Trump’s Train-Wreck in Washington
The Faustian bargain made by Republicans and mainstream media
"Trump and I have, we've had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said. "All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough," Graham said.
So, let me get this straight, Lindsey. After playing engineer and shoveling all that coal, now that the Trump Train has come off the rails and nearly wrecked the capitol, you want out. That’s not the way deals with the devil work. Faust allows you to play golf with the prez, allows those cozy late-night phone chats and allows playing a phony role as Trump’s conscience when he needs guidance.
But when the wheels come off, you don’t get to walk away. You have to pull the splinters out of your own ass and some of them are stuck in there pretty deep.
Faust demands your soul. That’s the deal, it’s always been the deal-with-the-devil. And it seems he got your soul, just as you won re-election for a six-year term in the Senate. But your soul is gone, Lindsey. Six hollow years, walking the halls of the Senate without a soul. That’s the price you agreed to. Give Mitch McConnell a call tonight. He's in the same boat and you two soulless Senators can each take a turn paddling your boat through the next six years.
But you’re not alone: CBS, NBC, CNN, WaPo and NYTimes stand proudly with you
Yep, all those certified-as-main-stream media outlets that scream for Trump’s hide as the smoke clears from the Capitol were Graham-McConnell co-conspirators. Every one of them has finally had enough, but it’s too late for finally. Finally should have begun after about six months.
Ah, the glory days of the ‘Trump years.’ Not a day slipped by without half a dozen Trump stories above the fold and the country rang with his name as the media cash-registers rang with profits. They didn’t make a Faustian deal-with-the-devil as Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell did, but oooh, they came close.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness” the Washington Post grandly states as its motto. Well written, but poorly executed as I seldom remember much criticism of Donald as he waltzed across the world stage spewing lies, hooking up with autocrats, dispensing international diplomacy by Twitter and denying on Tuesday what he said on Monday.
Yet the main-stream press, however you choose to define that, treated a criminally paranoid president as if he was just kinda cute. The Post and others constantly normalized the abnormal, treating lie after lie and deranged 4am tweets like legitimate news. The Post’s own Fact-Checker column counted 20,000 proven lies by mid 2020 and yet every time he sounded the least bit calm claimed he was becoming presidential. Is that the darkness in which our democracy died or just a cute metaphor?
Santa Claus is coming to town
He’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice and those who get a lump of coal in their stocking are those guardians of the truth we used to call the main-stream media. Walter Cronkite, where are you when we need you?
All the big media hitters giving us the sly I told you so eyewink are fucking liars. I don’t blame Fox News and the New York Post, we knew who they were and where their loyalties lay. But by and large the print press and media pandered to this president and by doing so emboldened his attacks on everything we value: the law in all its forms and agencies, the Department of State, the Congress, our allies across the world and the integrity of the nation he swore to serve.
One can only hope that the lessons-learned came soon enough
We are all humbled by what transpired in our nation’s capitol. We are none of us innocent. It has long been my opinion that Donald Trump was the necessary result of a 40-year class warfare silently imposed on the America in which I grew up and prospered—a nation I no longer recognized as mine. Trying not to sound preachy (but probably failing) we have grown apart from one another.
The trusted druggist is no longer on the corner, no one can change a tire and the kid down the block isn’t interested in mowing your lawn. Well paid jobs with healthcare are now replaced by gig-workers in a race to the bottom in the wealthiest nation in the world. Our politicians no longer talk to each other and lie to us. All of which we accept like sheep respond to sheep-dogs.
We have met the enemy and he is us-Pogo
Photo Credit: japantimes.co.jp