Remember when the Access Hollywood tape dropped at 4pm on October 7, 2016 and everyone was like "Trump is done," but then, coincidentally, an hour later Wikileaks released a bunch of John Podesta emails and THAT became the big story? washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/01…
If I was the king of media, I'd decree that this coincidental timing must be mentioned every time the Access Hollywood tape (and its failure to derail the Trump train) is mentioned. Because Trump's teflon is not some innate quality, it's manufactured.
This is why the GOP disinformation campaign about Ukraine and Hunter Biden matters. Much like with the Podesta emails, they're hoping to manufacture a negative story about Trump's opponents to distract from his failings.
In October 2016 it was just the Trump campaign (and some, perhaps, totally unconnected person at Wikileaks HQ) who did this work. In 2020, it is the entire GOP, including the entire Senate GOP caucus and Trump's lawyers who are doing this disinformational propaganda work.
How many newsrooms, instead of sending their reporters out to dig more deeply into the stories of the scores of women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment, instead sicced their reporters on the Podesta risotto beat?
If Trump and his people have any genius, this is it. It's the genius of knowing how to game the media and control the news cycle so as to create sufficient fog and distraction. Until the non-MAGA media figures out how to resist being taken in by this, he will keep winning.
BTW, this is why the recent Russian hack of Burisma is relevant. It's irrelevant what they found...the point is that they now have materials (or invented materials) that can be coincidentally, strategically leaked at some future date when a similar distraction is needed.
On the Burisma hack, the foundations of what might become the "but her emails" story of 2020. nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/…
