Does media understand that one reason politicians never stop lying is that even after they've proven themselves to be unreliable sources media keeps reporting on them as truth-tellers—making actually *telling* the truth immaterial to someone like McConnell?nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
Imagine a media landscape in which a politician can *lose their status* as a truth-teller—meaning media stops using them as a source, or reporting the things they say as being anything but claims. How many years ago would Mitch McConnell have lost the right to straight reportage?
Mitch McConnell didn't "dismiss" Trump's position—that's the reporting a *reliable source* gets. What Mitch McConnell did was "decline to adopt Trump's rhetoric about the election," though "with McConnell's history his intentions necessarily remain inscrutable and unreportable."
The day is coming when media will understand that the only way to exist in a post-truth DC environment is to refuse to play along. Sources who lie publicly, or privately to reporters, lose their status as sources. Their words and actions are covered via an *alternative* protocol.
News consumers have a responsibility too: a responsibility to understand that *reportage* is susceptible to just parroting the words of liars—and always has been—which is why the term "journalism" includes many other journalistic acts, including columns that call BS on reportage.
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2/ Those who don’t read this article will wrongly claim it says things it doesn’t: that these protests have no leftists in them; that there’s no leftist violence anywhere in America; that there’s been no antisemitism at any of the pro-Palestinians protests.
(THREAD) This is a brief thread from a NYT-bestselling Trump biographer on what everyone—literally everyone—is missing about the 34 felonies Donald Trump committed to win the 2016 presidential election. This will change how you understand the 2016 election cycle.
Please RETWEET.
1/ I’ve been covering Donald Trump more or less full-time since the day he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015, so there are things I remember as part of my job that many who follow politics more casually don’t and wouldn’t.
One is that Trump believed he’d lose in 2016.
2/ There were many articles just before the 2016 election and just after it confirming that Trump ran in 2016 to elevate the only thing he really cares about—his brand. Of course he was *trying* to win and *sort of* even wanted to win, but mainly the run was to raise his profile.
They can deny it all they want, but Kristi Noem is the frontrunner to be Trump’s VP—and it’s based entirely on her physical appearance.
That’s just how Trump operates.
He may ultimately go with someone else, but Noem is who he’s sexually attracted to and so she’s atop his list.
I’m sorry if that offends people. I’m *certainly* not saying that this is how things should be. But I’m sick of us pretending that Trump is someone other than who he is simply because his aides are smart enough to know that they must *pretend* that when speaking with journalists.
When Trump was starting to think about selecting a VP in 2016, abortion was legal and he was an outsider who needed an insider on his ticket who seemed vaguely morally and politically responsible. Now abortion is illegal, Trump is unhinged, and he needs/wants a woman as a lackey.
(📢) PROOF EXCLUSIVE: Are Far-Right Insurrectionists Infiltrating the Pro-Ceasefire Protests As Part of the Run-Up to the November Political Violence Trump Just Hinted at in Time Magazine?
1/ This report is driven by two things: hard data and documented historical evidence.
2/ Moreover, it is a call for a major media investigation in the United States predicated on that hard data and documented historical evidence, not a claim that something is or is not happening. But evidence that something is happening *is* provided in bulk.
BREAKING: Trump Just Posted Online a Creepy QAnon Video About All of Earth “Submitting” to His Authority
[Be advised: this is a recruiting video for a domestic terror group that wants Trump to use all means—including violence—to become a global tyrant.]
(IMAGE)
(MORE) The QAnon recruiting video just posted by Trump—a rapist, career criminal, con man, and insurrectionist—ends with the image below, QAnon’s call for collective violence against, and/or concerted oppression of, *anyone* who does not “submit” to the will of God-Emperor Trump.
(1/3) Anyone who’s been paying attention understands that these protests aren’t going to stop. There’ll be more and more, at a larger and larger scale, at more and more colleges/universities. They’ll continue to be mostly peaceful; mostly advocating for wholly honorable causes...
(2/3) ...such as a ceasefire and an end to Trump friend Netanyahu’s attempted genocide; and they’ll on occasion be infiltrated by hardcore antisemites. The problem ultimately isn’t the protests. It’s the Trump-Netanyahu pro-genocide axis. Biden needs to be far bolder than...
(3/3) he has been, and the time has come to start *massively* conditioning any aid to Israel. But if you don’t understand that under a second Trump administration every Gazan will be wiped off the face of the Earth, you need to wake the f*ck up. To Trump, all Gazans are animals.