (Biden). When it’s Trump, he’s all powerful and will destroy Our Democracy. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
I'm having a wonderful time munching the popcorn (heavily salted with irony) and watching the show. This is often the result of authoritarians -- the lies become too big to maintain.
I´ll just repeat a point you made that I think bears repeating: the Democrats have been lying. They´ve been lying about Biden´s mental fitness. And what makes this cringingly ironic is that these same Democrats make such a big deal about Trump´s lies. According to them, we shouldn´t elect Trump because he´s a liar. After the debate, Biden made a big deal about how he knows how to tell the truth. Only he doesn´t. He won´t come clean about his condition. He won´t take a neurological exam and share the results transparently. He´s as dishonest as the rest of them.
Touché!
Don't you love the whole
"The President is a figurehead, so it doesn't matter" vs "The Presidnecy is so important that Donald Trump will single-handedly bring down their democracy?"
Hadn’t read comments far enough to see this one before I posted mine - I completely agree!!
I'm sure I constantly do that. I can't read 400+ comments to be sure. Haha! No worries.
I had an interesting conversation with one of my liberal friends whom had previously called me every name in the book for my political positions including claiming I was an idiot for saying Joe Biden should be in a memory care facility. He was actually surprised at how bad old Joe performed at the debate. This is a smart dude... PHD in molecular biology from top schools. I told him that I could not believe, with all the evidence over the last four years, even subtracting that which is Republican propaganda, that he would have been surprised.
I came away from that meeting with the theory that mass psychosis by the media is real. My friend is so desperate that his politics prevail, more desperate than me, that his media feeds fed that desperation and he ACTUALLY rewired his brain to see Joe Biden as Superman against the evil Lexluthor. He had media-made blinders installed where we would just discount and ignore any evidence of old Joe's infirmity and mental decline.
This has led me to believing that the media is our real threat to democracy. It is time we change our old views of what media is and is not, and what we might need to do for repairing it back to the independent press that acts as the gatekeeper of truth to keep our political forces in check. We are rightfully protective of 1A rights, but it is like our "news" and opinion media combined with tech algorithms have created a 24x7x365 propaganda machine that shills for the Wall Street-backed corporatist Regime that the Democrats feed from.
Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street together own controlling interest in most media and tech. These firms manage the assets of the global billionaires. I think we need to revisit anti-Trust rules and apply special requirements and restrictions to media business.
I think for the university educated PhD it's going against their class interest to not support Biden or whoever might replace him. He has a piece of paper that says he's smarter than other people, everyone with the same credentials vote Dem, they also run the government and the media. To someone who doesn't follow politics the whole story about Biden being mentally infirm sounds far-fetched. "Surely smart people, like me, would have done something about it if it were true. They wouldn't like about that".
I don't think the media is the biggest threat, I think it's the universities that supply the people who run the government and media.
Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street don't just manage the assets of the billionaires, most billionaires own huge parts of a single company they either created or inherited so they don't really invest in mutual funds or ETFs. They do manage the money of most peoples retirement accounts, index funds and ETF. This gives them board seats which gives them a measure of control. Almost everyone who has any savings is participating in the stock markets, which leads to the stock market standing in for the economy. If people wanted to fuck with Blackrock they would pull their money out of the stock market. Meanwhile, the backbone of the economy is small business which isn't listed on the stock market.
The universities are toxic, but the media used to be the lever and path of truth. Journalists would pull the masses back from mass psychosis. Today the media foments mass psychosis. The media is owned by Wall Street.
The backbone is no longer small business. 2023 there is a huge increase in small business bankruptcies. Corporate consolidation has exploded since the pandemic after small business starts crashed in 2008 and only started recovering under Trump. In 2014 big business supplanted small business as the nations job creator. Wall Street is behind much of it.
When was the media actually trustworthy? I think the information landscape is a lot healthier today with a lot of alternative news sources. I'm far more worried about education.
The controlled demolition of small business really went into overdrive with the lockdowns. But it really was Wall Street and their friends government who tried to kill them, that's true.
I totally, totally agree. .
This...☝️100%
Thanks Brad, nicely written. I commented to Taibbi's story yesterday that I wasn't sure what all of the media and democrats are doing. Last night I came to the same conclusion as your article (therefore I am in complete agreement!) that once Biden's cat fell out of the bag for a national audience and the reaction was, "this guy is un-electable" the panic set in and the media lit Biden on fire.
Biden and team may have had some agreement with the deep state powers that be stating if he (Biden) held up his end of the bargain the MSM would paint as many cheap fake stories as necessary and gaslight the public ad nauseam to get Biden, Democracy and Truth across the finish line.
They made a lot of calculations and a few errors. They gambled on Biden's dementia not becoming too visible until after the election. Opps... Oh well, like you and others have said, they now want to replace him with an electable candidate of their choice. It will be interesting still.
This statement may not age well, but I think Biden will be the nominee. The only way to get rid of him is to 25th amendment him out. I don't think they will do that. Biden seems pretty insistent about staying in the race.
What will these corrupt institutions (government, law enforcement, media, education, etc) not do in order to preserve their grip on power? Put another way, is there anything they will not do? If Trump is such an existential threat, then will they not try to eliminate him by means other than the ballot box or prison? Maybe the Kennedy family has insight in this regard.
Imagine the conversations Hunter, the new, de facto, chief of Staff is having with his drug dealers and Ukraine mafia friends?
It’s ironic that Biden himself is the one who pulled back the curtain and exposed the Democrats and the media for what they are.
The wizard has been exposed as a fraud. Now the only thing left is for someone to throw a bucket of water on Jill Biden. “I’m mellltting!” That seems to be the only way this will end.
You could try to toss a bucket of water on Pelosi, be she is (water) repellant.
you make a good point about the average voter/media consumer.
I’m seeing the same reaction in my shit-lib friends and they actually have a point in their rage against the media (for all the wrong reasons). they all feel completely betrayed by the NYT, CNN, WaPo etc by this enormous about face. of course, the interpretations they push forth is that the media is creating this controversy solely for clicks and ad revenue. this is the only explanation they can comprehend and why not? the press has been telling them for years that any attack on Biden’s fitness is a right wing conspiracy theory.
the good news, regardless of the outcome in November, is that the 32% favorability the mainstream media now enjoys will be hovering somewhere in the teens by years end. it will be lowered thanks to the libs abandoning the MSM for the Heather Cox and Hartmann Report Substacks where they can continue being spoonfed the narrative diet of Biden is our fearless, capable leader…oh the irony.
“No, the panic isn’t about anything other than making sure Trump doesn’t become president.”
🎯💯
why do they fear this so much? so obviously? especially if he’s stupid? like w? like ronnie? like brandon? like ford? we’ve survived stupid before, so what else has them so scared?
It's not that he's stupid, it's that he's an outsider. He's not part of a political dynasty, and he has not earned his way to the top by running for minor offices and he still got elected without putting in the decades of groundwork that everyone else does. If that's a viable way to get into office all the investment other people made in their political careers becomes worthless. You're supposed to stay in your lane, lest you ruin it for everyone else. It's also why they hate entrepreneurs.
It's a similar dynamic to the aristocrats of old times who didn't like merchants and other businesspeople being wealthier, that's not supposed to happen because it's their birthright.
Good question.
Yeah, I think the Obidenite cabal is probably fine with a controllable, malleable lump of Play Doh as their figurehead.....and your "above whom an atmosphere of bullshit permanently hangs like a cloud cap on a green mountain" is fantastic!
There is only going to be one issue this election. It makes no difference what Trump does or says and it no longer matters what Biden does or says. The die is cast.
Yes, I believe that is correct except the die may be loaded by voting from the "new arrivals." New arrival voting is a wildcard. Biden's regime will veto the non-citizen voting bill and Trump's agenda talks about deportation. It will be interesting...
Just about an hour ago, Oliver Darcy of CNN reported that George Stephanopolous remarked critically on Biden -- "I don't think he can serve four more years."
But what's interesting to is how Darcy framed it: It's "...the latest example of the news media turning on Biden."
Turning on Biden. Not reporting. Not opining. They're turning on him.
I'm sure Darcy would say he's an independent, fair journalist, but if he's using terms like "turning on Biden," do you think he has a proper perspective on a healthy relationship between the media and government?
When criticism is framed as betrayal, it goes a long way toward explaining how deeply reporters like Darcy identify with Democrats. How they can't see past their own ideologies and biases.
For them, the Dems really are "The Good Side," and of course it's wrong to criticize "The Good Side," so that amounts to a betrayal of sorts.
This shows that the media is still functionally the same post-debate as they were pre. Their reporting will be shaped by their ideas of right and wrong, and for them the left/progressives/Dems are just obviously right and good. And not just some of the time, but all of the time.
If they don't interrogate Dems the way they do Republicans, it's because the Dems don't deserve that level of antagonism. It's because they're so clearly right on all the issues. There's no partisanship if you're just calling balls and strikes, right? Can they help it if, as Donny Deutsch noted, "We tell the truth"?
In this view, the Republicans are the necessary villain. You can't have a good guy without a bad guy. And so the plot twist to Biden drama is that now the media have joined Republicans to the extent that they, too, have turned on Biden. They've become a reluctant antagonist of sorts.
"But what's interesting to is how Darcy framed it: It's "...the latest example of the news media turning on Biden.
Turning on Biden. Not reporting. Not opining. They're turning on him."
This kind of reminds me of something Glen Greenwald recently pointed out: "Look at any network, liberal cable outlet, or major newspaper op-ed. They're all saying: 'Look, I love Joe Biden. He's my friend. I adore him, but...' That's not supposed to be the relationship between 'journalists' and a politician!"
https://substack.com/@dave227829/note/c-61466679?r=7ftfa&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I want Biden to be on the ticket!! I’m ridin with Biden.
No we’re living under a stupidity crisis. People so stupid they actually believe the moronic things that come out of the corporate media’s mouth.
This is extremely well said - thank you! A big thing that stuck out to me while reading was “the presidency is only one man”… when it’s the man they agree with (Biden). When it’s Trump, he’s all powerful and will destroy Our Democracy. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄