Not for nothing have I lived with an expert on media, media literacy and the connection between corporate wealth and media for most of the past 35 years. I have learned a lot over the dinner table about how media works, and I watched an all-too pandering 4th Estate allow Trump to cadge free publicity in exchange for ratings and sales. A favorite topic of conversation, over dinners at my home, during the presidential election, was Trump's "projection" as it pertains to the media. I mean "projection" in the Psychology sense. The media never persecuted Donald Trump. Indeed the opposite was true.
The media made Trump. He was a media cash cow. No one thought he could win, until the media began to swaddle him in legitimacy. Media consumers played along. We (I include myself.) underestimated the problem of racism and misogyny in our nation. We assumed, erroneously that the "White Lives Matter" 'ideal' was more lunatic fringe than it truly was---in part because it was under-reported. We saw Evangelical Christians on the right trade Jesus for for Trump via television coverage of Trump at Liberty University. We watched them ditch family values, Christ, the Beatitudes, and the welfare of children so as to give is a soul-less, amoral 'P_ _ _ _y-grabber-in-Chief.'
I confess I ate it up. I was glued to Fox and CNN for the month of October. I more blame CNN than Fox for the elevation of Monster Clown Trump because too often the Progressive media bent over backwards, aiming to be fair-minded. Now I find myself wishing they had spent more time covering the Trump Train: the Klan rallies, the gut-less, gun-loving man-children crying "Lock her up," the legions of groped women who will gradually come to our attention, as Bill Cosby's victims did.
Now, it's cold turkey time. When I am not monitoring Trump, I plan to look away. I will not watch any coverage of talking heads frothing over the Inaugural gown of the president elect's third--I mean First so-called "Lady."
I will not buy any newspaper that fawns over the "First Family." I will refuse to consume any exuberant coverage of "the first family."
We can choose to ignore puff pieces about Trump's spoiled, self-serving spawn. Principled consumers than stop supporting them. People Magazine, in a rush to "normalize" him, released their issue with an almost presidential-looking photo of Trump on its cover. No one needs to buy People Magazine.
We need fashion shoots of the the First/Third Lady in high-end frocks about as much as we need to see more of her soft-core porny girl-on-girl shots. (Perhaps taken while she was working as an undocumented immigrant or working on her architecture degree.)
Sociopaths thrive on attention. We can, at the very least, deprive Trump of some of the Narcissistic feed for which he hungers. When we who cover or write about Donald Trump are not monitoring the president elect who has already gotten quite far by promising to rein in "the media," we can look away.
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