Author David Corn tells Mother Jones that Americans are too “bombarded with the bad news of Trump 2.0” to focus on any one particular horror, so the horrors continue.
“Concentration camps; cruel ICE raids targeting law-abiding residents; health insurance being yanked from millions; elite universities, media companies, and law firms yielding to mob-like extortion; crypto deals and other brazen grifting,” Corn cites, as well as “sham criminal prosecutions against the administration’s critics and political foes.”
“… The Trump transgressions come so fast they distract from each other,” said Corn, adding that: “… The dizzying whirlwind he creates places critics and opponents off-balance.”
And when “foes are stuck decrying the individual acts of villainy” Corn says they don’t get time to tell the full story of a president weakening sections of society that might put a check on him.
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Much of corporate media, including ABC News and Paramount have buckled and agreed to pay Trump millions of dollars in extortion fees, said Corn, and Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr has issued threats against other media companies.
Similarly, Corn points out that the president has targeted powerful law firms “in the same 'Sopranos'-like manner” through executive orders, pressing several agree to pay huge fees “though they had committed no wrongdoing,” Corn explains.
Mix this with Trump’s attack on ivy league schools and countless other affronts and critics can’t focus on all the damage.
“It's an everything-everywhere-all-at-once strategy to reshape America to the fancy of an autocrat and far-right advocates who crave blowing up the foundations of America they regard as liberal, woke, or otherwise at odds with their MAGA theology,” said Corn, which he said allows the president to amass “political clout unlike a president has ever done,” while trying to rig the system through tactics like the “latest gerrymandering” in Texas.
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Meanwhile, Corn says Democrats don’t have the “national platform” from which to broadcast a counter argument.
“You can’t rebrand if no one sees you trying to rebrand,” said Corn. “Trump, a creation of reality TV and celebrity culture, commands attention—and even did so when he was not in office. There’s no Democrat with such standing. Thus, no Democrat is well positioned to inform Americans of the grand scheme underway.”
Corn’s suggestion: mainstream media needs to ditch its “gravitational pull” toward neutral language and presentation.
“That aids bad-faith actors,” said Corn. “It was shocking that when Trump recently said, ‘Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,’ this remark did not lead to front-page headlines and days of high-octane coverage. The president of the United States was acknowledging he would use instruments of state power—in this instance, the intelligence community and the Justice Department—to try to lock up his political enemies. Richard Nixon musing about such things on the Watergate tapes was a massive scandal. Nowadays, it’s just another Tuesday.”
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But Corn said the narrative that Trump and his co-conspirators are forcing profound, unpopular, changes upon the nation needs to be conveyed.
Read the full Mother Jones report at this link.