Thread by @usacsmret

Political Journalism is Dead | The American Conservative theamericanconservative.com/articles/polit… via @amconmag

@amconmag Max Boot in The Washington Post wrote what we have all known for some time: real journalism, Jefferson’s informed citizenry and all that, is dead. The job has shifted to aspirational writing, using manipulated droplets of facts and just plain made-up stuff to drive events.

@amconmag Max: “Much of my journalism for the past four years has been devoted to critiquing President Trump and opposing the spread of Trumpism. But no matter how many columns or sound bites I produce, he remains in office…. I am left to ask if all my work has made any difference.”

@amconmag Boot has spent several years creating and circle-supporting others who create false narratives. They manufacture reasons for Trump to resign, press Democrats to impeach, and try to persuade voters they otherwise hold in contempt that they don’t know what’s good enough for them.

@amconmag The uber-false narrative Max and others Frankensteined into existence was Russiagate. Trump wasn’t the Manchurian Candidate and there was no quid pro quo for Russian election help.

@amconmag Yet the media literally accused the president of treason by melding together otherwise unrelated truthlets—Trump wanted a hotel in Moscow, some ads were run on Facebook—that could be spun into a narrative to bring him down.

@amconmag Correlation was made into causation in a purposeful freshman Logic 101 fail. What was true was of little consequence; what mattered was whether the media could collectively create a story that the rubes would believe and then pile on.

@amconmag The critical flaw in Russiagate (other than that it didn’t happen) was that the media created an end-point they could not control. Robert Mueller was magic-wanded into the Last Honest Man,...

@amconmag ....the Savior of Democracy, as the narrative first unfolded and then fell apart like a cardboard box in the rain. After his dismal testimony, there was nowhere for the story to go.

@amconmag Because even as we race to catch up (debunking takes longer than making up accusations,) a whole new Big Thing popped up over the Ukraine. Details are vague, based all on leaks and persons familiar with some of it, but are as dire as they are lacking.

@amconmag As with every other outrage, leaks in the new phone call-gate instantly became certainties, certainties became foreign influence in our elections, and demands to impeach were recycled until Twitter voted for the death penalty. And all before a single piece of hard data was public

@amconmag If the latest “gate” doesn’t pan out, Democrats have already jumpstarted an old favorite, upgraded for the 2020 election: Trump is now manipulating domestic and foreign policy for personal gain via…hotel fees.

@amconmag But with the first cold slap of his election victory, a narrative was being shaped: he could not become president because of his business conflicts of interest; it was danged unconstitutional.

@amconmag Early proponents of this dreck dug around in the Constitution’s closet and found the Emoluments Clause, a handful of lines intended to bar officeholders from accepting gifts from foreign sovereigns, kings, and princes to prevent influence buying.

@amconmag Pre-Trump, the last time the issue was in actual contention was with President Martin Van Buren (no relation) over gifts from the Imam of Muscat.

@amconmag But to see how much the corruption narrative really is a media creation, you have only to compare it to how the mainstream media covered what might have been a similar question in the past.

@amconmag Imagine if journalists had treated every appearance by Obama as a book promotion. What if his every speech had been slandered across the channels as corruption, Obama just out there pimping his books? Should he have been impeached for commercializing the office of president?

@amconmag Follow the money, as Rachel Maddow likes to say. The Trump Organization pays to the Treasury all profits from foreign governments. In 2018, that was $191,000. The year before, the amount was $151,470. So Trump’s in-pocket profit is zero.

@amconmag Meanwhile, Obama’s profit as an author during his time in office was $15.6 million (he’s made multiples more since, including a $65 million book advance). In the two weeks before he was inaugurated, Obama reworked his book deals to take advantage of his new status.

@amconmag Obama’s books were huge sellers in China, where publishing is largely government controlled, meaning he likely received Chicom money in the Oval Office. His own State Department bought $79,000 worth of his books to distribute as gifts.

@amconmag As with Trump, nothing Obama did was illegal. There are no laws per se against a president making money. Yet no one bothered to raise ethical questions. No one claimed he sought the presidency as a bully ATM machine.

@amconmag No one claimed his frequent messaging about his father was designed to move books. No one held TV hearings on his profits or how taxpayer funds were used to buy his books. Why does the media treat two very similar situations so very differently?

@amconmag Max Boot confessed why. The media has created a pitch-and-toss game with Democrats, running false, exaggerated, and shallowly reported stories to generate calls for hearings, which in turn breathe life into the corruption stories they live off.

@amconmag We will soon see how far last week’s breathless drama—unnamed “whistleblower” leaks supposedly charging Trump with pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate his rival Joe Biden—will go.

@amconmag Boot and his ilk are doing a new job. Journalism to them is for resistance, condemnation, arousal, and regime change. And that’s one way democracy does die.