Donald Trump, convicted of 34 felonies
The mainstream “news” media threw themselves a big party over the last two weeks. Ever since President Joe Biden, with a cold, a lifelong stuttering problem, and after crisscrossing the western hemisphere from Normandy to Los Angeles, had a bad performance at the presidential debate on June 27 (arguably only for the first 20 minutes), the “news” outlets have run stories about him nearly 24/7. The coverage has been relentless and unfair, for example, focusing on the few people in Congress who say Biden should withdraw from the election (or who are wishy-washy), rather than the overwhelming majority who support him to beat Donald Trump. While President Biden just gave a forceful speech at the NATO Summit, the coverage instead focuses on “Biden’s Fitness Under a Microscope.”
What do these media outlets want? One answer is: eyeballs and money. The Guardian revealed their media business plan with this headline yesterday: “‘Blitz primary’: the scenario that could turn replacing Biden into a ‘riveting spectacle.'” The other thing many such outlets want is to defeat President Biden and the Democratic Party. These big media corporations increasingly skew Republican. For example, David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery (which owns CNN) just tried to play coy about not favoring one presidential candidate over the other. However, he gave away the game by saying that:
We just need an opportunity for deregulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to be even better.
Of course, Zaslav and everyone else knows that such talk of “deregulation” is the classic language of the Republican Party.
What these media outlets are not talking much about during their anti-Biden celebration is Donald Trump. Trump has reportedly been mostly in hiding since the debate, recognizing that the media are doing a better job of bashing Biden than he, Trump, could ever do. When Trump does emerge briefly from the golf course, it’s to tell lies and spout bizarre “false grievances” such as “we don’t eat bacon anymore.”
What, specifically, could we and the media be talking about regarding Trump? Two big things come to mind. The first one is Project 2025. This is a blueprint from the right wing Heritage Foundation for a Republican Christian fascist dictatorship. According to The New Republic:
These 900 pages lay out a Christian nationalist vision of the United States, one in which married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity; all pregnancies would be carried to term, even if that requires coercion or death; and transgender and gender-nonconforming people do not exist.
Further elements of Project 2025 include, per the BBC:
–independent agencies such as the Department of Justice would be placed under direct presidential control — a controversial idea known as “unitary executive theory.”
–eliminating job protections for thousands of government employees, who could then be replaced by political appointees.
–drastic overhauls of the FBI and other federal agencies, as well as the complete elimination of the Department of Education.
–dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and combining it with other immigration enforcement units in other agencies, creating a much larger and more powerful border policing operation.
–eliminating visa categories for crime and human trafficking victims.
–slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy sources, and calling for the next president to “stop the war on oil and natural gas.”
–carbon-reduction goals would be replaced by efforts to increase fossil fuel energy production.
–affiliated economic advisers suggest that a second Trump administration should slash corporate and income taxes, abolish the Federal Reserve and even consider a return to gold-backed currency.
–withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, and using existing but little-enforced laws to stop the drug being mailed.
–eliminate a long list of terms from all laws and federal regulations, including “sexual orientation,” “gender equality,” “abortion” and “reproductive rights.”
To their credit, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are talking about the dangers of Project 2025. Trump, apparently feeling defensive, has tried to distance himself, saying “I know nothing about Project 2025.” That, of course is ludicrous. The architects and advisors of Project 2025 are a Who’s Who of Trump administration officials and associates, including John McEntee (former Trump administration advisor), Stephen Miller (chief Trump administration immigration attacker and child cager), and former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. These architects and advisors are also helping draft the Republican Party Platform for the party’s upcoming national convention. And of course, the very idea of Project 2025, indeed the reason for its name, is that the President can start implementing such plan on Inauguration Day next January, and there is only one person they have in mind to do so — Donald Trump.
The second item the “news” media could talk about regarding Donald Trump right now is that, just over five weeks ago, Trump was convicted of 34 felonies for having adulterous sex with a porn star, covering it up with hush money payments, and then fraudulently reporting those payments as business expenses. Trump also faces more court cases and more criminal charges. He was also found liable for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll. In a just and normal world, Trump would have been booted out of the presidential race by his own party. But instead, the talk is about Democrats doing that to President Biden, because of one bad debate.
In short, the mainstream “news” media appear to have it in for President Joe Biden, but voters do not have to play along. Instead, we can talk about the issues that are most important to us, and those issues include the grave danger that Republican Donald Trump presents as a 2024 presidential candidate.
Photo by Thomas Quine, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/rHZzqy
