A majority has elected Donald Trump whose only real concern is himself and the rich who support him, a man who tried to overthrow our democracy, a man who supports dictators and not democratic allies, a man who will readily sell our nation to Vladimir Putin who helped him get elected two times.
Sherrilyn Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP, has rightly proposed a forensic examination of how we got here and thus how something so ill-advised, a possible and sudden head-shot to our democracy could happen and what can be done about it.
Current stories explaining Trump’s victory as a rejection of the status quo may be true on the surface but fail to comment on the media climate of toxic misinformation and conspiracy which assaulted minds and permitted bodies to select such a toxic figure[, one who will now work to erase the ability to reject his cruelty, his nihilism, and his corruption for future voting or even suspend voting altogether.
The tactics used for division and the scapegoats involved is also in order. The conditioning of a voting majority has been present in America’s long history with white supremacy and male dominance embedded in our culture. Ongoing racism is America’s gateway drug and one consistently used by Trump. And furthermore, media’s moral compass is set by Trump, something that media is loathe to change, giving normalcy to the vulgarian Trump, who normalizes repulsive behavior.
The whole Republican Party supports Trump’s vulgarian efforts and for some forty years America has been grooming, with a corporate-sponsored, for-profit media, an American majority to adopt Trump truth and Trump tactics.
First, the Reagan administration spurned balanced news, leading a charge for huge networks of news for-profit. Near the end of the twentieth century, Fox New was born, later fashioned by Roger Ailes to churn out propaganda for profit, becoming a Republican tool, spewing falsehoods and misinformation.
Then social media developed new tools called algorithms to seek profit-based guides to attract users. All have helped guide majority voters into an acceptance of the most outrageous conspiracies that more readily draw in scores of users, taught to hate Democrats and vote Republican, agendas that don’t sell on value but do with emotion. A conservative, fascist-bound element provides funds to keep such radical propaganda to maintain a hate-fest and fuel corporate agendas.
For them, a seventy-eight year-old man, already subject to mental and physical decline, could well leave them with a much younger, equally unfit man, JD Vance to succeed him plus an equally unstable, conflicted, drug-taking billionaire with powerful personal interests to provide budget guidance. Such a succession fits right into moneyed conservatives interests with both in place to serve their interest in return for the power and money the two will garner.
This morning unvarnished news appears in news sources too few read. Such news stories critical of Donald Trump, will probably need to go underground when Donald Trump takes control in January.
An oped in the LA Times suggests Elon Musk’s current power, privileges, and controls will become overwhelming with his promised new role in Trump’s second administration, something voters never seemed to consider before voting. Any such reporting will be forbidden by a man who has threatened prison for his detractors.
Other stories suggest dark ages are coming, citing predictions made by those close to Donald Trump in his first administration, predictions too few voters read or who have tossed aside.
In truth, those who remember the many crimes of Trump’s first term voted for Kamala Harris, this while the media normalized misfit Trump. Even Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, mishandled Trump’s speedy conviction for Trump’s many crimes, an overthrow attempt that makes him Constitutionally ineligible for any office.
Certainly, America’s common good should dictate more policies promoting public good whether it is public health, family help, a nurturing, informing media, equal treatment under the law, and accessible health care in general. Obviously, a media that informs rather than separates is badly needed in a democracy such as ours.
With Trump in control, critical information will be suppressed, relatively unavailable when people come to realize the potentially deadly mistakes they made in voting for him instead of choosing a candidate who would listen and act on actively sought changes to a fractured democracy and on continuing equality that Joe Biden had begun to fashion.
They even would have had an opportunity to clean up a media that celebrated and thrived on misinformation, feeding them lies that ruled out independent thought and action.
Such things will be extremely difficult under the fascist leadership of a man totally unfit to have any office of leadership before the public. He is totally incapable of considering or leading anyone but himself. That has already been unquestionably established.
