In Case of Emergency Break Press

Profiles in Different Stuff

Somewhere in Alt-reality
February 20, 2017

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed:
Everything else is public relations.”  George Orwell

President Twitterbell is at it again. Attacking the press has become his signature issue. It is practically all he talks about other than reminding everybody over and over that he won the election. Some people are still waiting for Chrump to pivot. To grow up. To act like a president. I am not one of them. Leopards will change their spots by tattooing each other before Chrump changes his behavior.

 

Posted, then quickly deleted and replaced with…

Labeling the press as the “enemy of the people” is straight out of the playbook used by Stalin and Hitler. I am not sure how much Putin disparages the press in public, it seems he just eliminates those who offend him. The fact that the entire Republican’t establishment, with frighteningly few exceptions, is not just ignoring but enabling this behavior proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have no allegiance to this country, only to their party and themselves. They cherish their status and their profits at the expense of the poor, and they simply do not give a flying fuck about democracy or the United States of America.

All presidents have had their issues with the media. From George Washington on. Each one has their own unique way of dealing with the press. Some try to play nice. Some use third parties to leak stories they want aired. Dick Cheney leaked a story to the New York Times and then quoted the Times to bolster his agenda. Just for the record, fuck Dick Cheney.

Other presidents have weighed in on the press. John F. Kennedy had this to say, “There’s a terrific disadvantage of not having an abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily to an administration. Even though we never like it, even though we wish they didn’t write it, even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we couldn’t do the job in a free society without a very, very active press.” Kennedy said this at a time when he was furious with the press, but if nothing else, had the brains not to show it in public. Whether or not he believed what he said, it is an eloquent statement about the ideal of a democratic society. And he said it on television.

Richard Nixon had a somewhat different take. “Remember we’re going to be around and outlive our enemies. And also never forget the press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Write that on a black board 100 times and ever forget it.” This Dick said this in secret 20 months before he ran away in disgrace, as impeachment loomed, the only American president to resign. Purposely or otherwise, Chrump (who has as a top advisor Roger Stone, who worked for Nixon and has a tattoo of the Dick on his back) is bringing back much of the Nixon mystique. From claiming the mantle of “law and order” president, to his lifelong paranoia-fueled never-ending need for revenge against anyone who is perceived to cross him, to his hatred for the media. Instead of plumbers, Chrump had the Ruskies break into DNC. Carl Bernstein says Chrump’s attacks on the press are “worse than Nixon”.

Chrump’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis – on the heels of Chrump’s ‘enemy of the people’ tweet – told an interviewer in Dubai, "I’ve had some rather contentious times with the press, but no, the press as far as I’m concerned are a constituency that we deal with, and I don't have any issues with the press myself." The whole world is watching.

While Crump fiddles, the Republican’t House and Senate are running amok behind everyone’s back. The have already begun their onslaught on the environment, gun regulations…but it is so difficult to turn away from him because he is doing pretty serious damage himself. Republican’ts are poised to destroy many programs that people really like – Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. They are already eliminating regulations that protect workers’ rights, workers’ health, people who like to breathe air and drink water and that protect people from banksters.

I love signing my name. I wonder what this says.

Chrump clearly detests all the presidenting. People questioning him constantly, throwing his lies in his face. All the pretending to focus on and understand what people are saying every single day…except for weekends is taking a toll. Chrump has decided that, instead of pretending he is president, pretend he is not president and hold a campaign rally, where no one will question him or say a discouraging word. Where everyone not only knows his name, but will happily chant it and laugh at his every dishonest, hateful, senseless utterance. He wishes he could do this every day…except weekends of course. He does not have the stamina. 

Chrump ends up lost after a long night of tweeting



While out on the campaign trail in his head, Chrump tried to frighten the crowd of uninformed, incurious Chrump-lovers by one-upping Kellyanne Conjob’s non-existent “Bowling Green Massacre” by going international. Chrump told his likely well-paid attendees about the “what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!” Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wondered: "What has he been smoking?" It is not known whether the death toll in Sweden was greater or lesser than Bowling Green because both were fictitious events that occurred only in the fevered brains of Chrump and Conjob and neither has bothered to make up any fictitious numbers with which to horrify us.



I. Mangrey reporting. The whole world’s watching. The whole world’s watching.