Thread by @SethCotlar

In 2015 Donald Trump was a deeply unserious, cynically self-promoting politician who figured out how to get people to take him seriously. A large number of gonzo right wing pseudo-journalists learned from Trump’s example and have muscled their way onto the national stage.

Like Trump, these right wing media figures are liars. They don’t care about being called out on it because they know their audience doesn’t care about truth, and they are concerned not for the public good but for their own self-promotion and enrichment.

Our “both sides” political culture prevented journalists from treating Trump as the lying buffoon we all knew he was. And now same goes for CNN and others where they fail to distinguish between good faith journalists and cynical hacks.

This isn’t just a partisan point I’m making. There are plenty of good faith conservatives out there who deserve to be taken seriously. But like Will Hurd or Justin Amash, such people have chosen to keep their distance from the Trumpist GOP.

When a party and a movement spends three years defending the indefensible, it eventually just succumbs to the “any talking point that serves our interests will do, who needs facts?” mentality that is now a requirement of being in GOP media or politics.

Politics is always about spin & messaging. I’m not naive. But our political culture has never been less adept at distinguishing between spin and bullsh*t. Having one party that is happy wallowing in BS, that is served by a media arm that pretends it smells like roses is not good.

On a daily basis Fox News or the Daily Wire will say “Western Civilization is the best” and then without skipping a beat will deny climate science, promote evidence-free conspiracy theories, and praise a president that regularly makes facts up out of thin air.

I’m no nostalgist for the good old days of legacy media, but at least the leaders of that old industry (for the most part, and always imperfectly) *tried* to serve the public by distinguishing between facts and BS.

Without a GOP that gave credence to lying, propagandistic outlets like InfoWars and Breitbart there would be no mechanism through which unserious chaos agents like the Proud Boys would be a part of our national conversation.

Here’s a thread from earlier today exploring other dimensions of this same issue.

https://twitter.com/sethcotlar/status/1163100843840659458?s=21

Climate change is THE defining issue of our time. It is the measure by which future generations will judge us. One of our two major parties is addressing it by saying “LOL, look at the silly girl on her boat, hope it doesn’t sink.”