Wednesday, January 11, 2017

RIGHT-WINGERS FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY

Donald Trump spoke for nearly an hour at today's press conference, but even though he talked about (or evaded) a wide range of subjects, the only moment the deplorables are going to remember -- and boy, are they going to remember it -- is this:



During President-elect Donald Trump’s press conference today, Trump ... ended up getting into an argument with a CNN reporter, who he also called out during the presser over their report on a two-page synopsis they claim was presented to Trump.

With Trump looking to call on other reporters, Jim Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?”

“Not you,” Trump said. “Your organization is terrible!”

Acosta pressed on, “You are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question, sir?” Trump countered by telling him “don’t be rude.”

“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!”

This immediately became the top story at Drudge:



And Breitbart:



It's the top story at Zero Hedge, one of the top stories at Gateway Pundit, and a "Must Watch" video at the Daily Caller (where the teaser is "'Fake News' CNN Reporter Tried to Ask Trump a Question -- Trump Responded Like a Boss").

We know that the right has tried to appropriate the term "fake news." and distort its meaning. Now the shibboleth on the right is going to be Trump's four words, in that exact order: "You are fake news." Right-wingers will deploy this phrase as if it's (no pun intended) a trump card every time they're faced with a story they don't like.

This is all Trump needs to do to maintain hero status with his base: attack the media. Since at least the 1990s, right-wingers have always hated liberals more than they hate any foreign enemy -- Al Qaeda, ISIS, Putin, whoever. Trump isn't as good at general liberal-bashing as the typical Republican, but no Republican in living memory has ever bashed the press (routinely considered liberal on the right) the way Trump does. Making a reporter cower every so often is all he'll need to do to prove he's a strongman as president, even if Russia is annexing Ukraine and ISIS is running rampant.

Some will argue that we on the left hated George W. Bush more than we did Al Qaeda. I'm a New Yorker who was here on 9/11, and I don't feel that way, though I think it's now beyond dispute that Bush did more harm to this country than, say, Saddam Hussein ever did.

As for Trump, I see him already doing far more harm to the American system than terrorists have, so I'm prepared to say that his election was probably worse for America than 9/11.

But Trump is not Jim Acosta. The Trumpers hate him and his CNN colleagues more than they hate any foreign foe. That's insane.

7 comments:

Victor said...

And Rush, Newt, Fox, and Drudge paved the way for this hatred.

The chances for the "Cold Civil War" turning 'hot,' increases every day.

Steve M. said...

Sorry, rclz, I inadvertently deleted a comment of yours.

rclz said...

NP. I think it was just a couple xxs so I could get the comments emailed to me.

Joey Blau said...

and yet .. imagine if Obama had told Fox News that they were shills for the GOP and they should sit there quietly or leave? What if he called out GOP senators by named and said they should be fired... from day fucking one.??

it would have been so cool.. but no.. We had Obama sucking up to all those bastards.. Trump is right here.. he can do whatever he wants and he is going to run roughshod over the press or the dems..

crap.

rclz said...

Joey, point taken but he's also going to run roughshod over the GOP. Let's see how that works out. He's at 37% and he's not even in office yet. Wait till he's down to 25 and we'll see how long the GOP takes his shit sandwich. Those boys got him elected so they could do what they want and they might yet find out that electing an unpredictable narcissistic asshole wasn't really the way to go but I could certainly be wrong.

Does anyone but me think that sometimes Democrats elect guys who are too nice for the office of president. President Obama and Carter probably fall into that space both good men who weren't big enough assholes.

Ok said...

I'm amazed CNN ran with the Buzzfeed story since Jeff Zucker is such a sucker for Drumpf.

Belvoir said...

I'm amazed CNN ran with the Buzzfeed story since Jeff Zucker is such a sucker for Drumpf.

It didn't go that way, Hubert. Many, many news outlets and journalists had what Buzzfeed published, for months. But because it couldn't be verified, they all declined to publish. CNN then merely described the outline of the report, but not its contents. THEN Buzzfeed released the whole thing that others had been reluctant to. Buzzfeed's release followed the vague and cautious CNN report, not the other way around.